Chapter 2 begins

This is the beginning of Chapter 2. Tomorrow morning I head out for Bankhead National Forest in Alabama. I'm re-provisioned, repaired, and re-packed. I hope to head back south, then drift west, ending up in SoCal by mid-May. There's a couple things that could change that idea, but I'll write about those in due course.

I'd better finish up the last storyline, though, eh? I pulled several 10-12 hour days all week while in Boulder, but was able to finish most of what needed doing. The weeds are cut, fences repaired, pasture leased, and the optics are aligned. I left on Saturday, gambling the shop would be done with the car by the time I got to Colby, KS, since the last update was that they were still working on it. They called when I was halfway there - "we've hit a problem". Turns out the timing belt was too old and slack, and jumped a cog while the transmission was going in, and nobody in town had a replacement part. Could I buy one along the way? Well, I'd give it a shot, but there was only one town of significance between me and Colby, at that point. This made me nervous, but it worked out very well in the end. 15 minutes later I saw a NAPA in Flager, CO. Turns out they had one belt in stock! Perfect! They guys at the shop stayed until 7:30, on a Saturday - to finish the job. One advantage of doing business in a small town - everybody lives close to work, and they own the business, so they can work whenever they want to! Woo-hoo! After leaving a enough tip to get those fellows smashed a couple times over, I headed down the road. I didn't quite make it in one shot, stopped for some rest at one point, but pulled up to my parents house at 7:30 this morning!

So there you have it! It's another busy week coming up - I expect at least two good adventures to write about - stay tuned!