Travel troubel

Jack here.

Okay, a few problems. First, the truck radiator (yeah, the new one. yeah, the THIRD ONE) is leaking. I talked to a cat that knew what he was talking about, and he said that after we replaced #1 in New Orleans, the person doing it probably didnt take the little rubber feet off of the old one, and put them on the second one before putting it in. That's true, because when that one started to leak, I replaced it myself with a third one, and there were no rubber feet on #2 when I took it out, so I didn't think to put them on #3 before putting it in. I think it's stopped leaking (put some stop-leak crap type in there), but I'm going to take it out and put some rubber under it when we get to Farmington. I would have done it up north, but I've been working outside pretty much all day every day, and I'm getting pretty bloody sick of snow, cold things, and working without gloves on because It's tough to handle small things with 'em on. It's been between 0 and 10 most days, and colder at night. We decided to take the hot tub after all, so breaking that down was a pain, since the cover over it had leaked, and it had filled partially with what used to be water, and now was very stiff water. We broke all the ice up with a mallet and log splitting wedge, and emptied it by hand. Ah, soaking wet again, and freezing ass. Yikes.

But those aren't even the BIG problem. Just as I was driving south tonight, and texting Ruth that "all is swell," I crossed some railroad tracks and felt a clunk and looked in the rearview to see the trailer separate from the truck. The clamp that bites down on the ball had given up. Luckily, I was turning a corner, going slow, and on a side road. The trailer just went to the side, and nothing broken, except the tow chains, the lock holding them on, and the coupling. The wiring disconnected itself luckily. So now, we're in Kalkaska at the Econolodge, just after getting busted for sneaking the dogs in, and after going out to find some griznub. We got the suspicious looks from the locals, the ominous silence when we went in the pub, the wordless pointing when we asked where we could get food. Everything but tumbleweed blowing by and and some old codger saying "we don't take KINDly to strangers in these parts. SPECially YANKees!"

But we're making progress. It's snowed about 4 inches tonight, but we're warm, the dogs are back in the truck with a space heater running inside, our bellies full of Italian foodage, and a couple of Netflixes to kill the time tonight. Could be worse.

In case anybody doesn't know the agenda, it's from here to Farmington, then Kalamazoo, then New Orleans to fix the roof, pick up tools, barbeques, all that rot, and then on to Florida to chill with my Mom and Burt for a month or so before sending the new pickup and trailer fulla tools across by boat to get started clearing the lot, hooking up utilities, pouring footings, etc. We'll come back when it's warm. In the meantime, feel free to come visit us. We'll be on the vacant lot in a huge tent, drinking water out of jerry jugs, but we'll be happy.

Come join us.

Jack
We're on our way...