Sicktrip Journal VII

September 3, 2005; Saturday; 6:26pm; Leaving Ft. Worth, Texas

We are just now leaving Fort Worth after Shay, a VW lover who posted his information on the internet for anyone who needed help, fixed our bus for us. I wouldn’t say that he helped us, because he pretty much did everything. Actually I should say that Tyler helped; Nailgun and I just sat in Shay’s backyard, played football with his 4 year-old son, and napped. Shay and his wife are some of the nicest and most giving people we have ever met. They selflessly fed us lunch and fixed our ride, and didn’t ever seem irritated that a bunch of California kids who know nothing about cars would roll up and take over their Saturday.

We got to Shay’s house around 9:30am (Left Waco at 6:45 or so) and then Shay pulled the engine out.

September 4, 2005; Sunday; 11:47am; BACK IN WACO.

It may seem like the previous entry was cut a little short. This is because as I was writing it (15 minutes after we left Shay’s house), Tyler’s bus stopped working. We were on a huge interchange in Dallas, getting onto I-20 towards Mississippi.

We pushed Tyler’s bus backwards down the onramp and got it onto a side street where we spent the next few hours trying to get the engine to start. We had replaced the oil cooler at Shay’s, but when the engine was put back into the car, some wires were attached backwards. Consequently, when we tried to start the engine, some electrical components were fried. Shay, from the depths of his vast VW knowledge, managed to get the engine started again (adjusted the timing). But fifteen minutes after we left, the bus was in the worst position yet.

Nailgun had a free 100 mile tow from AAA, so we decided to have the bus towed back to Waco, where at least we could stay at Dana’s house again (sorry Dana’s roommate!). But we quickly became aware of yet another obstacle in our never ending quest to taste the Atlantic Ocean: Only two people were allowed to ride in the tow truck. Naturally, I was chosen to hide out in the back of the bus when the tow truck drive came, so that Tim and Tyler could ride with him. I laid down underneath a sleeping bag with tons of stuff on top of it. This would maybe sound like some kind of really fun slumber party, but let me assure you, when it is still 90 degrees out and it is so humid you can go fishing in the air, laying down under a sleeping bag is no fun. So I spent the next 20 minutes wallowing in my own sweat while the driver hooked up the bus. When we got on the road I was able to take the sleeping bag off, and I called a bunch of friends to pass the 2 hour drive by myself in the bus.

I wasn’t in the tow truck to talk to the driver, but Tyler and Nailgun quickly began telling me about how ridiculous he was. Tyler and Nailgun were pretty sure he was drunk (drinking a mysterious strong smelling and clear liquid out of a water bottle, and swerving all over the highway). The driver recounted to them how many times he had nearly lost a car off the back of the tow truck, and how he had only very recently learned how to correctly tie down the cars. Nailgun asked him “So, do you get out of Texas much?” to which the driver replied “Why?! Because I talk like a hillbilly?” Tyler and Nailgun quickly likened this driver to Boomhauer from the show “King of the Hill”, and could not easily understand most of what he was saying. I can confirm this from what I heard from under the sleeping bag.

So here we are, back in Waco, deciding what we should do next. We might try to fix it today and keep going (It is very uncertain what could break next in the bus), or wait until Tuesday for the mechanic shops to open (today is Sunday, and Monday is Labor Day) and then get it fixed. If we got it fixed on Tuesday, We would have to book it all the way to North Carolina and back in time for school to start, which may cause Tyler’s bus to catch on fire and also for us to lose so much sleep we would start secretly plotting each others’ ends. So we may end up driving back to California from here. The road trip may be a failure. Pray that the bus will be fixed, and that we can charge it straight into the Atlantic Ocean.