Sometimes Thanksgiving... Takes Some Effort -or- Broken Transmissions Test Your Metal

It's hard to not get down sometimes. It's hard to keep on keepin' on when it seems like every step you take you get hit with that startling punch in the guts.

And then... you take another step and... WHAM... the hits just keep on comin'.

Laying there you look up and think... why the hell bother. Why not just lay here and watch the clouds float by and say to hell with it...

Buuuuuut... after layin' there for a bit you start thinkin'. Yeah I know I should quit that crap... it's only ever got me a belly ache and in trouble... but it's an addiction I just can't shake...

So there I am... layin' in the ditch, starin' up at the sky... wonderin' what to do about a blown transmission... and I get to thinkin': "Self? You got bruises and scars, dents and dislocated parts... your teeth are bad and your attitude worse. This sucks mightily... But... BUT... two months ago the money wasn't in the bank to make the fix. So even if this consumes the last of that...the worst is... you're only back where you were... before you got to where you're at."

The old saw is true; There's others that have it worse... so Cowboy Up and ride boy.

There's Some are in the hospital with grievous illness. Some have lost their son's or lovers in a sorry, hopeless struggle in a useless pit beyond redemption... others have lost homes, jobs, friends and hope. My lil' difficulty don't measure up to theirs.

So... one more time... pick up my marbles... Cowboy Up, and get on down the road.

*** Made what was planned to be a quick run to Cottonwood for a meal with friends from the Nascar race... and rustling some jugs of water at the cemetery...

The trip had already started off a bit lame, literally, when the truck wouldn't start. The Montana electrical gremlin has returned... but with the help of the generator, the battery charger I got in Sydney and hadn't had to use, and enough cords to reach the truck where it was parked... I got the thing fired up after a bit.

Ran on to town. Did our visiting, enjoyed the light meal with them and then rolled in the dark to the cemetery for our water... wrong holiday for that ain't it? It's ok... the water tastes a lil' odd...  but we've never found anything floating in it... so all's well...

Then... we turned for home and ran out to Camp Verde, caught the interstate and ran up the ramp... headed south for Dugas.

Had made but a few miles when there was an odd... metalic sort of a sound and the tach suddenly zoomed nearly a thousand RPM... though the truck was slowin' down...

"That's odd" I thought. I disengaged the speed control and went to manual throtttle... ZOOM went the tach... After checking the stick and knowing the thing was in gear I'm thinking... "Damn... the clutch just let go!"

Well, I kicked her into neutral and looking up ahead I calculated that what with rolling along a slight down hill, I should be able to mexican overdrive it to where Hwy 169 cut off toward Prescott. Figured off the main road on the off ramp would be the best place to wait for a tow truck.

I hadn't yet come to a stop and I was already wondering; "How are we gonna get back to the rig, way out there in the high desert... once they haul the Dodge off?"

Pulled to a stop a ways back from the stop sign. As is my habit... before surrendering to defeat I kinda gave it a quick once over. I ran it through the gears. Well Damn! It weren't the clutch. 1st gear fine! 2nd gear, 3rd gear, even 4th gear rolled the truck. Hadn't crapped the clutch. But 5th gear for sure and for certain had snapped and cratered.

So... with the flashers flashin' and down to four out of five gears... I rolled the wounded Ol' Dodge back to camp. I'll tell you what... 50 mph on an Arizona Interstate is just a lil' bit of a risky proposition. Though I'll bet that diamond plate bed behind me would be less the worse for wear than them in their thin skinned sedans who wiggled on past in such an all fired hurry.

The next couple days will be spent figurin' out how to consume the last of the benefit we got from stackin' beets and haulin' NASCAR butts.

Easy come... easy go... Between The IRS, Tire shops, Battery barns and now... Tranny fixin's... we'll be back to the normal situation of eatin' this month... what we made last month. That's ok... didn't have a couple of months expenses in the bank long enough to get used to it.

Just Another Day of Duckin' and Runnin'
Brian