May 19, 2013

View of the day-Sunday afternoon in Taylor, NE...the streets are empty, except for various cutouts of old time residents, which made for an eerie feeling.  Marilyn had to drop the header trailer to check out at detour and it was right next to this family, pointing out the weather...or a bird, or a plane.  Notice the other couple looking into the store across the street.

What a hectic day we had today! It had rained a lot during the night...well over an inch...and it was still misting when we got rolling south.  Once again, we had the wind pushing us, so we made pretty good time, for the most part.  We got out of the rain as we crossed the dam at Fort Thompson and as we neared the interstate, Marilyn thought there was an issue with one of the header trailer tires, so she pulled over for a quick inspection. Nothing obvious that she could see and since we would be taking a pit stop in 15 miles, she "shut up and drove".

Al checked the tires out while Marilyn grabbed a breakfast of V8 juices, then we continued on...for about 10 miles.  One of Marilyn's jobs as the leader of the move, is to let Al know if the tire remnants, or "shrapnel" was there before she arrived on the scene, just so he doesn't need to be concerned that it could have been one of our tires.  There was lots of shrapnel to report, and it had been a long time since she had had to report any coming from our trailer...until today.  That back driver's side tire on the header trailer shredded, and went flying everywhere, so Marilyn limped it to a wide shoulder, to start the change.

Al had the spare in the back of the Freighliner, so while he was getting the trailer jacked up and the lug nuts loosened, Marilyn got the spare...it didn't look to good, but Al said "that's why they call it a spare".  We got it changed and started off again.

Marilyn was a little gun shy and kept an eye on the "spare"...sure that it would not last the day...but even when she checked it at the Springview, NE fuel stop, it was still holding air.  Shut up and drive.

As we worked our way through Nebraska, the storm clouds were brewing all around us and it was inevitable that we would be hit with at least one of them...and we were.  As we were going through the hills, the clouds let loose with such a downpour, that the wipers couldn't keep up.  Top that off with a train of four vehicles close behind and absolutely no shoulder to pull off so we could wait it out...this made for a couple miles of "white knuckle" driving.  Al was pushing so much water from the wheel tracks that he must have looked like a snow plow in the winter...the rooster tails he was throwing went from ditch to ditch.  Thankfully we were just on the tail end of the deluge and had driven through only 8 or 10 miles of it.

We nicely got through the rain and were just coming over the hill that leads down to Taylor, NE, when Marilyn sees the dreaded orange diamond sign ahead on the side of the road.  

As she gets up to the sign, it says "Bridge Work, 11 ft maximum width"...and the sign is about 500 yds ahead of the bridge.  She was able to get Al stopped while she maneuvered through...there was no way that was 11 ft between the guard rail and cement dividers...she barely made it through with the header.  After getting into town, she unhooked the header and went back to see if there was a detour we could take and as she got back to where Al was parked, she could see he was getting directions from a trucker who had just come through with his grain trailer.  

We took the Dodge around the detour, then Marilyn dropped Al off to take his rig around the detour while she went back into town to get the trailer hooked back up.  And we were on our way again.

Marilyn kept thinking about one of the lines from the play she was just in "They always come in threes, don't they?"...and number three hit just after we had passed through Miller...this time it was the front driver's side tire on the trailer.  The "spare" was still intact.  

Marilyn managed to limp the trailer into a spot along the highway where she unhooked it and left it for tomorrow...we would never find a tire store open on a Sunday.  

Al kept driving and we decided to get as far as we could with the Freightliner, leave it for the night, then drive back and spend the night in Holdrege, NE which was about 30 miles south of where the trailer had been left.  We made it to Stockton, KS, parked the Freight, grabbed a drink for the road and drove the 80 miles back to Holdrege.  

After getting a room and grabbing a snack from the McDonalds next door, we did our bookwork and called it a night.

Two new tires...and a new rim...tomorrow...