This is Roy, and he's our hero. He doesn't like this picture too well, and I have to agree. He's got the kind of smile that makes you want to give him a hug, but this picture didn't capture it.
Yesterday morning (after we took my Toyota off the tow dolly), the tow truck came--one of those gigantic tow trucks that pulls semis--and towed us to a place that wasn't expecting us. The shop owner couldn't get to our motorhome for several hours, so he called over to Roy, who agreed to look at the problem.
We caught the tow truck driver before he left, and he took us to Roy's shop, but then he took off in a hurry in case we changed our minds again. I can't say I blame him.
Roy got the air conditioning going in his shop office so we'd be comfortable and had us wait there while he looked to see how quickly he'd be able to fix the motorhome. Here's Scooter patiently waiting in my mom's lap.
Finally, Roy told us he'd have to remove the radiator and the air conditioner to get at the water pump, and he couldn't finish the work before today. So we grabbed what we needed for an overnight motel stay and headed off to see the sights of Monahans, Texas.
There aren't many. We had lunch at Dairy Queen, found a nice park in town and sat in the shade, had some ice cream back at Dairy Queen, where the employees got concerned about Scooter being in the car. They remembered seeing him at lunchtime and thought he'd been stuck in the car for several hours without anything to drink, so we eased their minds about him.
Today, when we stopped back at Roy's shop, he showed us the radiator, which had green stains that indicated leakage. My mom agreed to have the radiator replaced, so Roy called over to Odessa to get a new one, but the parts place was just about to close for the day. Roy tried to appeal to them to stay open just long enough for him to get there, for the sake of three women who are stranded while they're traveling, but they wouldn't do it. So we have to wait until Monday.
Roy, by the way is closed on Saturdays, but he opened for us to try to get us back on the road. He expressed his disappointment that we wouldn't be able to go anywhere for a couple days, but we told him the purpose of our trip was to spend time together, not to see any place in particular, and we'll still be able to be together. He seemed relieved.
Having seen all we could in Monahans, we came to Odessa for the weekend, stopping at a couple sights along the way. Outside Monahans is the Monahans Sandhills State Park, where families rent discs to ride down the sand. We didn't do that, but just looked through the museum.
Near Odessa, we stopped at the Odessa Meteor Crater. If the motorhome repairs take too long, we may not get to New Mexico at all this trip, not even Carlsbad Caverns, so the meteor crater may be the only big hole in the ground that we get to see. Here's the crater. It's only about six feet deep now.
In Odessa, we found my store:
Tonight, we'll go to the movies at the mall. It's nice to be in civilization again.
4 comments:
See, this just flies in the face of all that makes vacations and trips bearable... Plans,Order, Schedules, and EVERYTHING working properly.
I'm not sure I'm strong enough to follow you on this little outing. My stomach is already in a knot.
Is your family really made up of well-adjusted individuals that roll with the travelling punches? Just based on what has happened to you already, there would have been at least one nervous breakdown in my family... And perhaps even a homicide.
Chris,
Your description of your family reminds me of one of my friends, when I first told her I was planning this trip with my mom. She just looked at me, and then she said, "Are you sure you two won't kill each other the first week?" She and her mother would.
I'm not sure we're made of sterner stuff, just calmer stuff. And we only had loose plans and no real schedule, so there wasn't as much to stress over.
So tell me... Are you the nervous breakdown family member, the homicidal one, or would you perhaps be the dead guy?
I'd be the depressed one sitting in the corner, mumbling to himself... With the knot in his stomach...
My mother and father wouldn't be speaking to each other.
My older sister would be in the same shape as I... And my older brother would be oblivious - dreaming of the day he would move far away from us all.
I think I've just described every one of my family's vacations!
Chris,
That would put a real damper on the vacation.
I don't remember my parents ever not speaking to each other. Our family vacations were usually filled with bickering among the three of us kids, usually with one or the other lucky one with a window seat complaining that the one in the middle was "looking out my window." Or, "He touched me!" It's a wonder my parents stayed sane, because the whining never ended.
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