The Highway to Hell

I am not one to normally give in to spontaneity. I am a planner. 

Everything is planned in advance, mapped, laid out in spreadsheets, and collated for reference. Tracy, well he is a fly by the seat of your pants kind of guy, dive in head first and figure it out later. He's a thrill seeker, I am a spectator. 

Tracy came up with the plan to trade my car for the motorhome. We would need to get rid of the car, it was just sooner rather than later. I went with it - gave in to spontaneity. I reasoned that I had left the purchasing of the RV up to Tracy. He would be the one doing the bulk of any needed maintenance and repairs on our RV. If he felt comfortable with the swap, I would trust his decision. 

If I had known then what I know now, we never would have left the house that day. Sometimes I quietly pray that our trip home was not an omen of things to come. 

As I told you in our previous post, motorhome Mike told us the brakes "need a little work". I didn't worry about it, Tracy didn't seem too concerned when he looked at them, and brakes are his specialty on car repairs.

After seeing these I realize how lucky we were to make it home safely.
Just a hint, the brakes are not supposed to be bent or cracked.

Bad brakes from our motorhome.

After the titles were signed and exchanged, hands shook, and well wishes given Tracy and I loaded up in the motorhome. He looked at me and said "I hope I can drive this thing, it's pretty big." I elected to sit in the back at the dinette. We road in silence.

After a few miles Tracy turned to say something to me. I couldn't hear him. Since I was feeling a little better about riding in the motorhome, I stood up to move to the front. As I stood up Tracy had to apply the breaks. I flew forward, tearing the dinette table out of the wall.

I had already decided I didn't like that table and wanted it replaced so I didn't worry too much about the table. I was more concerned about my right knee. I had landed on my hands and knees in the center aisle.

My right knee hurt way worse than my pride.

I thought how stupid I was. I knew better than to stand up while riding in a motorhome. My grandparents had drilled that in my head as kid. Tracy felt awful. I climbed into the navigators seat next to him and rubbed my throbbing knee. 

After a few more miles we stopped and fueled up. I got some ice for my knee, a large bottle of water, and some Advil. We were feeling confident and started back on the road. Tracy was feeling better about driving the motorhome, and I was feeling a little more at ease. 

We made it about half a mile down the road before Tracy came to a traffic light and had to stop hard because a little Honda had darted in front of him and stopped. Once the light was green we started through and made it about 100 feet before Tracy said something was wrong.

We pulled over into what was an abandoned KOA camp ground. It must have been very nice in it's day. It had a restaurant and large community pool near the office. It was once a large camp ground. The shrubs were overgrown and the grounds long neglected, but I still marveled at how it must have been a beauty in its day. 

Tracy climbed out of the motorhome and walked around to the driver's side. As his head disappeared from view I thought to myself "I bet the brakes are on fire." I calmly stood up and gathered my purse and bottle of water. At that same time Tracy came running out from underneath the motorhome screaming "FIRE!" while running to the door. I do not know where my calm reaction came from. I managed to rip the fire extinguisher off of the wall and throw it to him. I remembered there was another fire extinguisher under the sink. I grabbed the second fire extinguisher on my way out the door.

Neither fire extinguisher worked. 

They were empty. I handed Tracy the liter bottle of water we had purchased at the gas station. We watched the steam boil out from under the motorhome as he dumped the water on the brakes. The brakes were still glowing an angry red and the water had just dampened them. We began to frantically search for water. The pool was dry, no water spigots were in sight. 

I was starting to to really wonder what we had gotten ourselves into. I started to think, "What about insurance?" I wondered why we had been so stupid to take possession of this thing and not make sure our insurance would cover us. We had traded a perfectly decent car for a motorhome and set it on fire. How do you explain that to your insurance agent? If we took it back could we get the car back?

Alas, there was an extinguisher just inside the restaurant door. We did not break and enter, we just entered. The extinguisher would not spray. It had lost it's charge, but somehow Tracy managed to get the top off. He dumped the contents of the fire extinguisher onto the brakes and we waited.

We stood there staring at the motorhome. I was wondering what I had allowed my husband to get us into, he was wondering if I was mad. 

After a few minutes Tracy broke the silence and said we needed to find a Wal-Mart. I was still staring at the motorhome. I started shaking at the thought of getting back on the road in our newly acquired death wagon. Sitting in the navigator's seat meant I had the job of looking up the location for the nearest Wal-Mart while Tracy tried to drive.

Being dyslexic, I can barely tell left from right.

I have always struggled with reading maps, much less use Google Maps on an iPhone. We figured out that Wal-Mart was seven miles away. I pointed Tracy in the direction I thought was correct. Holding my breath and hoping I was correct. 

Tracy kept asking how much further. The map navigation froze up and was not keeping up with our location. I was terrified of the death wagon, traffic was stop and go, and I was scared I had pointed us in the wrong direction.

All I could hear at this point was the AC/DC song Highway to Hell playing in my head.

That seven mile ride was the longest seven miles of my life. It took a few moments for us to catch our breath. We just sat, Tracy still had a death grip on the stearing wheel and my knees were truly shaking. We decided we had to take an inventory of what tools had been left in the basement compartments and double check that the front jacks would get the motorhome high enough to get the front tire off.

I did not want to move my knee was still throbbing and had turned an ugly blue. I realized I couldn't just sit there and let Tracy take care of this all on his own, he needed my help. Forgetting to watch out for the TV and compartment above me, I stood up smacking my skull against the overhead.

I saw stars and crumpled in my seat. 

I was ready to let loose a flood of tears and swear words that would make a sailor blush. At this point my sister called and it was all I could do to keep myself from telling her to come get me right away. Half not wanting her to worry, and half not wanting to let anyone know what an idiot I was,  I just told her we had a little problem with the brakes but would be heading home soon.

We were in luck. We just needed a lug wrench large enough, some pliers, and a couple of other small hand tools.  I said a little prayer as we worked the jacks to make sure they would get the RV high enough to take the tire off. We were in luck there were a couple of pieces of wood in the parking spot next to us that helped ensure the jacks were high enough. 

I limped behind Tracy with a throbbing knee and growing goose egg on my head into the Wal-Mart. We found everything we needed except a tire iron large enough for the motorhome. Tracy walked around the automotive department fuming, then I remembered I had seen an O'Riley's Automotive across the highway.

We paid for our purchase and decided to brave the trip across the highway in the death wagon. I just held my breath as we waited for the light to turn green and darted across the four lane highway. I was still shaking, knees literally knocking together, as Tracy ran inside the O'Rielys to find a lug wrench large enough.

The repair needed to get us back on the road took about twenty minutes. Tracy got the tire mounted back on the motorhome. We were putting the newly purchased tools away only to find a lug wrench in one of the basement compartments that was just the right size. Must have gotten over looked.

I thought of the Tom Hanks movie The Money Pit. I remembered the scene where Tom Hank's character had a nervous laughing fit.  

We were both still stressed and scared as hell when we decided to return to the Wal-Mart to get something (I really can not remember what it was). Tracy was putting fluid in the brake lines and needed help. I could not hear what he was saying and this must have pushed his patients to the limit. He barked at me like a drill sergeant. This pushed me over the limit. I had enough. I sat down on the couch opened a coke, propped up my now hugely swollen knee and decided that I was done for the day.

As far as I was concerned we could now live in the Wal-Mart parking lot and I wouldn't care.

Eventually we headed back to Waco, Texas. Home sweet home. It was a quiet trip. Neither one of us spoke. I was holding my breath and Tracy had a death grip on the steering wheel. We finally made it home. My sister was outside excitedly waiting on us as we arrived. I bailed out of the death wagon to hug my sister. I was so glad to see her.

Seeing her meant I could finally take a breath. It meant I was home and safe. 

I learned a lot that day.

• I learned to never buy or trade for a vehicle without checking on the insurance. If something truly disastrous had happened we could have potentially lost a lot. I am the one always reminding Tracy to limit his liability when it comes to business. I don't know where my head was that day. 
• I learned to appreciate my husbands abilities to fix things on the fly. I have always known he was a McGyver type, but I took it for granted and never really appreciated it until now. 
• I learned that for some unknown reason I take note of fire extinguishers. I am the least likely to stay and try to put a fire out, but I have some ingrained need to know where they are.
• I learned that I have a conscience that doesn't quit. This happened in late October and it is now mid-February. I still worry about taking the fire extinguisher from the vacant building. Our need was great, but for me there is no justification that makes having taken someone else's property right.  I owe someone somewhere an extinguisher. I do not like carrying guilt in my heart. 

We can laugh about our experience now.

We laugh about how sore Tracy was the day after our trip because of the death grip he had on the steering wheel.  I laugh about how stupid we were to not just wait and make sure the insurance was taken care of before taking possession of the motorhome. Tracy laughs about my guilty conscience. 

We will make mistakes along the way. 

We will make lots of mistakes. I hope you will continue to join us on our journey. If you enjoy our blog leave us a comment in the comments section or share our posts on Facebook.

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