After our Goldsboro get-together, Shirley and I continued north through
North Carolina, visited friends from our church in Los Alamos who had
moved to Sykesville, Maryland, and wound up in West Shokan, New York.
We spent a couple days there talking with the fellow and his wife who run
the Christian radio network Redeemer Broadcasting and going to church
with them on Sunday.
Monday we headed south toward Stewartsville, New Jersey, to visit OK4WD,
the place from which we had bought our ARB portable refrigerator. When we
were almost out of New York, we stopped in Hugenot at the Hugenot Deli
for lunch. I helped Shirley up the four steps to the platform in front of
their front door and then opened the front door for her. She went in, but
did not notice the floor inside was about 4" higher than the platform.
She tripped and fell, hitting her right knee and forehead. The ladies
running the deli were very concerned and very helpful getting her up on a
chair, with another one as support for her right leg. She had a huge
goose egg on her forehead and her right knee swelled a lot very rapidly.
After we ate lunch (Shirley is an insulin-dependent diabetic and cannot
forego a meal), they told us were to find the nearest hospital, which had
an urgent care facility. When we got to the hospital, I found there was no
urgent care facility and asked directions to the nearest one. That was in
Milford, Pennsylvania. The urgent care facility did a CAT scan on her
head and found no internal damage and x-rays on her knee and found she had
fractured her kneecap. They put her in an immobilizer, got her a walker,
and sent us on our way.
We stayed overnight at the Myer Motel, a really delightful place in
Milford. We were then on our way through Pennsylvania, West Virginia,
and Ohio into northern Kentucky and southern Indiana. In Petersburg,
Kentucky, I left Shirley in the car for a short while while I briefly
looked at the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum and got some pamphlets.
The following day we visited the Kentucky Trailer Company in Louisville,
which made the 51' furniture van we pull behind our Kenworth W900. I was
able to get some information from them about our trailer and a new
sticker for the suspension level switch on the front.
We then headed to Chenoa, Illinois, where we visited Shirley's cousin and
her husband for the weekend. Sunday afternoon, we headed to Wentzville,
Missouri, where I picked up on Monday some parts from the company
etrailer.com. We had hoped to meet up with Philip (fmiser) that
afternoon as we headed toward Joplin, but he had traveled 600 miles north
and was not available.
We stayed overnight in Joplin and then following morning went to 4 State
Trucks, a truck parts supply store with which I have had some dealings. I
talked with the fellows there and bought some stuff for our Kenworth.
That took longer than I had expected and put us back on the road late in
the day. I realized we couldn't make it very far and decided to head to
Nowata, Oklahoma, to visit Kaleb, who wasn't very far away.
At the farm, Kaleb gave me a tour of the shop. I then asked him some
questions about the engine and he started looking at an injector which
had a body which didn't seal. He took it out, put it in a container of
carburetor cleaner and then gave me a tour of the back 40 and all the
vehicles there. He even took a visor off one of them to replace the
broken driver's visor on our '90 E300D/2.5 Turbo.
Back at the car, he found the leak at the body joint of the injector was
about the same (and which I had thought was a noisy lifter), but changed
some leaking return hose and cleaned some other stuff up. We then headed
to Owasso, where we stopped for the night.
The next day, we drove to Groom, Texas, and stayed in a small, nicely
kept motel. The following day, we were preparing to continue west when we
got a phone call from Kaleb -- he had changed his mind about selling us
his '87 300SDL. After praying about the matter, we headed east, intending
to meet Kaleb at a truck stop on the west side of Tulsa to exchange cars.
We never made it. While on the northward section of I-44, I apparently
glanced at the GPS to make sure we were on the right path at just the
wrong time and rear-ended the car in front of us when everyone ahead
stopped suddenly -- the car in front of the one I hit moved to the
shoulder to avoid hitting the car in front of him. I slammed on the
brakes and watched as we slid into the back of a car with New Hampshire
plates. Perhaps I should have tried some defensive maneuvers, but I
probably would have moved to the shoulder as well, only to be hit in the
rear by the white pickup which screeched to a stop in that area a couple
of seconds later.
Once the wrecker came, the policeman who had stopped to help realized
Shirley could not make it up into the cab of the wrecker. He took us to
the nearby Day's Inn and the wrecker brought the car some minutes later.
We were then in the Day's Inn for the next week as USAA had Copart pick
up the car and then finally decided what to do with it (they totaled it
because it had over 100,000 miles and was leaking fluids). In the mean
time, they engaged Enterprise Car Rental to provide us with a full-sized
sedan. When they came to pick me up, they said it was a busy Friday
afternoon and the only thing they had was a 2018 Ford F-250 Crew Cab,
long bed with a raised suspension, large tires, and no side steps. When
getting in, I had to grab hold of the handle on the A pillar, put my left
foot on the door threshold which was 29" off the ground, and swing into
the driver's seat. I took that for a couple of days so I could drive to
Wal-Mart to get us some food to prepare in our room. When I took it back,
they still had no sedans and rented me a Ford Escape. Shirley was able to
get in the back seat of that.
Kaleb and I decided to complete the transaction we had started and
arranged for us to meet at the Hilton hotel near the entrance to the Tulsa
airport rental car return. Shirley and I drove there and Kaleb drove the
300SDL followed by Regina in another car. We met up and Kaleb handed me
the keys for the 300SDL. They drove back to Nowata and we drove back to
Oklahoma City.
Shortly after we parted, USAA called saying they had totaled the 300D. I
said I might want it. I called Kaleb to double check that he did want it
and called the agent back to say I did want it. The next morning, the
agent gave me the information about where it was, the lot number, and how
much the buy-back cost was. I called Kaleb and he came to Oklahoma City
with his trailer to pick it up from Copart. We packed the 300SDL and
checked out of the Day's Inn. I had to pick up a prescription from
Wal-Mart, so we went there. Kaleb said he would meet us there to pick up
a check from me. When we finally met up (at a Taco Bell), I mentioned to
Kaleb that the air conditioning was not operating correctly. We both went
out to the 300SDL and found the battery was dead. He got the one out of
the 300D and put it in the 300SDL. It started right up and everything
worked correctly. After returning to Wal-Mart, we headed south to I-40.
On I-40, I noticed the A/C was not working correctly again. We pulled off
in a sparsely-populated shopping center and I called Kaleb. He thought it
might be the negative connection to the battery, so I shut down the
engine and checked the connections. I put the negative terminal back on
the post more tightly and tried to restart the car: nothing. Fortunately
there was a fellow in a pickup nearby running his engine to keep his A/C
working as he made sales calls. When he was finished with one, he
jump-started the 300SDL. We thanked him and headed, via a stop at a
Circle K where I left the engine running, back to the motel from which we
had checked out. We made it there with windows down in the heat and
humidity and checked in again and had the same room from which we had
just checked out. I called Kaleb and told him to bring his trailer down
from Nowata and take the 300SDL back with him; I would rent a car to get
us back to New Mexico. As I was moving things back inside, I got on our
laptop computer and made a reservation for a Budget rental car. At one
point while inside, I started sweating a little and then felt rather bad
-- the heat had finally gotten to me. This lasted for several days.
Anyway, the following morning Kaleb showed up, got the 300SDL on his
trailer, and took me to the Budget car rental office near the Taco Bell
and Wal-Mart where we were the previous day. I got the rental car, drove
to Wal-Mart to talk with the pharmacist about my heat problems, bought
some Powerade, and drove back to the motel where I collapsed for the rest
of the day.
The next morning we packed up the rental car (a Chevrolet Malibu), again
checked out of the motel, and drove from OKC to Moriarty, New Mexico. We
ended up at Lisa's Truck Center where we had started.
The stats on our trip:
Start: 1700 22 May 2018
End: 1900 30 Jun 2018
Miles Traveled: 7125.5
Vehicles Used: 5
Types of Fuels Used: 2
Experiences Gained: A lot
I rented the Chevy Malibu for a week so we could take Shirley to her
orthopedic appointment on Tuesday, 3 July, in an air conditioned vehicle.
We turned it back in at noon today.
I still need to find another vehicle and am open to suggestions.
Craig
_______________________________________
http://www.okiebenz.com
To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/
To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
