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Wayside_Wisdom
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OVERTIME WORK FOR OUR GUARDIAN ANGEL One of our cherished "going away" gifts, when we ‘hit the road’ in May of 2005, was a small, scented ceramic mobile. It was adorned by an charming little angel figure flying above the words: "Don’t drive faster than your guardian angel can fly!" That good advice has been easy to follow. As the price of fuel has gone steadily higher, research is finding that miles per gallon of fuel increase as speed slows! So, for the sake of our pocketbook, as well as the cruising speed of our guardian angel, we take our time and don’t exceed posted speed limits. Even so, there came a day when our celestial caretaker had to work overtime! We weren’t even out of familiar home territory when we had to wait at least 10 minutes at the intersection of Route 49 and Interstate 70. A paving machine, the size of a barn on wheels, blocked our lane of traffic and moved at a snail’s pace in its final pass over a new road surface. Surely it was only the cheerful influence of our heavenly hitch-hiker that kept us patient and in good humor! Merging onto the ‘Trotwood Connector,’ we remembered that eastbound Route 35 was still under construction in downtown Dayton! It was a vehicular obstacle course marked with "DETOUR" signs, but there was no way for us to avoid it! We needn’t have worried, though. Our guardian angel got there before we did, and with a cheery wave from atop every orange sign, she pointed the way to each next turn! Continuing east, we were amazed at the bumper crop of orange barrels growing along Ohio’s highways this year! "Left lane closed ahead - merge right." "Caution - narrow road shoulder." "SLOW DOWN! My daddy works here!" "No center line." "Right lane closed ahead - merge left." "Road Construction next 12 miles." "Traffic fines doubled in construction areas when workers present." "End Construction Zone." "Watch your speed. WE ARE!" Bright orange must be the fashion color of this year, at least on the roadways! Thru it all, our invisible little pilot from paradise perched herself on the driver’s shoulder and guided us safely in and out of the orange barrel forests! We sailed around the Washington Court House, Ohio, bypass without incident, admiring the hills of Ohio’s version of Appalachia. A few miles east, the road was littered with truck tire "gators", pieces of tread torn off of a blown-out 18-wheeler tire. We were immediately in a test of maneuverability! Guardian angel did her best at getting us thru the obstacles without hitting any! But, just as we passed the crippled semi stopped along the roadside, we hit a piece or two of those steel-belted radial "tire-gators"! A mile or two on down the road, we heard a suspicious little "pop." "What was that?" I asked, wondering if our guardian angel was popping her gum. Then I caught a glimpse in the rearview mirror of something the size and color of a little mouse dash left across the highway behind us. "Did you hit something?" asked Bruce. "Not that I’m aware of," I replied. "Then pull over and stop as fast as you safely can." There was some urgency in his voice! Our heavenly hitchhiker guided us quickly to a wide spot on the roadside and a quick glance confirmed Bruce’s suspicions: we had blown the left rear tire on the 5th wheel! The tread was peeled off three-quarters of the way around the tire and firmly wrapped around the brake mechanism on that axle! Now what? The rim of the wheel had not yet been damaged. So, we limped slowly to an entrance ramp that our winged watch-guard had caused magically to appear nearby. There we could get further off the road and out of traffic, allowing more space for making repairs. Questions raced thru my mind: How do you jack up a rig this big? How many people will it take? Do we have a jack? Do we have a spare tire? Where? (I’d never seen one!) Will we have to call auto repair road service? How much will that cost? How far are we from the nearest outpost of civilization? Are we stuck here for all time and eternity? I need not have worried! Between Bruce’s ingenuity and our guardian angel’s care, the tire was changed in 45 minutes and all my questions were answered. No, we don’t carry a jack for the rig, but we carry a collection of boards for leveling the rig on uneven campsites. That "woodpile" was quickly transformed into a kind of ramp that lifted the rig in a more stable way that a jack would have done! Yes, we have a spare tire and it rides up, in an almost invisible spot, under the floor of the rig. We were back on the road in less than an hour, driving slowly on our under inflated spare until we could stop for air. Our little celestial companion was probably glad for our more restful pace! We arrived at our destination – Lake Hope State Park near Athens, Ohio – an hour or two later than expected. We stopped several times along the way to insure that tire pressure on all ten of our tires was staying at a safe level. Unloading at the dump station, the Park Ranger said, "You might want to check the pressure in the right front tire on your rig. It looks a little soft." He was right, of course. It was down 15 pounds of pressure in our 30 minute drive! Whoops! We crawled into our campsite, set up, and removed two damaged tires from the rig. We put them to rest in the bed of the truck, ready for a ride to the tire store. Our invisible but ever-vigilant bodyguard went with Bruce to the tire store in the morning. They returned early in the afternoon with two new tires. As all three of us worked together to put those new tires on the rig, we noted a troubling sight: the left front tire on the 5th wheel was soft! It took two trips back to the tire store – a 36 mile round trip! – for the tire experts to find the hole in the sidewall of that 3rd tire! They should have listened to the Bruce’s hunch and our guardian angel’s wisdom on the first trip! So, early next week we will head south with three new tires on the rig! What a blessing these problems came up when we had time to deal with them and no deadlines to meet! Perhaps she is an angelic scheduler as well as a guardian! Should we offer her a pay differential for overtime? We certainly don’t want her to take a day off! mshr 8/26/2006 |