The Weekend Trip....

I'm sure before we left this is what our animals were thinking...lol

This last weekend Jennifer and I went and took a trip down to Texas to retrieve her pickup (that Cody will be driving) up from a repair shop and bring it home.  We were going to rent a U-Haul trailer, but a friend had a car trailer and let me borrow it.

Well we get down there just fine and on the way we discussed swinging by her old house so she could pick up a few things, spend the night there to save money, and then visit with her parents for a little while in the morning and drive back.  Simple right?

Well, once we got the pickup loaded we noticed that we had two low tires on the back so I got those aired up, only to discover that they had some nice little nails in them.  Ugh, so we bought some stuff to repair it but decided to just go down the road a ways to get out of the rain and keep an eye on it.

Just 10 miles down the road, at some point I had busted a spring on the back and that allowed the tire to walk around, chewing into the trailer before it blew.  It was a good thing I grabbed  a spare tire before leaving.  The problem was that although it was the right size, the rim didn't 'quite' match.  So we unloaded the pickup, strapped up the axle, and limped into town driving both.  I got the tire swapped to the right rim, and went by TSC (Tractor Supply Company, a great farmers store) and picked up a new spring.  I had my basic toolbox with me.

I was just starting to attempt to break those nice rusty bolts when Providence stepped in.  A nice gentlemen stepped up and suggested that we just go down to his shop where we could use the air wrenches etc.  We got down there and in the process of taking off the old spring discovered that we needed new U bolts.  So we went and picked those up while he worked on it.  When I got back I helped him get the rest of it off and the new spring went on quick.  We asked what we owed and he stated 'Oh, just what you think you owe me'.  The barter system at its best!  You don't find very many people like this around anymore.  We settled on 60 dollars, but also gave 20 to his kids that helped out quite a bit too.  I know it was money very well spent.

While talking to him I found out that he was planning on drilling his own water well.  He had traded for a simple drilling rig with a good amount of pipe and bought a good mud pump.  He had really done his research on it and I wished him the best.

We reloaded the truck and went down the road.  I stopped a little while later and was checking the tires when the nail in the other rear tire decided to pop out causing a fast leak.  I quickly grabbed the plug kit and plugged it right there in the parking lot and got it to seal up.

After finally making it to her old place we spent the night and then got what few things were needed, then went and visited her parents.  The drive back was a little longer than we anticipated since I wanted to avoid driving through Dallas, that trailer had me nervous lol.  It made it just fine and we got home late that night.

I have to say I am very glad we had someone watching over us on that trip, and I recognized the fact.  I have heard stories about that kind of stuff happening but never put much thought to it.  Well I do now.