For those who don't know, this was April of 2014. The whole trip started when a lovely lil' Tumbleweed asked me to ride to Crockett, TX to pick up a horse.
We were gonna drive there, sleep overnight, load the horse and drive back- 2 days max...
yeah, right.
Day 1/ Tuesday:
We had to jump start the truck, so we were a little late leaving. Hit the road by 8-8:30(ish), drove to Midwest City, Oklahoma, where we bought an ugly-as-sin, but theoretically workable 2horse trailer from a nice (slightly drunken) cowboy type. From there, we drove straight through to Crockett without incident, other than her dog attacking every overpass from Missouri to Texas, which was pretty funny to watch after the first time... that one got me.
He flipped out and I almost crapped my pants.
We dropped the trailer where the horse was being kept and got a room for the night. Smooth sailing so far...
Day 2/ Wednesday:
We return to the house that afore mentioned Tumbleweed had been renting and set to the task of packing up what little odds and ends she had left there, cleaned the place up a bit (b/c you shouldn't leave a mess behind when moving, it's just rude) and then loaded all of her stuff into the front of the trailer. Here's where it gets really fun...
We spent the next 4 HOURS trying to convince a horse the size of an elephant that he could fit into a trailer the size of a suitcase.
We failed.
We both agreed that, short of tranquilizing him and pulling him in with a come along, he was not going in the trailer. It was dark by now, and we hadn't eaten all day, so we decide to call it a night, go get a bite to eat, and rethink the situation.
We get about 10 miles down the road and the truck starts sputtering like its out of gas. The gauge says 1/4 of a tank, but for whatever reason, it's decided it's empty. We sputter and kick the rest of the way into town, literally coasting into the gas station as the truck dies with less than 5 minutes 'til the place closes...
Lucky us, right?
So, we get all filled up and hit the road again, make it less than a mile up the road, and lil' miss Tumbleweed says, "My brakes feel spongy."
Spongy? That's no good... How spongy?
We don't even make it to the hotel. With the pedal to the floor, we make a slow rolling stop in the parking lot of another gas station up the road (also closed for the night). This is pretty much the end of day 2, although we did talk to a nice old biker type for a while, so it wasn't all bad; I like meeting interesting people as much as the next guy.
Day 3/ Thursday:
We wake up bright and early, well, she did. I didn't really sleep b/c I'm a horribly paranoid person and we were out in the open on the side of a main road... so I stood watch.
I look under the truck now that we have the light back and there's brake fluid EVERYWHERE. Still, not so bad. Probably just busted a line, right? I can fix that easy enough.
We take it slow and ease the truck down the road to O'Rielly's so we can borrow some tools. I crawl back underneath and look at it again...
What's wrong with the caliper? Hm, the rotor looks a little rough, too. (By rough, I mean that the entire outer plate was literally GONE and the metal braces between the two plates were barely even nubs.)
I can't fix that. Not with the small crescent wrench they gave me and no jack...
So, off to the shop we go. If you are ever in Crockett and have car trouble, I recommend Albert's garage. The guys were all pretty cool, they even tried to hide their laughter when they saw the rotor and heard Tumbleweed's explanation of the "squeaky" noise she had been hearing...
Okay, so, they put the truck up on the lift to change out the rotors and caliper, and... the front passenger wheel just drops, slack, like not attached. So the guy turns to Tumbleweed and says, "Well, its a good thing yer brakes went out before that wheel fell off."
Again, lucky? You decide.
At this point I'm just glad the horse didn't get in the trailer, because running around with no brakes while the wheels are falling off sounds like a hell of a ride as it is, but so much worse with a horse in tow.
So, 2 rotors, a caliper, and an entire front hub assembly later, we're back on the road... but now we're broke. We spent the better part of day 3 collecting debts and taking out loans so we had the cash to get home, and I learned that you have to give them your social security # to cash money orders...
BTW, I no longer accept money orders.(Like I said, I'm paranoid.)
We also have a new plan now. Tumbleweed owns a little chunk of Texas up the road, its worth a decent penny, so we go in search of someone willing to trade a bigger trailer for some land. We find a guy that runs a small trailer/atv business on the edge of town that, over the phone, sounds interested.
He's on his way back from Houston, so we plan to meet him at 4p. That gives us a few hours to go and get the paperwork on the land she owns from the courthouse, so off we go. She gets the deed and we go to meet the guy.
He's stuck in traffic in Houston.
The lady in the office basically tells us that the land isn't really big enough for what they need, so we leave, feeling all down trodden and such.
We run into a friend of Tumbleweed's (Miss Gladys) while wandering around town and, with nothing else that can be done (it's 5:30 in a small town in Texas- the sidewalks have officially rolled up), we go to her house for the night and try to recuperate.
**While at Gladys', I met a boy named Jace that, after finding out I'm a writer, asked me to write him a book. Later I found out that Jace was having trouble in school (failing, actually) because he was struggling to read, so I felt it was my duty as a writer to give him something to motivate him to practice his reading. Carrie, if you are reading this, I need to talk to you about a book I wrote while in Texas ;) **
Day 4/ Friday:
Okay, so, Friday lands us back at square one. Every trailer we find is either a goose-neck, which she doesn't have a hitch for, or the owner won't trade. At this point, we are literally driving around praying for a sign of some kind to point us in the right direction...
We canvas the area, hitting up every lot and dealership we can find, calling on all the classifieds, well, you get the idea. And then there was this sign-- 'Crockett Trade Days'. It only happens one weekend a month and this happens to be that weekend.
Good enough for me, let's go.
We get to the trading place and it's basically a flea market deal, but we figure we'll ask around and see what happens. After an hour or so of wandering, we meet back at the truck and compare notes. It seems we both got the same answer from everybody we asked- go talk to the guy (I'm being nice and not putting his name on here... grrr) that we were supposed to talk to the day before. "Tell him (insert long list of various names) sent you, he'll help ya out."
Okay, so we leave and go back to the guy's lot.
Why not? Maybe he's back from Houston, maybe he'll want to trade- at the very least, we'll know for sure.
Guess what, he does want to trade... just not for the bumper pull stock trailer we're looking at. He has a decent 3horse trailer that's bigger and more open than the 2horse we have, but it's a goose-neck...
BUT, he says that if she goes and puts the required hitch in her truck, he'll buy the 2horse for the price of the install, so we won't really be out anymore money, and then we can do the trade and get our butts outa there.
It's now 2 o'clock. By 2:30 we have found a shop in the next town over that can fit us in that day, but only if we can get there by 3. So we haul ass and get there with, again, literally 5 minutes to spare...
By 4:30, we have a hitch, but now the guy with the trailer won't answer his phone. We pull into taco bell to sit while she tries to get a'hold of him.
I try calling from my phone and he still doesn't answer, but he calls mine back (not hers :/). So I hand Tumbleweed my phone and go in to grab a bite to eat.
When I come out, Miss Gladys is not only there, she now has my phone and is steadily chastising the guy we were supposed to trade with. Turns out, she knows him. Apparently he is a preacher, and so is one of her sons. Naturally, being from a small town, they know each other fairly well.
By the end of it, we have an appointment to meet him the next morning at 9. Just for shits and giggles, we go down the road a'ways to where we had seen a trailer parked earlier. There was no sign on it, but we figured 'what the hell, no harm in asking'. Preacher or not, the other guy seems a bit finicky, so a plan B sounds like a good idea. Turns out, the trailer is for sale, and this guy may be interested in trading, but its getting late. He wants to think about, maybe go see the land first, that kinda thing, which is understandable.
We go to the hotel again to try to get some sleep, which was kind of difficult because we decided to bring the dog inside this time and he is a bed hog... No seriously, if you try to move him, he attacks your hands and feet, then rolls around like a wallowing pig. Apparently 'get off the bed' is code for playtime. I didn't know that.
Day 5/ Saturday:
So, Saturday morning, lets see. We were running a little late, didn't get to the lot to meet the guy until 9:30. We didn't even stop, actually, because as we pulled up, we found that the trailer was gone. He had apparently already sold it to someone else, which was why he wouldn't take Tumbleweed's calls.
After spending $300 on a hitch, the guy that told her to go do it had blown off the deal...
Now, I'm a generally patient person- at this point, I had been stuck in Texas for 5 days without losing my temper once. And I am an understanding person- I realize that things happen and we can't always control it, but, when it comes to this kind of double dealing, my patience and understanding run short. You don't make a deal with somebody if you can't keep it, and you damn sure don't let them spend 300 bucks on something, knowing that they are stranded 600+ miles from home, and then back out without so much as a phone call.
I was getting... a little irritated.
Luckily, we still had plan B.
We go back to talk to the guy again and he's definitely interested. He has an uncle that's a lawyer and he wants him to look over the deed first, but otherwise, we have a deal... again. What's more, he thinks he can sell the 2horse trailer for us, which is great because we can't pull 2 trailers with 1 truck, so we either have to sell it or leave it for the buzzards.
While he tries to get a'hold of his uncle, we go back to get the 2horse trailer to bring it over for him to sell... but after a few miles the tire explodes.
Yes, explodes. Shredded. Toast.
If the buzzards would have eaten it, we would'a let them. We tried to leave it, we really did, but this nice Sheriff came by and offered to help us change the tire. When we explained that we didn't have a spare, he directed us to a shop up the road that could give us one and even took the rim off for us (Seriously, just the rim. No tire left. So glad there wasn't a horse in there.)
Well, Tumbleweed was hungry, we had some time to kill while we waited for the guy to track down his uncle, and there was a Subway across from another tire shop, so we didn't go straight to the place that the Sheriff tried to send us. This was apparently suspicious, because he followed us, even came into the Subway to ask what we were doing about the trailer, and then waited until we went to the tireshop across the road before he apparently found something better to do.
We put the new tire on and hauled the too-small-for-a-horse trailer to the guys house, where he informed us that he couldn't find his uncle.
All was not lost, though, because Miss Tumbleweed, being the determined and resourceful girl she is, had already thought ahead and found a lady that was qualified to handle such matters, and also happened to be a notary. We head over to her office, the paper work is exchanged and ready to be signed...
Err, typo! No flippin' way, right!?
But yes, a typo. On the deed, listing the property's address as the wrong highway... and its Saturday. No one is open to correct it.
On the plus side, he sold the 2horse trailer that same day, so that was good, right?
And again, we go back to Gladys' for the night.
Day 6/ Sunday:
Okay, it's Sunday and Easter... nothing's open... anywhere.
We decide to take the day and go to the Caddo Mounds. We couldn't have done anything 'productive' anyway, and Tumbleweed had never been to a mound site before. I always try to stop and pay my respect when I happen upon a sacred site, so all around, it was the best and only thing we could do with the day.
Other than that, I wrote my ass off, trying to finish the book for Jace.
Day 7/ Monday:
Here it is, the race to the finish.
We head straight to the land management office/place/whatcha-call-it. Tumbleweed gets the deed corrected, types up the new contract, and meets the guy to sign it. We swing by the library for me to make a copy of the book and then head over to pick up the trailer. The deal gets a bit hinky here, too, but I'm not getting into it. I'm over it. I am ready to ride the damn horse back to Missouri at this point in our story. We take the trailer (hinkyness and all) and go to O'Rielly's to get an adapter to hook up the lights.
Lights don't work.
We spend I don't even know how long in the parking lot, rewiring the truck hook up and trying to hard wire a four strand system into a seven...
It kinda worked.
Again, over it.
It's 10p by the time we go to load the horse, who walks right into this trailer (a wise decision on his part, I was ready to eat him if he argued).
By 11-ish, we are on the road and heading home. Finally.
Day 8/ Tuesday:
The trip back seemed to be going well... mostly.
We stopped in Mc-something, Oklahoma to let the horse rest in a public/rodeo arena and Tumbleweed noticed that one of the trailer's tires was losing rubber by the chunk, so I sat and kept an eye on him while she ran up the road to get it changed. Set us back an hour or so, but no big deal.
We were out of Texas, she caught it before it went flat, all in all good luck. Yay...
We get to the middle of nowhere, still over 200 miles to go, and the truck starts bucking and sputtering again. This time we have 3/4 of a tank. There is no reason or explanation either of us would accept at this point- the mechanical breakdown led to an emotional one.
I'm cussing and she's crying, lol.
It was very unproductive, but it had to be done.
So, with the tantrums out of the way, we decide to try and make the next exit. We drive the next 4 miles @ 35mph, on the Oklahoma toll-road/ thoroughfare which has a min. 50mph speed limit, half- on the road and half on the shoulder, surrounded by big rigs and drivers that appear to be trying out for the local racing circuit.
We finally get to the exit and can't see anything, just trees and hills. Luckily, there was a gas station hiding behind those hills about a mile up the road. Come to find out, there also happens to be a buffalo ranch right behind the gas station.
Tumbleweed still needs a minute, so we go talk to the buffalo for a while; one of them licked her and apparently liked the taste, because it followed her around until she left.
When I'm calm and she's collected, we go back to the truck, pour a bottle of seafoam into the tank ('cause that'll fix anything, right) fill up and set off.
We have decided at this point that we will just get as close as we can and then call somebody if we don't make it. We've also decided that, if we do break down, we don't want to be on the toll-road. We head up hwy 60 instead.
The truck is running fine now- I don't know why, I can't explain it. Must've been the seafoam.
Curiously enough, we find ourselves driving through a northern O.T.S.A. for the Cherokee (basically, it use to be a reservation). I wonder why the truck decided we should take that exit... but it was smooth sailing from there.
In the end, we made it home around midnight, safe and sound, and with one hell of a story to tell.
END
(or is it... hahahaha... I'm never going back to Texas... well, maybe...)
We were gonna drive there, sleep overnight, load the horse and drive back- 2 days max...
yeah, right.
Day 1/ Tuesday:
We had to jump start the truck, so we were a little late leaving. Hit the road by 8-8:30(ish), drove to Midwest City, Oklahoma, where we bought an ugly-as-sin, but theoretically workable 2horse trailer from a nice (slightly drunken) cowboy type. From there, we drove straight through to Crockett without incident, other than her dog attacking every overpass from Missouri to Texas, which was pretty funny to watch after the first time... that one got me.
He flipped out and I almost crapped my pants.
We dropped the trailer where the horse was being kept and got a room for the night. Smooth sailing so far...
Day 2/ Wednesday:
We return to the house that afore mentioned Tumbleweed had been renting and set to the task of packing up what little odds and ends she had left there, cleaned the place up a bit (b/c you shouldn't leave a mess behind when moving, it's just rude) and then loaded all of her stuff into the front of the trailer. Here's where it gets really fun...
We spent the next 4 HOURS trying to convince a horse the size of an elephant that he could fit into a trailer the size of a suitcase.
We failed.
We both agreed that, short of tranquilizing him and pulling him in with a come along, he was not going in the trailer. It was dark by now, and we hadn't eaten all day, so we decide to call it a night, go get a bite to eat, and rethink the situation.
We get about 10 miles down the road and the truck starts sputtering like its out of gas. The gauge says 1/4 of a tank, but for whatever reason, it's decided it's empty. We sputter and kick the rest of the way into town, literally coasting into the gas station as the truck dies with less than 5 minutes 'til the place closes...
Lucky us, right?
So, we get all filled up and hit the road again, make it less than a mile up the road, and lil' miss Tumbleweed says, "My brakes feel spongy."
Spongy? That's no good... How spongy?
We don't even make it to the hotel. With the pedal to the floor, we make a slow rolling stop in the parking lot of another gas station up the road (also closed for the night). This is pretty much the end of day 2, although we did talk to a nice old biker type for a while, so it wasn't all bad; I like meeting interesting people as much as the next guy.
Day 3/ Thursday:
We wake up bright and early, well, she did. I didn't really sleep b/c I'm a horribly paranoid person and we were out in the open on the side of a main road... so I stood watch.
I look under the truck now that we have the light back and there's brake fluid EVERYWHERE. Still, not so bad. Probably just busted a line, right? I can fix that easy enough.
We take it slow and ease the truck down the road to O'Rielly's so we can borrow some tools. I crawl back underneath and look at it again...
What's wrong with the caliper? Hm, the rotor looks a little rough, too. (By rough, I mean that the entire outer plate was literally GONE and the metal braces between the two plates were barely even nubs.)
I can't fix that. Not with the small crescent wrench they gave me and no jack...
So, off to the shop we go. If you are ever in Crockett and have car trouble, I recommend Albert's garage. The guys were all pretty cool, they even tried to hide their laughter when they saw the rotor and heard Tumbleweed's explanation of the "squeaky" noise she had been hearing...
Okay, so, they put the truck up on the lift to change out the rotors and caliper, and... the front passenger wheel just drops, slack, like not attached. So the guy turns to Tumbleweed and says, "Well, its a good thing yer brakes went out before that wheel fell off."
Again, lucky? You decide.
At this point I'm just glad the horse didn't get in the trailer, because running around with no brakes while the wheels are falling off sounds like a hell of a ride as it is, but so much worse with a horse in tow.
So, 2 rotors, a caliper, and an entire front hub assembly later, we're back on the road... but now we're broke. We spent the better part of day 3 collecting debts and taking out loans so we had the cash to get home, and I learned that you have to give them your social security # to cash money orders...
BTW, I no longer accept money orders.(Like I said, I'm paranoid.)
We also have a new plan now. Tumbleweed owns a little chunk of Texas up the road, its worth a decent penny, so we go in search of someone willing to trade a bigger trailer for some land. We find a guy that runs a small trailer/atv business on the edge of town that, over the phone, sounds interested.
He's on his way back from Houston, so we plan to meet him at 4p. That gives us a few hours to go and get the paperwork on the land she owns from the courthouse, so off we go. She gets the deed and we go to meet the guy.
He's stuck in traffic in Houston.
The lady in the office basically tells us that the land isn't really big enough for what they need, so we leave, feeling all down trodden and such.
We run into a friend of Tumbleweed's (Miss Gladys) while wandering around town and, with nothing else that can be done (it's 5:30 in a small town in Texas- the sidewalks have officially rolled up), we go to her house for the night and try to recuperate.
**While at Gladys', I met a boy named Jace that, after finding out I'm a writer, asked me to write him a book. Later I found out that Jace was having trouble in school (failing, actually) because he was struggling to read, so I felt it was my duty as a writer to give him something to motivate him to practice his reading. Carrie, if you are reading this, I need to talk to you about a book I wrote while in Texas ;) **
Day 4/ Friday:
Okay, so, Friday lands us back at square one. Every trailer we find is either a goose-neck, which she doesn't have a hitch for, or the owner won't trade. At this point, we are literally driving around praying for a sign of some kind to point us in the right direction...
We canvas the area, hitting up every lot and dealership we can find, calling on all the classifieds, well, you get the idea. And then there was this sign-- 'Crockett Trade Days'. It only happens one weekend a month and this happens to be that weekend.
Good enough for me, let's go.
We get to the trading place and it's basically a flea market deal, but we figure we'll ask around and see what happens. After an hour or so of wandering, we meet back at the truck and compare notes. It seems we both got the same answer from everybody we asked- go talk to the guy (I'm being nice and not putting his name on here... grrr) that we were supposed to talk to the day before. "Tell him (insert long list of various names) sent you, he'll help ya out."
Okay, so we leave and go back to the guy's lot.
Why not? Maybe he's back from Houston, maybe he'll want to trade- at the very least, we'll know for sure.
Guess what, he does want to trade... just not for the bumper pull stock trailer we're looking at. He has a decent 3horse trailer that's bigger and more open than the 2horse we have, but it's a goose-neck...
BUT, he says that if she goes and puts the required hitch in her truck, he'll buy the 2horse for the price of the install, so we won't really be out anymore money, and then we can do the trade and get our butts outa there.
It's now 2 o'clock. By 2:30 we have found a shop in the next town over that can fit us in that day, but only if we can get there by 3. So we haul ass and get there with, again, literally 5 minutes to spare...
By 4:30, we have a hitch, but now the guy with the trailer won't answer his phone. We pull into taco bell to sit while she tries to get a'hold of him.
I try calling from my phone and he still doesn't answer, but he calls mine back (not hers :/). So I hand Tumbleweed my phone and go in to grab a bite to eat.
When I come out, Miss Gladys is not only there, she now has my phone and is steadily chastising the guy we were supposed to trade with. Turns out, she knows him. Apparently he is a preacher, and so is one of her sons. Naturally, being from a small town, they know each other fairly well.
By the end of it, we have an appointment to meet him the next morning at 9. Just for shits and giggles, we go down the road a'ways to where we had seen a trailer parked earlier. There was no sign on it, but we figured 'what the hell, no harm in asking'. Preacher or not, the other guy seems a bit finicky, so a plan B sounds like a good idea. Turns out, the trailer is for sale, and this guy may be interested in trading, but its getting late. He wants to think about, maybe go see the land first, that kinda thing, which is understandable.
We go to the hotel again to try to get some sleep, which was kind of difficult because we decided to bring the dog inside this time and he is a bed hog... No seriously, if you try to move him, he attacks your hands and feet, then rolls around like a wallowing pig. Apparently 'get off the bed' is code for playtime. I didn't know that.
Day 5/ Saturday:
So, Saturday morning, lets see. We were running a little late, didn't get to the lot to meet the guy until 9:30. We didn't even stop, actually, because as we pulled up, we found that the trailer was gone. He had apparently already sold it to someone else, which was why he wouldn't take Tumbleweed's calls.
After spending $300 on a hitch, the guy that told her to go do it had blown off the deal...
Now, I'm a generally patient person- at this point, I had been stuck in Texas for 5 days without losing my temper once. And I am an understanding person- I realize that things happen and we can't always control it, but, when it comes to this kind of double dealing, my patience and understanding run short. You don't make a deal with somebody if you can't keep it, and you damn sure don't let them spend 300 bucks on something, knowing that they are stranded 600+ miles from home, and then back out without so much as a phone call.
I was getting... a little irritated.
Luckily, we still had plan B.
We go back to talk to the guy again and he's definitely interested. He has an uncle that's a lawyer and he wants him to look over the deed first, but otherwise, we have a deal... again. What's more, he thinks he can sell the 2horse trailer for us, which is great because we can't pull 2 trailers with 1 truck, so we either have to sell it or leave it for the buzzards.
While he tries to get a'hold of his uncle, we go back to get the 2horse trailer to bring it over for him to sell... but after a few miles the tire explodes.
Yes, explodes. Shredded. Toast.
If the buzzards would have eaten it, we would'a let them. We tried to leave it, we really did, but this nice Sheriff came by and offered to help us change the tire. When we explained that we didn't have a spare, he directed us to a shop up the road that could give us one and even took the rim off for us (Seriously, just the rim. No tire left. So glad there wasn't a horse in there.)
Well, Tumbleweed was hungry, we had some time to kill while we waited for the guy to track down his uncle, and there was a Subway across from another tire shop, so we didn't go straight to the place that the Sheriff tried to send us. This was apparently suspicious, because he followed us, even came into the Subway to ask what we were doing about the trailer, and then waited until we went to the tireshop across the road before he apparently found something better to do.
We put the new tire on and hauled the too-small-for-a-horse trailer to the guys house, where he informed us that he couldn't find his uncle.
All was not lost, though, because Miss Tumbleweed, being the determined and resourceful girl she is, had already thought ahead and found a lady that was qualified to handle such matters, and also happened to be a notary. We head over to her office, the paper work is exchanged and ready to be signed...
Err, typo! No flippin' way, right!?
But yes, a typo. On the deed, listing the property's address as the wrong highway... and its Saturday. No one is open to correct it.
On the plus side, he sold the 2horse trailer that same day, so that was good, right?
And again, we go back to Gladys' for the night.
Day 6/ Sunday:
Okay, it's Sunday and Easter... nothing's open... anywhere.
We decide to take the day and go to the Caddo Mounds. We couldn't have done anything 'productive' anyway, and Tumbleweed had never been to a mound site before. I always try to stop and pay my respect when I happen upon a sacred site, so all around, it was the best and only thing we could do with the day.
Other than that, I wrote my ass off, trying to finish the book for Jace.
Day 7/ Monday:
Here it is, the race to the finish.
We head straight to the land management office/place/whatcha-call-it. Tumbleweed gets the deed corrected, types up the new contract, and meets the guy to sign it. We swing by the library for me to make a copy of the book and then head over to pick up the trailer. The deal gets a bit hinky here, too, but I'm not getting into it. I'm over it. I am ready to ride the damn horse back to Missouri at this point in our story. We take the trailer (hinkyness and all) and go to O'Rielly's to get an adapter to hook up the lights.
Lights don't work.
We spend I don't even know how long in the parking lot, rewiring the truck hook up and trying to hard wire a four strand system into a seven...
It kinda worked.
Again, over it.
It's 10p by the time we go to load the horse, who walks right into this trailer (a wise decision on his part, I was ready to eat him if he argued).
By 11-ish, we are on the road and heading home. Finally.
Day 8/ Tuesday:
The trip back seemed to be going well... mostly.
We stopped in Mc-something, Oklahoma to let the horse rest in a public/rodeo arena and Tumbleweed noticed that one of the trailer's tires was losing rubber by the chunk, so I sat and kept an eye on him while she ran up the road to get it changed. Set us back an hour or so, but no big deal.
We were out of Texas, she caught it before it went flat, all in all good luck. Yay...
We get to the middle of nowhere, still over 200 miles to go, and the truck starts bucking and sputtering again. This time we have 3/4 of a tank. There is no reason or explanation either of us would accept at this point- the mechanical breakdown led to an emotional one.
I'm cussing and she's crying, lol.
It was very unproductive, but it had to be done.
So, with the tantrums out of the way, we decide to try and make the next exit. We drive the next 4 miles @ 35mph, on the Oklahoma toll-road/ thoroughfare which has a min. 50mph speed limit, half- on the road and half on the shoulder, surrounded by big rigs and drivers that appear to be trying out for the local racing circuit.
We finally get to the exit and can't see anything, just trees and hills. Luckily, there was a gas station hiding behind those hills about a mile up the road. Come to find out, there also happens to be a buffalo ranch right behind the gas station.
Tumbleweed still needs a minute, so we go talk to the buffalo for a while; one of them licked her and apparently liked the taste, because it followed her around until she left.
When I'm calm and she's collected, we go back to the truck, pour a bottle of seafoam into the tank ('cause that'll fix anything, right) fill up and set off.
We have decided at this point that we will just get as close as we can and then call somebody if we don't make it. We've also decided that, if we do break down, we don't want to be on the toll-road. We head up hwy 60 instead.
The truck is running fine now- I don't know why, I can't explain it. Must've been the seafoam.
Curiously enough, we find ourselves driving through a northern O.T.S.A. for the Cherokee (basically, it use to be a reservation). I wonder why the truck decided we should take that exit... but it was smooth sailing from there.
In the end, we made it home around midnight, safe and sound, and with one hell of a story to tell.
END
(or is it... hahahaha... I'm never going back to Texas... well, maybe...)