So, Creator willing, it's 20/20 it will only be 45 states with Kansas being number 45. Then depending upon whether James expect either to head West back to Lone Pine Whitney for several months to regroup, or more quickly South to Southern New Mexico to regroup.
Uncertain what comes next.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=1xMpdxE7z70Rm1V2GJ8QDJUxMByBt0odjhttps://drive.google.com/folderview?id=1xMpdxE7z70Rm1V2GJ8QDJUxMByBt0odj
Not complaining. James body is performing very well, Sol is performing very well, the weather is cooperating. But everything here is 50 miles apart in terms of reasonable stopping places and 40 miles a day is about the maximum of what this old body likes to do. We're tired, and sore. A marathon consumes 2400 calories as I understand it.
The goodness of these folks, of the owner Mike, is unlike anything I've hardly ever seen. Here. Seems that they saw a stranger trying to do something important and there was no end to the expertise or kindness or generosity. A great miracle for this mission. 30000 miles plus on this vehicle and creator may have many many thousands more miles in store for it. There were half a dozen opportunities for catastrophic failure and this shop brilliantly dealt with everyone that we knew of.
The country is almost literally out of bicycle tires until the spring and we are burning through trailer tires at an insane rate. So on top of all the axle work these last two weeks just to get it running that left the all-important alignment issue. Scouring for a shop that might be capable a week and a half ago using Google Maps I found one a hundred miles ahead of us where we landed this morning. Mike the proprietor, I don't know what touch them but something about the mission did and he made it clear that they would do whatever was needed. But what's the budget Mike? Will do whatever is needed. Was his answer. They're going to rebuild the entire axle assembly, the alignment was off by an entire inch they said.
I'm amazed that they covered the journey and were willing to put anything up. Of course they watered down a lot what I had to say but I don't begrudge them that. They are the only one that has tried in 14 months. 14 months, about 11,000 miles as I recall, and 39 state so far.
https://www.wkbn.com/news/local-news/eco-biker-makes-trek-across-valley-promotes-selflessness/
I think that's what happened to the truck repair crew here especially their boss. I'm quite sure they could get in substantial trouble for having worked on the vehicle like they have. They're only supposed to do trucks. But, and I'm purely guessing on my part, they saw someone trying to do something for the world they guessed and they didn't want it to fail. They tried to get the proper welding equipment and for a variety of reasons that didn't happen. So they found a site that one of them knew, I'm told they do race cars, they took it there, and just brought it back. I'm guessing it is way way way beyond anything I could have hoped for and certainly could have afforded by myself. Instead of the crude steel angle iron that I had supplied them with they decided that a thick strip of stainless steel running the entire length of the vehicle welded to the existing stainless steel angle iron was a better way to go so they just did it.
There's what I experience as an invisible economy. If you devote your life to trying to help the world no matter what, the world will let you die, but there are these invisible folks that don't even know they exist themselves, and their souls get touched, and they reach out just as you're about to hit the rocks. It is certainly not foolproof, and it's never something I have tried to activate. But the way I live does activate it. Sometimes. So far. So tomorrow morning we resume the journey.
By rights and rules I think this truck stop is taking the Bay Bridge with their company by trying to help. On that theory on Pleakley appreciative of their efforts. And doing other work on the vehicle while waiting.
Turns out that the axle of the trailer is a massive Achilles heel, and so far getting it right has eluded us. Getting the alignment right has been impossible so far and several weeks ago work introduced a weakness that only now are we detecting twice in the last two days the axle Has Broken. We're about to get towed 30 miles back to the shop that last worked on it. They seem to really care and are going to take another crack at getting it right. Bleeding to death financially. But of the 46th state goal at least we've done 40 so far, Illinois being 39.
Update. Well, we survived the tow, great guy, I'm optimistic that the guys when they can schedule me in around the big trucks will Implement something that will hold this time but if not we're probably done. This has been a really really dark juncture. Whatever Creator wants.
3 Day Facebook jail seems to have just ended. My guess is that they don't like my stances regarding Israel and are looking for any excuse to shut me down. You might want to subscribe to this blog page. Or book Mark it.
