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coffeeteaandme: (Distress!)
[personal profile] coffeeteaandme
About four hours out from Atlanta we blew a tire on the trailer. Though it was a blowup, and the disintigrating tire shredded a few of our electricals, Gregg kept perfect control and pulled us over right after a small bridge so we were protected, and I called Good Sam (AAA for trailers). It so happened that although Gregg did sign us up for the Good Sam Club (three years at 45$, a great special!), as well as the mail forwarding service, the roadside service thing has to be added separately, so we had to do the tire change out of pocket. It was over a hundred dollars more than it should have been, because a glitch in the girl's computer forced her to charge it for a heavy duty job when the fellows who came confirmed it as a medium duty. Not a big problem, I just need to call in and make sure they change the charge back like the girl told me to.

We rolled into Dallas and had a great visit for Valentine's Day with Jason & Lenore. Great to see people again, however briefly.

Next day the spare gave way, and we pulled over exactly opposite a Cooper Tire. The fellow in the shop offered us his largest tire, which he said was still a little small, but it would get us the 15 miles down the road to the GoodYear, where we could get a real replacement. The price was really low so we put on the new tire and got going, rather slowly this time.

It didn't take 5 miles before the wheel simply came off, and the tire, completely inflated, went bouncing off into a field. I've actually always wanted to see what that was like.

We pulled over. We made phone calls. A nice fellow pulled over, looked at our issue, went home for baling wire, and pulled the axle up towards the shock so we could drive ("slow like yer granny, now") to the repair place. Cops pulled over, looked at the situation, and pulled their cars over to keep passing traffic from plowing into us. They passed the time with us. We had broken down in the very place where they filmed "True Grit". One of the cops' wives took bagpipe lessons from one of the Rogues, the national Scottish band Gregg used to dance for. My head was spinning, and I changed clothes to feel better.

The repair fellas called us, said the axle idea should work, but still came out in their truck and led us carefully, over back roads, to their repair place, where they were very nice to us. After a night decompressing (or failing to do so) at a nearby hotel, we returned for the assessment. The axle was ruined from bad bearings and contact with the road. A new one will take a week, shipped from Indiana. The bearings on all the wheels will be repacked. Shaving off everything they could, and throwing in repairing the shredded electricals from the first blowout, it's just over two grand. And a week of time.

I never thought I'd have to pack a bag again and leave all our stuff behind.

Lost axles have been known to cut a trailer in half. We are whole and safe, and the damage was limited to the one axle. I can hardly believe the kindness of the people who stopped and were so helpful to us, or the luck that our friends in Austin had been looking forward to us visiting their new home this very week, and are happy to put us up until the trailer is done. There is great blessing and comfort in this, also in the fact that it could have been much, much worse.

But by poor luck this happened just as we were running out of our winter money, in that transitory moment from finishing one life and beginning another, and at the time I'm least emotionally and physically able to cope. I can't stop bludgeoning my own stupidity for letting the coverage with Good Sam slip by, or not getting hold of a maintenance book somehow and going over the one thing we didn't check that turned out to be our vulnerable spot. Granted, our old trailer never had a bearings problem all the time we owned it, and even if we'd known of the precaution of having them checked, the only thing I *might* have done for a new purchase was call the place we bought it from and see if they packed the bearings along with all the other maintenance before they gave it to us.

I spent a lot of time on the phone canceling and rearranging monetary things. A moving brain garners little panic.

Mostly I feel like I was lazy. I didn't immediately and completely educate myself on a multi-thousand dollar piece of equipment that was going to house everything we owned. Now it's catastrophically given way, and we're stuck throwing all the repairs on the credit card, along with our living expenses for the next two weeks. There's no excuse, and it's exactly the kind of thing I can't forgive myself for, and I really really need to, because tomorrow I need to smile and sing and make as much money as possible.

We brought our bottle of Goslings with us, and it's a great comfort.

Sherwood looks great. Our new electrical spot will be waiting for us when we're ready.

Writing about all this has helped a great deal. Many thanks to the readers. As has already been covered, it will be okay. The repairs are covered because my credit is good. The maintenance manual has been located and acquired. Our instruments are tuned and ready for the weekend. The Goslings bottle is only partially breached. And we had some Guinness in the fridge too.

It will be okay.
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