Since my last entry, I've been to Memphis, by way of Houston. The big accomplishment of this trip was that I have finally managed to move all my household stuff out of the T-hangar at the West Memphis airport, where it's all been sitting since I moved out of the Memphis house about thirteen months ago. Here are before and after photos, taken almost exactly 24 hours apart:
Given that short period of time, you'll not be surprised to learn that I didn't move it very far: About 100 yards, actually, to the mini storage place just outside the airport fence. While not nearly so voluminous, it's also a good deal cheaper, as well as being better sealed against mice (about a half-dozen of which I found during the moving-out process). The best part is that I don't have to worry about the airport getting upset that there's no airplane in the hangar, a minor stipulation of the lease agreement.
The original intent was to just get the tug out of the hangar, since it was the one thing in there that couldn't be put in a rental truck. That would allow me to manage everything else on a subsequent trip by flying straight into Memphis and then getting a U-haul. The main problems have been (and still are) time and distance. The plan was to haul the Jetta to Houston with the truck and trailer and leave it on the folks' farm, and then continue up to Memphis to retrieve the tug. Along the way, I hoped to pass through Monroe to visit my friend Mark. After leaving the truck and trailer (with the tug) on the farm, I meant to head up to Dallas to visit friends there and politic for a job before returning to California.
Prior to leaving California, I spent several days off getting the white pickup ready for the trip by replacing the injector pump, along with replacing the timing chain with a new gearset. Various other odd bits and pieces were attended to as well; here's a shot of most of the parts on the cart in the hangar:
I know, it doesn't look all that impressive. However, after all the work, the truck started up easier and ran better than it ever has in the five years that I've had it. The drive to Texas was uneventful, with the exceptions that the fuel burn was awful, even considering the trailer, and the engine never seemed to come up to temperature.
These considerations caused me to borrow my mom's brown truck for the run up to Memphis and back, with the expectation that there would be less cause for concern. That lasted for about two hours, until my first fuel stop in Cleveland (TX); when it was time to go, the truck wouldn't start. I had noticed that it cranked slowly when I started in on the farm, but attributed it to the truck having been sitting for a week or so. Now, after nearly a hundred miles of highway driving, the starter barely turned it at all. Fortunately, the station where I had stopped was adjacent to the Walmart. The kid working the auto service counter said that they could check the batteries; all I had to do was bring the truck in. I thought about the futility of explaining that if I could bring the truck in, I wouldn't need to check the batteries, but decided to skip it. Naturally, the tools that I needed were in . . . the white truck. One tool set later, I pulled both batteries so I could carry them back over to the service area (did I mention that I was about as far away from the auto service department as it was possible to be while still in the same parking lot?) Here you can see both batteries in the shopping cart:
One of the batteries tested bad right away, while the other one just seemed to need charging. It got put on the charger while I purchased a replacement for the other. After installing the new battery, I went back for the one on the charger. Except that it wouldn't take a charge. So it got replaced as well. After I finished all this, I brought the truck over so that they could check the charging system and make sure there wasn't a deeper problem lurking. And there wasn't - the alternator was doing just fine. So I continued northwards.
A couple of hours later, now north of Nacogdoches, I heard a loud thump and the truck started pulling strongly to the right. In the mirror, I saw a long strip of rubber fly out behind the trailer and guessed that I had lost a tire. Once on the shoulder, I did a walk-around and found that the left front tire had delaminated and completely shed its tread, but was still inflated:
I decided to keep going on the shoulder until I got to someplace more conducive to jacking the truck and changing the tire. This location finally appeared about five miles later:
You can see by the length of my shadow that it's now getting pretty late in the day; the gas station where I stopped was already closed. The spare, although pretty weathered, had plenty of air in it so I went ahead and changed the tire. Here, for the benefit of my mom's tire shop, is another picture of the old tire, along with the spare:
Those steel belts sure are shiny! While I was changing the tire, a DPS trooper pulled into the parking lot. Not to offer to help, but to set up a speed trap. Nice. He did at least give me directions to the Walmart in Carthage, the next town up the road. By now, it was beginning to get dark, and I figured that the Walmart was the only place in a small town that I'd be able to do anything about tires after 5 PM.
The Walmart in Carthage, Texas, may be the only Walmart in the world that doesn't have tires; it's certainly the only one I've ever seen that didn't. I was, however, able to get a large can of fix-a-flat, after verifying with one of the ladies who worked there that there was no where in town that I could get any tire service before seven the next morning. "Oh no, honey" she said, "there ain't nobody can sell you a tire til in the mornin."
My original plan called for me to be around Little Rock by this time, so I opted to press on, with the can of fix-a-flat just in case. Sunrise found me in the parking lot of the Walmart in West Memphis, which assuredly does have tires. Two new tires later, it was time to get some work done.
Since the original schedule was by now completely shot anyway, I decided to move out of the hangar if at all possible. It would require arranging for a storage facility and finding a helper to deal with the larger furniture items. All of this turned out to be easier than expected; one of the linemen at the airport was just going off duty when I came in, and was happy to spend the rest of the afternoon lugging stuff around - especially at his boss's suggestion. He definitely came in handy; I know I couldn't have gotten it done without his help. As part of his compensation, I gave him the lawnmower and the engine hoist, both of which take up a fair amount of space and neither of which I could foresee needing again anytime soon. Here's a shot of him hauling away some of his booty:
And here's one of the truck, trailer, and tug, all ready for departure:
After that, the trip home was thankfully anticlimatic. A day of shuffling trailers around on the farm and a few other chores, and then it was on the road again for LA. In the Jetta this time, which I had hauled to Texas on the trailer for the return trip and because it needed to get inspected anyway. This was the easiest leg, of course: In the truck, with the trailer, it took about 30 hours eastbound; in the car, the westbound trip took only about 24.
Apologies are in order to Mike & Dave, Mark, and Harvey, all of whom I had hoped to visit on this trip. Or maybe I should say congratulations: you escaped again!
Meanwhile, it's back to the six-day work weeks with no end in sight. Fortunately, my trainee is showing improvement. Unfortunately, we just got three or four more: the fun never ends!
The iBook's battery is dying, so I'll have to wrap it up here. 'Till next time, when I'll talk about credit card fraud and identity theft - the other exciting element of this trip.
CV
What a great entry! Youre one my favorite list..
ReplyDeleteRegards,
FE