It took another hour to get the shocks and balancing done. The whole thing cost $100. From there he gave us directions to a Chrysler dealership a few blocks away. According to him, only the dealership could do anything with loose brackets on my particular car. We drove over to the dealership where we had to wait another 45 minutes before they could get to us. Then it took another half hour for them to try to find loose brackets. Of course they didn't find anything wrong under there, but did comment on my nice new shocks.  As we jumped back up on the highway I could hear a familiar squeal. The further we got from Wichita Falls, the louder it got! And the louder it got, the more pissed I became.

So far, the trip had been a complete disaster; we'd been dealing with car problems and sitting in auto repair shops longer than we'd been driving.  The squealing noise was a constant reminder that there would be NO relaxing any time soon. I was so aggravated that I hardly even considered what a nightmare it must have been for poor Stacie, and things were about to get even worse.

 Kirkland was just southeast of Childress. As I stopped at the traffic signal in the center of town, my car died! I was the first car in line at the light and was holding up an entire lane of traffic, so I jumped out of the car, popped open the hood as quickly as I could, and began fidgeting with the air filter. Kirkland wasn't much more than a bump on the map, but if you wanted to go to Colorado by way of New Mexico, you pretty much were destined to go through that main intersection. I made quite a sight, I'm sure - with my long red hair and cut off jeans.  Just then, a motorcycle cop pulled up right across from me on the opposite side of the intersection. He dismounted and started routing traffic. I couldn't believe how quickly he had come to our aid! I looked over and gave him a thumbs up. He looked back at me through his dark sunglasses and winced, almost angrily. That's when I first noticed the hearse, followed by a 30 car procession. The cop wasn't there for me at all! He was stopping traffic for a passing funeral! I worried that he might come after me as soon as the last car went by if I didn't get the Volare' running again in a hurry. I managed to mess with the carburetor and got the car started just in time to jump in and drive away as soon as the funeral traffic was out of the way. Had that funeral not come by at that very moment, I would've held up traffic for miles at that signal light. It was a bittersweet stroke of luck; good for us to get the car running in the nick of time, but bad to know we now had combustion issues in addition to the wheel ordeal.   

As we drove through town after town, Stacie and I eyeballed every business along the highway looking for an auto repair shop, but there wasn't one to be found. By the look of the map there wasn't much hope of finding a mechanic before Amarillo, and I couldn't imagine our bad luck would get us that far. It was in the town of Clarendon that we finally got a bit of relief, but not until we'd been toyed with by the locals like a hungry cat playing with a dizzy mouse. 

Near delirious from the ordeal so far, we pulled into the Ford Repair Center praying for a workforce of master mechanics to gather around the old Volare' and rise to the challenge to do what it took to make her right again. Instead, the place was a ghost town. Nobody was in the entire facility - not even the office. So we sat in the waiting room and waited. After waiting for about half an hour, a lady showed up and told us someone should be in soon that could help us. We went out and napped in the car until an old African-American man shuffled over and knocked on the window to wake us up. He told us his shop was too busy to take us in (it should have been obvious) but that there was a Chevrolet dealership a few miles away. We wearily took down the directions and drove to Alverson's Chevrolet of Clarendon. We handed over the keys and were told to go check out the town while they looked the car over. 

Stacie and I must have walked every square inch of that town, and saw every sight. We had lunch at a cafe and catnapped on a bench in a park for a while. We returned two hours later to discover they hadn't even looked at the Volare' yet! We crashed out in the waiting room and a while later got the news that the car needed wheel bearings and brakes on the front. We slept another three hours in the waiting room until the work was done. The cost was $240. 

The front end noise was finally gone! It had been bad bearings after all. But the car was idling rough and I was having trouble keeping it running when we stopped for any length of time, and had trouble starting it up again after it sat for too long without running. We decided to make a mad dash for Palo Duro in hopes of getting a camp site set up before dark. 

When I saw Palo Duro Canyon for the first time, I hadn't yet experienced the magnificence of the Grand Canyon, so it  might as well have been the Grand Canyon as far as I was concerned. Palo Duro Canyon was a pretty amazing chunk of real estate, which made the horrors of the trip we'd endured so far worth it in my mind. Having only slept for a few hours in the various car dealerships, I was starting to feel the effects of mild sleep depravation. A really bad pun formed in my mind; Auto Enduro Canyon would be our refuge for the night. We found a great camp site and finally had a chance to relax and think about some of the things we hoped to do over the next few days. As darkness fell, and the night was filled with a symphony of chirping crickets, we realized that we weren't used to seeing nights this dark! The sky had been overcast, blocking out any moon or starlight. It was just pitch black out there. We both jumped when a coyote howled. I waited for the perfect moment to lean over and ask Stacie what she would do if the tent ripped open and Boris Karloff stuck his head in and screamed at us. "Boris who?" was her reply. Ah! So that's why we are supposed to date people our own age!

Day Two of the trip started with a scare. After packing up camp and loading everything into the car, the Volare' wouldn't start. Neither of us was too surprised. We weren't sure what we were going to do about it either. But once the sun was shining and the car warmed up a little, the engine finally cranked. We were lucky that we didn't have battery problems too considering how long I spent trying to start the car.  If that had happened, we would have probably had to run off into the rocks and lived as wild, crazy people. . 

We drove into Amarillo and stocked up on groceries. I found a repair shop and whipped on in. Inside the garage were several guys in mechanic's overalls, all sitting around chewing tobacco for breakfast. It looked like a scene out of the movie Deliverance, and when I noticed how they were all staring at Stacie, I wanted to break and get the hell out of there. But we desperately needed to get that tune-up before we started getting up into high mountain altitudes where the air is much thinner and more likely to give us car troubles. One of them walked over and asked what he could "do me for." I told him the car needed a tune up. He looked my car over from where he stood, turned so his buddies could hear him, and said, "I ain't never fixed one of them before, but reckon I always wanted to! Bring it on in!"  The other mechanics looked concerned, as if he'd offered to try to overhaul a computer on the Space Shuttle. But before I could get behind the wheel, he stopped in his tracks and made a proclamation "Wait a gosh darned minute! Bring it in next week and I'll do 'er." 

Needless to say, I didn't have that kind of time, and I was getting creeped out by the Bubba Club, so we thanked them for their time and left. The next town on the way was Dalhart, where we needed to take a quick stop, but I was afraid to kill the motor again.  I wondered if it would be possible to just keep the car running for the next seven days. But fortunately, that wouldn't be necessary.  For some strange reason the carburetor problem seemed to fix itself and the car decided to let us enjoy the next few days. As we reached New Mexico the skies were swirling with millions of colors and the temperature dropped about 10 degrees. 

At 4pm on Day Two we reached Mt. Dora. The landscape was beginning to take on more of a voluptuous look to it. Baby mountains appeared here and there. The colors all around us seemed deeper, and memories of childhood trips to Colorado began to filter in and out of my thoughts. I'm proud to be from Texas, but there's no denying that once a Texan breaks out of that Panhandle and gets into New Mexico and Colorado, the scenery is truly appreciated. I think Stacie was finally getting to enjoy the trip too.  

The skies turned gray as if a storm might be moving in. It didn't matter to us, for in only an hour or so we were making our way up the sides of mountains, and eventually, we were completely above the gray clouds with nothing but beautiful blue skies above. We took a break in Raton, giving us time to stretch our legs and take in the scenery. I mailed a letter to mom and a check to my insurance company there at the tourist stop. It was actually chilly outside as we climbed a hill to a lookout position at Raton Pass.  We took pictures and had a quick picnic. The scenery was breathtaking, and so was Stacie.

We stopped outside of Walsenburg to eat dinner and to call my uncle Kenny to let him know our estimated time of arrival. It was looking like we wouldn't be pulling into Arvada until midnight or so and I really didn't want to inconvenience them.  But they wouldn't hear of us getting a hotel. In fact, they had a really nice RV in their driveway all set up for us to spend the night in. Sounded good to me. 

We reached Pueblo at 8pm. It was getting dark and my ears were stopped up from the change in air pressure. A roadside park looked good to us and so we took a break. While there, we noticed a black guy sitting by himself at a picnic table. He had a really nice motorcycle and was dressed in some kind of biker wardrobe. We knew he wouldn't be a threat because he was rolling a joint. As we walked to a nearby picnic table, I made casual eye contact with him. He smiled, gave a friendly wave, and said, "Hey Texas!" He'd seen my license plates. I noticed he had Texas plates on his bike too. We walked over and introduced ourselves. His name was Larry Martin, but he liked to be called "Tracks."  He came from Dallas. We'd come from Ft. Worth. He'd been having bike trouble. We'd had car trouble. His uncle worked for the railroad. My uncle Kenny in Colorado worked for the railroad! He had come from Arlington the day before. So had we! The coincidences blew us away. He was one of those professional businessmen who joined biker clubs made up of other businessmen. Tracks was the first sensible person we'd met since leaving home.

It wasn't long before the lights of Denver twinkled up ahead. I had a terrible headache. There was hardly any traffic in Denver that night so in no time at all we were in the suburb of Arvada. We stopped at an Arby's for dinner and then drove the last few blocks to that beautiful RV parked on Salsbury Lane.  I knew it was way past uncle Kenny's bedtime, but he'd waited up for us. It was wonderful to see him. He looked a lot like my dad. After showing us around the RV, he wished us a good night and went back in the house. I don't know why I hadn't thought about it before, but suddenly I was concerned that he might be uncomfortable about us spending the night together out there. After all, he knew we weren't married, and he was from my parent's generation. Why hadn't I thought to just get a hotel and avoid putting anyone in a pickle? But he'd seemed completely cordial, courteous, and sincere. There'd been no hint of a problem. I wondered if maybe people were a little less "uptight" in Colorado. 

We got our essentials transferred from the road-weary Volare' - into the RV, as the long day caught up with both of us at the same time. Thankfully, I finally had the presence of mind to thank Stacie for being such a great sport under such difficult circumstances. Most girls would've demanded a plane ticket home from the first airport we passed after all the car troubles we'd experienced in just two days. She had been the perfect companion. If she'd been miserable or unhappy at any moment since we'd left Ft. Worth, she never once showed it. Not once! As I drifted off to sleep, I couldn't help wishing my car were more like Stacie.  

CHAPTER 26: Grizzley Jones Tames the Rockies 

SAVVY STORY INDEX

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