Officially San Antonio was the next stop on the trip after El Paso, but as we departed we thought the trip would go a lot more smoothly if we broke it up into two sections. The plan was to stop at a small state park a few hundred miles into the 500+ mile leg. I use the word plan lightly because what eventually unfolded after we left Saturday morning was definitely not part of the plan.
Up until this point we had driven mostly at night to avoid the heat of the day as well as the traffic. (People don’t look to happy passing us when the speed limit is 80 MPH and we are cruising along at 55). So we started out at about noon and maybe after driving on the freeway for 1 minute we hear a loud pop and I immediately noticed one of the tires on the tow dolly exploded. Luckily there was a shoulder so we slowly pulled over. Using the jack from the car and a bunch of left over wood from building the bus we were able to get the dolly in the air and get the tires off. Lieu found a tire company near by and we had a brand new set of tow tires in no time. Needless to say it wasn’t the most fun changing tires when it was 100 degrees out on the side of a freeway, but that’s how it goes sometimes.
Back on the road about a hour or so later, we were feeling good that our first major problem was solved quickly and effectively. So we continued but it was still the middle of the day. Little did we know but there are actually some mountains down in western Texas and driving through those in the bus when its 100 is a daunting task. Just short of overheating I was able to pull off the freeway onto a frontage road in front of a old broken down motel and gas station (you know the type like in the horror movies). We sat there for another hour or so and hooked up one of our fans to blast air through the radiator. Eventually it cooled off enough so we filled the radiator back up and took off again, crossing our fingers this time.
We finally were rolling for a while and we were 120 miles into the drive when disaster struck again. This time the loud pop came from the engine compartment, followed by a screeching low pressure alarm. Something in our air brakes system had broken. Upon inspection we realized it was just a small fitting hear the compressor. We drove 9 miles west to the nearest town (Kent, TX) and all that was there was a gas station. They actually had parts like our broken fitting but none that matched exactly. From there the next biggest “town” was Plateau, TX which was 12 miles west of Kent and also turned out to be just a gas station as well, but they had a 24 hour mechanic service. The lady inside called the mechanic and he said he didn’t want to come fix it. Eventually I managed to get the mechanics number from the attendant lady and I called him myself to try and explain our situation. He said we could talk about it if we drove into the real town (Van Horn, TX) 20 more miles west. He had already gone home for the day but he still wanted to help us out so he told us how to get there. We pulled up and he came out drinking a Miller Light and asked if we wanted to join him. Manuel was his name and he was the local mechanic. We followed him back to an old panel truck and he began digging through it for a replacement to our broken fitting. Eventually he rigged something together that would work but was different from our broken piece. All he wanted as a payment was a sixer of Miller Light, so we bought him a 12 pack. We shared a moment with him as we chatted about our adventures then we took off to go fix the bus.
It took awhile and it was getting dark but we eventually finagled the fitting into place and got back on the road with air pressure and everything. What a day and we weren’t even half way there. But the sage has yet to unfold. Ashley took the wheel as I was a little tired from fixing the bus twice already. She was driving for only 20 minutes or so and again we hear the same pop and pressure alarm as before. We assumed our piece broke and we were going to have to replace it again. After further inspection a larger copper pipe connected to the compressor had exploded. This obviously is a harder fix because you can’t just buy another pipe like this, but regardless it was like 10 PM on Saturday so everything was going to be closed until Monday morning and we were stuck on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, Texas. I called the insurance company to get road side assistance but they said no one could come get us until Sunday afternoon, but if we found someone ourselves we could get reimbursed for the tow. So instead of getting us a tow truck they sent a state trooper out to check on us. Luckily we had internet and Ashley was able to find a tow company that could come get us, as she was talking to them the statey showed up. He suggested the same tow company and he decided to put in a call himself to make sure they would come quickly. Hours pass as we clean the bus up a little bit and prepare to live from the car for a little while. The tow truck showed up, worked under the bus for 30 minutes and said “where are we going”. We responded “Fort Stockton” and he took off and we began to follow him in the car. We arrived in Fort Stockton, TX at about 4 AM and the tow truck driver hopped out of his vehicle disconnected the bus and said “it will be $450”. I went to hand him my card and he said, “cash only”. So we drove to a 24 hour ATM, Stephen got out some money. I went to pay the man but I knew I needed a receipt to get reimbursed, apparently he ran out of receipts because he jotted the info down on a small memo pad and handed it to me as a receipt. We passed out in the parking lot of the only truck service center in town.
Since it was Sunday nothing was going to be open and we had tickets to the Kenny Chesney concert in San Antonio 320 miles away. We decided to leave the bus behind and head for the concert. We drove to San Antonio, saw the concert and drove back immediately. (About 700 miles of driving in a 18 hour period.) Read about the concert on a separate blog and/or watch the video.
After passing out on the bus Sunday night (or 4 AM Monday morning) we were quickly awoken at 6 by a knocking on the door. Stephen woke me up and then everyone else continued to sleep. Blah blah blah taking with the mechanic and ultimately they had to make a new copper pipe for the bus and install it. The whole process took several hours though could have been done in 30 minutes. Over the course of the day I made friends with the mechanic and he told me about how he drove to Dallas on Saturday to see the Chesney concert, I thought it was ironic. Anyway a couple hundred dollars later we were back in action and they assured me it was just the pipes being old and not a problem with the compressor. To finish off the daylight and the heat we drove back west again to go to the state park that we initially planned for. It was a glorious escape from the heat as we went swimming in what appeared to be the only water source within 200 miles. Night finally came and we hit the road for the last 300 miles of the El Paso to San Antonio leg of the trip. What an saga, hopefully there is not many more of those on this trip.
-Carson
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