Back in Texas

After a little unplanned adventure in Oklahoma we made it to Texas, spending last night in Madisonville, about 100 miles north of Houston.

In Oklahoma our GPS routed us on State Highway 63, a shortcut from westbound US 270 to southbound US 69. This was a state highway after all, how bad could it be? The answer, we found out, is pretty damn bad. State Hwy 63 is 22 miles of rough two-lane blacktop with no shoulder, lots of 90 degree blind curves, and two one-lane bridges.

About 5 miles into this shortcut the left rear leaf spring on MoMance broke causing the axle to shift, tires to start rubbing together, and no telling what else. I didn't realize it in the truck and would have continued driving, but lucky for us Tonya was following in the car and saw something was amiss. She tried calling me (no cell service) then passed me in a no passing zone (it's all a no passing zone) honking her horn. I stopped where I could, which was right in the middle of my lane.

Fortunately there was very little traffic at this time of day. More good luck as there were two nice young guys who stopped shortly after we did, jumped out of their truck, and hit the ground. They spotted the broken spring before I did, and since they had experience with ranch and oilfield trailers, knew immediately that I was going to have to pull both wheels off the back axle, tie up the broken side, and run on the other 4 wheels to somewhere I could get it fixed. They helped pull off and load the wheels; the shock held the broken side up off the ground so we didn't have to tie it up. I will be passing their help forward at the very first opportunity.

We eased on at about 20 mph for about 14 miles when one of the four tires I was running on picked up a nail and started leaking air. Luckily, our tire pressure monitoring system alerted me so I knew it was getting low before it blew out. With only one tire left on that side (meant to have three) it wouldn't have been long before we had no tires on that side. A side road suddenly appeared so I could change it without being in the "highway" (I just happened to have a couple of good tires in the back of the truck).

Just around the next curve we found Pittsburg, a town of a few hundred people, an out-of-business bar, a gas station (with convenience store) that doesn't take credit cards, and a bar that is in business. We pulled into the parking lot of the out-of-business bar and decided to make our repairs there. Lucky for us all we had to do was crank up the generator and we were home for the night. After setting up I went on a fact-finding mission to the local watering hole. After a few beers and a few games of pool I got some leads on where to get a spring, and also found out that country singer Reba McEntire graduated from high school three miles up the road in Kiowa OK, although she doesn't claim that as her hometown. I was playing pool with a guy that had dated her sister, Suzy Q.

On Tuesday morning I found a spring in McAlester, only about 15 miles away, and got a new tire (the nail had punctured the outside edge of the tread which means it wasn't repairable). In the afternoon I installed the new spring and replaced the wheels. We decided just to go to an RV site in Reba's unclaimed hometown for the night and hit the road again on Wednesday. I guess the repair job is okay since we traveled 300 miles and nothing fell off.

I would say all in all things turned out great. We avoided some potentially really bad problems, got to meet several nice people, found a state highway not to take, and were home every night.