Still Moving

2/6/17
Still moving. Seems like a never ending process that started nearly 1 1/2 years ago. My final move is approaching, just 8 weeks away. It coincides with the big mule gathering at High Knob camp near my new home. So I asked my friend and fellow mule owner Amy if she might use her trailer to haul the rest of my belonging to Illinois and I would haul her mule along with my horse in my trailer. Her trailer is a 4 horse, mine a 2 horse. I was thinking I could get the rest of what I had here in her larger trailer. After taking stock of all I still had here in Maine, I realized there was no way we'd get it all in her trailer. I asked Amy if she might be willing to make a run to Illinois with me with my truck and trailer and a load of stuff the first week of February. She said she would go with me. February is a tricky month weather wise to plan trips. And my truck has been a bit of a challenge with mechanical problems since I've owned it. But, after the latest repair and having a two different mechanics go over it and declare they thought it fit for the trip, Amy and I decided at the last minute to go ahead with the trip. Amy couldn't leave until today and there was a storm coming in. But, if we took the route down through CT and through PA, it looked like we would miss it or at worse only hit a bit of rain. I had scrambled to get my horse trailer loaded with the help of another friend, Mary-Jo. Sunday night I got the trailer all dug out of the snow and ice with a little help from Roger, the owner of the place where I'm keeping the trailer. So, we were ready to hit the road Monday morning. We headed out around 10:30 am.

At our first fuel stop in MA, the truck was acting a bit funny. Felt like something going on in the front end. Kind of like when the 4 wheel drive is not quite disengaging. I'm so paranoid about the truck now that we nearly turned around and went home, but didn't. Onward we went. Truck seemed fine out on the road. At successive fuel stop, I started feeling something weird going on in the rear end of the truck. Not so much a noise as feeling like there was some slipping. Not major and still seemed fine going down the road so we continued onward. We had not decided if we would drive straight through or not. We figured we'd play that by ear depending on any weather we hit and how we felt. I did want to get at least 1/2 way before stopping. I did all the driving today. We had a bit of excitement in Scranton, PA. On the 2 lane change from I-84 to I-81, in the dark and curving to the left suddenly we spot a large flattish unidentified object in the highway right ahead of us. I started to swerve around it and realize I can't due to traffic in that lane. ACK! Amy shouts, "it's a tarp" at which point I decide it would be safer to run it over than make any dangerous efforts to avoid it. We roll over the very large tarp and it makes a LOT of noise leading us to imagine the worst. Amy peers into the side mirror and tells me we are dragging the tarp. I pulled over right away and we got out to investigate. Our horror quickly turned to delight as we saw there was no damaged to either my truck or trailer AND we had managed to hook a HUGE heavy duty truckers tarp on my trucks leaf spring! We freed the tarp, pulled it out from under the truck, dragged it to onto the grass, folded it up and put it in my trailer. And it took both of us to lift it, it was heavy! We were delighted to have scored a truckers tarp! We are not normal women.  It was nearly 1 am when we finally hit some rain. The temps were in the low to mid 30's driving through the western mountains of PA so we quickly decided to stop. We pulled off the highway in Clarion, PA which is just about exactly the half way point in the drive. We followed signs for a Super 8 Motel. The motel was back off the road a bit and as I was driving up to it, it seemed strangely dark. And we didn't see any cars in front of the units. And then we realize we are driving on unplowed snow and ice..... and now praying we can turn around. We ended up in a small parking area behind the motel and the only other vehicle there was a very sketchy looking one backed into the bushes. We turned around and went right back out and pulled into the Monroe Heights Motel. It looked nice from the outside, in the dark.....Looks can be deceiving.  It was a fairly low budget motel but we took a room anyway. It served the purpose. It was clean enough and didn't have any bugs and the people there were very nice. Mostly the place was in need of some updating. It rained all night and Amy enjoyed the sound of the water running through the drain pipe on the outside wall that was just a few feet away from her head.

2/7/17
We were up fairly early this morning. We had a quick breakfast at the motel and headed out. It was still raining lightly but that didn't last long. It was warm enough to not have to worry about any ice or snow. We stopped for lunch at a Cracker Barrel along the way. Can't remember where it was and then we just kept moving right along for the most part. Amy drove most of this day. I didn't want to let her miss the fun of driving through Cincinnati or Columbus or Louisville. We could still feel something going on with my truck when we were maneuvering around at low speeds but it was going well on the highway so we tried not to worry too much about it. We fueled up the last time when we got off the highway in Illinois, just an hour north of my house on Rt. 1. All seemed to be the same with my truck there. When we got out of the truck at my house, we knew there was a big problem with my truck. We could now smell it. We knew the rear end was toasted. Sigh.... We had just missed Fred. He'd waited as long as he could be he'd had to leave for work. He said he saw us pass him on Rt.1. It was too late when we arrived to worry about the truck or the stuff in the trailer so we just went in the house and settled in. Poor Bubba was torn between being happy and freaked out.

2/8/17
Fred got home early Wednesday morning. I was so happy to see him!  We all went over to Delbert and Ruth's farm to feed the animals. This is the neighbor where Lily is. Delbert and Ruth are in FL right now and Fred is taking care of their animals while they are gone. Amy and I walked over and Fred drove over with Bubba. Fred showed us the routine for feeding. Fred went back to the house as soon as the horse and mules were in their stalls eating. Amy and I stayed to let them out. It was cold today and it was sleeting a little as we were walking back to the house. I contacted Delbert to see who he recommended I take my truck to. He told me to take it to Bishop Enterprises in Harrisburg. I called them and they said to bring the truck right over and they would look at it as soon as they could. Amy followed me over in the car. I parked the truck, and it would not start again. Wonderful..... We left Bishops and decided to go to the BBQ Barn for lunch. Then we went over to Wal-Mart to pick up some groceries. I was bummed about the truck and we were thinking we would end up going back to Maine with the car or the Ranger and might have to leave my truck and trailer in Illinois. We also started to hear talk of a big snowstorm that was going to hit Maine so we would have to plan carefully on what days to travel. We got back, put the groceries away and went over to feed the animals. They were still acting a bit silly but we got them sorted out much quicker tonight.

To be continued on the next post......