01.14.00

Blue Highways

(TX trip part 2)

Might want to save this, print it, and put it next to the toilet for later; don’t know about reading it, but writing it down has helped me shit better. Believe it or not, the first part of my trip was sort of a cakewalk compared with the second.

Ringing in the millennium New Year at the New Castle, IN Moose Lodge was nice.  Me?  I was so tired I fell asleep by 2100 (9 pm).  When the clean up crew showed at 0900 all bent over and blurry-eyed, I was refreshed, revved up, and ready to go…

The 2nd of January was a beautiful day.  I rolled out of New Castle daydreaming about making some music with my old buddy Ken Cuzzort in Branson, MO.  As I made my way southwest along back roads through the gently rolling Indiana hills, a light breeze freshened into a major head wind.  As my excitement about visiting the Ozarks grew my gas mileage plummeted: 8… 7… 6… 5… 4.5 mph!!!

I pulled into a closed weigh station to run my dogs, Bucky and Beauxdreaux and then rest.  When I pulled the handle the wind ripped the door from my hand. !!SMASH!! the door hit the wall so hard the window blew out!!!!  Shit…

But it was still a beautiful day, temps in the upper 60s, the sun was out, and the hills were giving way to the lovely and flat farming fields of southern Illinois— the region where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers meet.  Nothing I could do about the window there.  I’d have to fix it later. Might as well just enjoy the day.

The window being open let the warm country air through and it smelled great.  The dogs were happy.  I was happy.  The sun was dipping in and out behind the clouds.  About mid afternoon, I noticed that the sun had dipped into the clouds and never dipped back out again. Another hundred miles down the road, I began wondering if it was my imagination or if the sky was suddenly getting darker. It was about then I had an unsettling thought: Shit, isn’t this that infamous tri-state tornado country?  And hot windy weather in January can only mean some sort of trouble is coming.  Well, soon enough I’d be crossing the Mississippi and climbing up into the Ozarks and out of twister alley.  Right?  And I’d be glad for that…

The day was turning dark all right.  Five miles from a two-lane bridge over the big muddy, the spigot broke open.  Oh-oh, shit, no window…  within seconds the inside of the RV was soaked.  Don’t remember being somewhere where rain blew so hard.  After pulling over I got the widow closed up with gray tape and plastic bags.  Though much better, wind still pushed rain through the seams.  I didn’t know it, but rain was also surging in through both air conditioners, the stove vent, and around the door.

Mississppi River at Cape Girardeau, MO

I pressed on.  Approaching the Mississippi River bridge near Cape Girardeau, MO, it was rush hour, dark, and still raining hard.  I was anxious to get out of all the traffic and onto a back road taking me toward Branson.  Just then, a big gust of wind blew me over into the oncoming lane.  I recovered just before eating semi!

Behind the rain, wind, and thunder there was a new noise.  That wild gust had lifted my big awning off its cradle and opened it up!  CRAPOLA! I pulled off on a narrow shoulder and sank in; the awning hit a reflector post…  BOOM… SMASH…  RIIIIIIIIIIIIPPP!!!  DOUBLE CRAPOLA.  TRIPLE CRAPOLA! Hmmmm…

I wondered: Is it possible God doesn’t want me to go to Branson Ç;-(   No time to dwell on that.  I had work to do: I needed to get the awning pieces all rolled back up and tied, and all the while, the rain never let up. We crossed the Mississippi, but I never saw it.  The two-lane bridge was stuffed into a lane and a half wide railroad trestle. I held my breath shiting all the way.

I reached Missouri hardly able to believe I still had my mirrors.  We’d been rolling down back roads since Toledo, OH, for the next 30 miles I could drive on something wide and smooth.  I turned onto Interstate 55, south toward US 62.  It was US 62 I planned to take up the back way to Branson. Driving down I-55 I began to relax.  Some color returned to my knuckles.

I was just about to say something nice to the dogs when there was a BOOMMPHH… BOOP…BOOP…BOOP…  Holy SHIT! And what did that last sign say?  “Next exit 17 miles”?

I should have brought a raincoat.  I grabbed a flashlight and jumped out for a look-see.  Yup, blown inside right rear tire—  and the other tire didn’t look so good either.  Now with all that weight on one tire, I was afraid it was going blow too before I could get anywhere to fix it.

Putting flashers on, I drove 15 mph along the shoulder.  Took over an hour to reach the next exit.  I was glad to see a big fuel stop with some truck parking and pulled off by myself.  It was blowing.  It was raining.  It was very black.  It was still January 2nd. By then I was pretty sure God didn’t want me to go to Branson.  But why?  Well, at least I had my own bed and climbed into it.

Shit!  Rain had blown in through the AC and my bed was wet!  Too tired to care, I curled on a dry spot and slept. And all night it rained and rained and rained.

I awoke to a blackish green sky, still raining, still blowing.  I was afraid if I jacked up the RV, the wind would blow it over on me.  I turned on the TV. Regular coverage was constantly being interrupted to post Tornado warnings all over the region.  More than 3″ of rain had fallen overnight and it was still 70 degrees.  But a cold front was coming.  Storms were racing along the front at 65 mph.  Behind the front teens were forecast for Branson…  way too cold for me! I decided I better head for Dallas!

So, if I hadn’t had all the trouble along the way, I wouldn’t have been delayed and would probably be well into the deep freeze.  Shit, that was something to be positive about!

I finally got brave (or maybe just afraid to stay there any longer) and changed the tire and got back on the road.  Every few minutes radio stations interrupted music to report tornados here and tornados there… twisters rolling through twister alley… some in places I’d just been and some ahead of me.

The last big rain storm hit me on a back road just north of I-40 a few miles west of Memphis. As I crossed I-40, the sun came out with wind still warm and, shit, it was still on the nose.  I was buying a lot of gas.

Hwy 79 in Arkansas was an improvement;  it was wide and smooth and it headed off in a direction that finally put the wind on the beam. Both Beauxdreaux and Bucky got up off the floor and suddenly wanted to climb up and sit right next to me.  Were they being sweet or what?  What was that new noise? Turns out it was or what.

There was a faint clicking noise. It got louder and louder until it sounded like the fan blade drilling through the radiator.  I had to pull over.  Nope, not the radiator. Had the engine thrown a rod?  Nope, not that either.  The sound was coming from the transmission.  The transmission? Suddenly I needed to take a big freakin’ shit.

It was by then dark.  Nothing more really I could do, so I hit the button and put the leveling jacks down and crawled in my bunk.  That was on a Monday night.

Next morning I unhooked the Escort.  Left boy-dog in the RV and took Bucky with me. I spent all day driving from one little town to another trying to find a mechanic with a shop big enough to fix my motor home.  I finally found one, but he wasn’t able to get to it for a couple of days, but he told me I could run a cord into his shop and stay in the parking lot while I waited.

Clarendon AR ('Click' to activate map)

Spent the next couple days slow cooking, cleaning, baking bread, and taking the dogs for long walks.  Looked like Clarendon, Arkansas was a good place to break down.  The whole town was broken down—  half burned and gone, half of what was left was vacant.

One good thing about being on an Arkansas back road, the mechanic’s rate was 30% less than anyone I asked along I-40 and probably half what a Michigan mechanic would charge. Not only that, he was a certified master-mechanic and even owned the NAPA parts store attached to his building. So getting my parts wasn’t a problem.

Turns out, when I had last purchased fuel at a little country filling station, I’d flexed the frame on a ridge in the driveway and caused the bolts to snap off holding the transmission to the engine. Some might have already been broken and it was just the last ones letting go. Anyway, all the noise was from the fly wheel coming apart. Final bill with parts and labor: $256! Pretty reasonable, especially when I considered the possibility of being broken down in the Ozarks freezing my ass off.

Finally repaired, I was underway again at sundown on Thursday.  The rest of my trip to Texas was uneventful— which was an event in itself!  I thought about the years Pop and I traveled in this same rig without any trouble ever—  maybe I had been putting the trouble in the bank.  Well, way better now I reckoned than back then when Pop had Parkinsons, and we didn’t know it, but he was enjoying his last couple tours.

I don’t miss Michigan’s winter.  Since arriving in Melissa, Texas (in Collin Co., just north of Dallas) it has been warm everyday.

.