26/01/2023
Our trip home! WOW - what a day. I have never had such an exciting, intense, stressful and yet still fun adventure 😄
#8481 is home!! That’s the short story.
The long story is we loaded up FIRST out of everyone in Louisiana (6 hours away)… and just made it back home at 10:10 pm.
We stayed overnight at the ranch, so I got to see “Nova” then, and then got to watch them feed and set up in the morning. I backed our new-to-us 28 foot trailer up within 2 minutes (I was pretty surprised myself) and he and my sister’s gelding loaded up easy and quick!
We live about 6 hours away. We left at 9:20 a.m.
We stop for diesel and they are doing great, so we settle down for the first half of the trip.
About 2 hours down the road, our first adventure begins. I see pieces of something flying behind us… yep, it’s a blown tire. Not only blown, shredded. But wait - we have a spare! I pull over to the side of the highway and the boys calmly wait while we realize that the spare is, in fact, the wrong size.
And that the tire next to the disentegrating one is also in bad condition.
At which point we take off the busted tire, unhook from the trailer, and my sister and our friend drive to the nearest tire place (less than 30 minutes away) to get it replaced.
I wait on the side of the road with the geldings, and they literally almost fall asleep with 18-wheelers driving by at 70mph less than 10 feet away. I was impressed!
After an hour and a half (it took them longer to get back to us than to drive to get the tire) they arrive, we replace the tire, and rehitch the truck. At this point we have about 4 hours left in our trip, and it is 1:30 or so. We drive to the tire place, and wait to have the other tire replaced.
We can’t take them out of the trailer, so both of them got to be inside a mechanic place, complete with all the noises and motion. They both did amazing!
By the time we leave, with 4 hours left in our drive it is 3:00 - May I remind you that we left at 9:30 and only live 6 hours away? 🤦♀️
Shortly after leaving the tire place, something feels ”off” in the truck. I go to shift gears, and instead of going into drive, or neutral, there is a lovely jerk, smoke from behind us, and the truck just dies.
So we have no power steering.
We’re on the highway.
And the brakes are barely working as well.
We pass a (thankfully empty!) on-ramp, just rolling, and barely come to a stop less than 50 feet from a semi that was also pulled over on the side of the road 😳
I’d love to be able to tell you what was wrong, but we genuinely do not know. The truck started up, and drove off perfectly normal into the sunset!
That is - for another 2 hours. At which point the trailer feels heavy, and we begin to smell something… not good.
Hazards on yet again, we pull over to find… the right side tire shredded. Even worse than the other one.
At this point it is after dark. And most stores are closed.
Thankfully my dad (who we had called multiple times and who talked us through everything from home) was able to find a Walmart that had a tire center AND (almost) THE TIRE WE NEED, just 10 minutes away!
Once again, we remove the tire. This time by flashlight. And my sister and friend leave to drop it off, again leaving me with the trailer, the horses, and a lantern on the corner of the trailer so it visible (if you unhook a truck you don’t have lights).
At this point it is also much colder. And when an 18-wheeler drives by it doesn’t exactly feel like a balmy summer breeze.
Which is how I ended up stargazing and singing wrapped in a pink comforter on the side of the road with my phone held as a flashlight/taillight for the trailer 😂
30 or so minutes (+ numb fingers) later, they return. I forgot to mention that we were back in the state of Arkansas by now.
Arkansas has had a TON of rain recently.
Tire jacks sink into soft ground, especially when you are using a broken hammer as the lever stick and having to jump on it because you forgot to grab the actual pole for it 🤦♀️
Also, it’s a good idea to have a cinder block or board or something in the back of the truck.
Approximately one hour, 7 attempts and a bit of… discussion later, we were finally on the road. Again.
It may seem like a relief, but you may remember that there are 4 tires on a trailer of this size. By this point we have changed 3 of them. Today.
Also our left and right turn signals and brakes (which we completely rewired) stopped working.
So for the next 40 minutes we try to calmly drive towards home while praying the final tire does not leave us permanently stranded. When we get just under an hour from home, our heroes (dad and our brother) meet us and they drive the truck home so we can slightly relax and drive the SUV.
The rest of the way home is uneventful (thankfully!). The story doesn’t quite end here however.
I mentioned that Arkansas has had a lot of rain.
Our property in particular has had a lot of rain.
Our truck, amazing as she is… does not have 4 wheel drive.
So now it’s 10:30 at night. And we are STUCK in the mud. Halfway through the gate.
We just decide to forget that idea, and my sister and I bring 6 foot panels over and create a pen behind the trailer 😄
By 11:40 all of the horses are taken care of and set up for the night.
And that’s the story of how our ”6 hour girls trip to pick up our new mustangs” turned into a 15 hour adventure 😂
What’s the craziest trip you’ve been on?
