Where The Rubber Meets The Road

I’m sitting here, relaxing at home after an eventful, pretty crazy, two day drive home from our annual Crested Butte Mountain Conference in Colorado. We had a fantastic week in the cool, crisp mountain air, refreshing and motivating as it always is.
  

But it was the drive home where our newfound serenity was tested.While in the mountains, Sue and I spent time together soaking up great speaker sessions, dining on Crested Butte’s finest cuisine, and cruising colorful Colorado on my ’98 Harley Davidson Fat Boy, which has logged more miles up there than in Texas.  You see, the asphalt up there is much cooler and the wind doesn’t feel like a 1400 watt blow dryer in your face.  So we love taking the bike with us to the mountains.  Now, if you like the idea of having your bike with you in Colorado, and unless you want to ride that beast 900 miles each way, you trailer it up there.  I used to haul it in the back of my giant Toyota Tundra, because it had an eight foot bed.  It worked great because you could close the tailgate with the whole bike inside.  But because of the height of that truckbed, there were some humorous, sometimes serious, loading and unloading episodes.  But since I traded down to a smaller Toyota Tacoma a couple of years ago with roughly half the truck bed of the big boy, trailering is the only way to go.  Thanks to my buddy, Ken, I was able to use his perfectly sized Magnum two wheeled trailer, complete with attached loading ramp.  Harleys tend to run in the 600-700 lb range, so pulling one behind you requires ample horsepower and experience.  I generally found the Tacoma up to the task, but noticed its 4.0 liter V6 was not the power wagon that was the V-8 Tundra.  Nonetheless, it did the job both ways for a total of around 1800 miles.

Crested Butte or BUST!!!

The following story chronicles the events of our drive home, which offered a number of useful life lessons. We were on the way back, and it was Sunday morning around 11am in Amarillo, Texas and I had just put the 2nd new tire on our trailer - both of which failed over a span of 50 miles - the first one North of Amarillo Saturday night about 7:00 p.m, and the other about an hour before.

There’s an interesting story about a used boat trailer tire that actually disappeared the night before, but I’ll get to that later.  We had departed Crested Butte just before 8am Mountain Standard Time to head home to Austin.

Driving to and from Colorado is hard.  People will often gasp when you tell them you drove that distance and you’ll hear something like “Holy cow, you DROVE?!”  I’ve heard this for years.   But, to be sure, this journey is not for the faint of heart - or the unprepared.  Driving to and from Colorado has been an annual event in my driving world since my freshman year at Abilene Christian University, and my Dad drove us back and forth my whole childhood...more than once in our 1972 Olds Vista Cruiser wagon with the faux wood sides and glass window across the top.   I bet we’ve trekked to and from there fifty times, skiing nearly every mountain in Colorado and New Mexico in the past 40 years.  Some trips have been more eventful than others.  I remember the time four of us recent college grads were in my 1981 Toyota long bed two wheel drive pickup with matching camper shell on back.  It was a particularly icy trip, with the freezing rain and sleet hitting us long before we got out of Texas.  Marcus was driving, PJ was copilot, and Mitch and I were fast asleep in the camper, getting some shuteye before our turn to drive.  Exactly where we were that night, I couldn’t tell you, but distinctly remember lucidly dreaming that we were spinning like a top up the highway somewhere in north Texas.  As Mitch and I  awoke from our slumber, we rolled over and exchanged that cringing look of fear, wondering what physical juggernaut might end up stopping this rotating Japanese beer can full of college dudes.  To our amazement, the Toyota came to rest with the rubber side still down, sans any crashing sounds or impacts.  I faintly remember Steely Dan still pumping through the Jensen 6 x 9’s in the back, against the silent stillness of the softly falling snow outside the truck.  I raised my head to look into the cab through the sliding back window in time to see a stunned Marcus shift the truck out of gear and turn off the key.  It was pitch dark, but we quickly surmised that we had crossed not only two lanes on the northbound side, but the ditch between, the two southbound lanes, and the ditch on the southbound side as well.  I’m imagining we looked something like Tonya Harding attempting her first double axel across a frozen pond during her childhood.  But I digress.  Suffice it to say I’ve had my share of entertainment during these grueling two day drives to colorful Colorado over the decades.

It was our first day on the return road trip and Sue and I had had a relatively uneventful drive thus far headed toward Texas.  Having just summited Monarch Pass, we weaved our way east down the Arkansas River Valley on Highway 50, noticing the unusually angry whitewater fueled by a huge winter snowfall and subsequent runoff season.  Within a few miles, we had rolled up on my favorite shortcut. 
 

If you ever find yourself at the wide spot in the road they call Cotopaxi on Hwy 50, you’ll see the familiar green dinosaur of the Sinclair brand, and you’ll find yourself at the Cotopaxi Store, which has been serving Coloradans since 1928.  This landmark is where Fremont County Road 1-A originates.  A right turn there guarantees to shave off a good chunk of time compared with continuing east on Hwy 50 through Canyon City to I-25, and to me, it’s one of the most beautiful roads in the state.It’s best when viewed from the saddle of a two wheeler, but not bad even through a Toyota windshield.  Sue kept suggesting I climb up on the bike in the trailer and while she drove, I could pretend I was riding the Harley and have a great experience.  I declined this offer, having just seen the Dennis Quaid commercial where he does the same in a commuter car on a trailer.  But we snorted and laughed at the thought several times when it came up.  Watching the gorgeous red granite rocks jutting up out of the craggy landscape, I was reminded how much I love this drive.  As the mountains became foothills, which eventually turned to a verdant valley, I remembered to keep an eye out for mule deer and elk.  This time, we only saw a small doe or two as we traversed the 1-A shortcut to Colorado Highway 69.

Small ranches with lots of horses and cattle dotted the valley through this fertile farmland.  In the distance we saw what we first thought was another herd of cattle.  But as we approached, we could tell that these beasts were more substantial than the bovine variety.
 

We were eventually close enough to see that we were looking at a huge herd of buffalo scattered across this wide swath of grassland outside of Westcliffe, Colorado. There must’ve been four hundred head grazing their way northwest across the valley against the backdrop of fourteeners, known as the Sangre de Christo mountains. bet we clicked two dozen photos looking at the bulls, mamas, and babies trudging across the pasture just over the electric fence from where we stood.  If only these magnificent beasts could speak, I wonder what tales their species would tell about what they’d seen in the early days of this great country.  My heart felt full seeing the proliferation of a species that once was almost extinct in America.  Good news, my friends!  The American Buffalo is alive and well in Fremont County, Colorado on some guy’s sprawling ranch. 

As we pulled back onto Highway 69, headed east, we felt escorted by those majestic mountain peaks standing in the background, like sentries guarding the bison herd in the Wet Valley.  The Sangre de Christos separate Westcliffe from The Great Sand Dunes to the west.  They run down through the Saguache Valley, eventually pointing the way to Taos, and then Santa Fe, New Mexico on the other side.  That southernmost tip of the Rockies provides one of my favorite views in this grand state.  We had miles to go before we slept, so we kept on trucking toward the halfway point home, the Holiday Inn in Amarillo.  Continuing into Walsenburg, Colorado, which is just inside the border from New Mexico, we stopped for lunch at a bustling downtown café serving piping hot brick oven pizza.  We settled on Caesar salads and grilled chicken, which were delicious.  But I kept wondering just how good that pizza was.  While circling downtown for this restaurant, we gawked at a dozen or more marijuana dispensaries within two city blocks.  Apparently, this formerly dried up little town had experienced a recent resurgence, due to their proximity to three states not legally obliged to serve the appetites of pot smokers inside their borders.  Walsenburg was the logical choice, and the purveyors of pot had descended upon it.  I can’t get over how many separate weed shops we saw.  It was like seeing casino after casino in Las Vegas.  Before we were tempted to “do a little gambling”, we gassed up and cruised over Raton Pass into New Mexico.  Not long after, we found ourselves in Texas, where the New Mexican roads disappear as a bumpy memory and we feel the asphalt smooth out and feel the speed limit rise to 75 miles per hour.  We were making good time as we rolled through Texline, Dalhart, and then Hartley, motorcycle trailer in tow.  The further we drove, the more we felt the temperature steadily rising toward the Texas summers we know so well.  Nonetheless,we were glad to be back on familiar soil.

Within a few minutes of feeling this happy familiarity, I noticed the handlebars on the Harley starting to shimmy and the trailer bouncing a little as we rolled into Channing, Texas, about 45 minutes north of Amarillo.  Not sure why we were experiencing this change in the rear view, we pulled off in the parking lot of the local Cowboy Church.  My quick roadside assessment revealed that our passenger side trailer tire had begun to delaminate.  That might sound technical, but suffice it to say that while it was miraculously still holding air, big chunks of the tread were gone and we had been rolling on a clunky combination of some tread and some steel belts protecting the air chamber up to this point.  We were face to face with the dreaded enemy of pneumatic tires: delamination - AKA tread separation.  You have probably seen - and perhaps run over - some chunks, slices, and slabs of truck tires on the interstate in your travels.  Those pesky road remnants are the result of exactly what I’m describing.  Not something you really want to learn about, much less experience.

Alas, we limped in to this little town called Channing, which except for the Cowboy Church, didn’t seem to have much going on.  We saw mostly failed oilfield pipe yards, dusty former farm fields, old falling down frame houses, and a few singlewides with tires on the roof.  It was right around then that I realized we were not carrying a spare tire for the trailer.  I mean, who thinks of things like that?  I told you I’ve been trucking my bikes in my truck bed all these years.  And that truck always has a solid spare underneath, but a trailer?  I guess an experienced trailer man would’ve thought of this.  As I stood there daydreaming of a matching spare, with the typical white spoke wagon wheel, bolted to the front of the trailer just behind the tongue, I found myself wondering why old single wides sometimes have old tires on their roofs?  (Rooves?  No, it’s got to be roofs.)  Somebody told me the weight of the tires help to hold the roof down during one of those pinpoint trailer park tornadoes.  OK, that makes sense.  I must say that in that moment, I found myself scanning those corrugated metal tops, as I needed a 13 inch trailer tire and even those roof dwellers were in my search criteria.  The custodian at the church was friendly and wanted to help, but said “everybody’s out of town” and couldn’t think of anyone who had a tire, much less a shop that could assist.  It was 15 miles back to the bigger hamlet of Hartley, and twice that far back to bustling Dalhart, and it was getting late on Saturday night.  It occurred to me I could unhook, park the trailer behind the church, sort out a new tire on Sunday in Amarillo, and return that next day to claim my trailered up Harley and head down the road to Austin.  But that process would’ve added a half day to an already all day drive on Sunday.  So, I filed that idea away and decided to walk around for a bit on the dusty vacant lot where we had parked.

Sue was in the truck with the AC blasting, wondering who knows what, and I was kicking dust and thinking.  I took a lap around an old corrugated metal building that looked like it was abandoned during the last Channing oil boom.  All locked up, I wanted to look inside for that black rubber donut I coveted, but instead settled for scanning the perimeter.  I spied an old boat trailer in the lot next door, but all four tires were flat.  What are the odds – all four tires flat?  But staring at that trailer, it occurred to me that in little redneck Texas towns, every old dude has some kind of trailer to tote his tractor, four wheeler, boat, or farm implement, and it’s usually parked behind his barn.  And one of them just might be able to solve this conundrum with an extra tire that matched our search criteria.  So, I jumped back in the Tacoma and slowly pulled across the highway to a little collection of frame houses and doublewides with dirt streets.  Sue caught on quickly and started calling out, “there’s one...and another...and there’s one that looks like ours!”  Of course, we would never think of stealing anything, so we knew we’d have to knock on a stranger’s door to have any chance of a solution.  So knock I did.  One door, two doors, I knocked with no answer.  I can only imagine what our little entourage looked like to these normal everyday small town folks.  “I ain’t answering that door...he looks like one of them city slickers, and I ain’t fooled by that pearl snap western shirt he’s wearin’!  Besides, I’m in the middle of Matlock and it’s gettin’ to the good part!”

I kept circling the two or three dirt streets between a half dozen houses, scanning for the perfect tire.  Voila!  I spotted a crooked pile of dusty old tires and wheels off the bow of an old bass boat that had a faded For Sale sign on it.  I could see what looked like one or two thirteen inch wheels in the bunch.  So, once I identified which house I believed went with that pile o’ tires, I let myself in the chain link fence and strode up the concrete walk in my best flip flops to the front door of this sort of well broken-in Channing residence.  After my second firm knock on the door, holding the screen door open, an old guy appeared at the door.  Sock footed, he stood there in his Wranglers, looking at me with a half pack of cigarettes weighing down the breast pocket of his plaid western shirt with the tail half in and half out.  I sensed he was sizing me up through the screen door as I spouted off our tale of woe and our need for something he just might have.  I could hear the TV in the background and I sensed I was interrupting his Saturday night show.  But he listened with marginal interest.  I guess I was talking fast, so he asked me to repeat myself a time or two: “Now where are you guys coming from?  And where are you going?  And what’s wrong with your trailer?”  So I repeated the story of our plight and he seemed remotely tuned in to what I was saying.  I told him I was in a bind and had spotted his old pile o’ tires, wondering if one of them might be a five hole thirteen inch wheel with a tire that would work for us.  He said, “Well, go have a look and see what’s out there and I’ll get my shoes.”  I trotted over to the tires, which were in front of the boat and next to the stable with two beautiful horses standing guard.
 
His name was Ralph Stewart and he was a nice old guy with a simple, but tidy place and two or three working vehicles under his carport.  As I approached the tires, I could see a couple that were possible fits.  But it appeared they’d been out there a long time.  By then I saw Ralph coming around from the back and I heard him say something but couldn’t make it out.  I hollered back that I saw two that were thirteens, but only one that was holding air.  I rolled it over to his dusty shop, scanning for his air compressor.  I found the large red Craftsman hiding under four or five layers of North Texas dirt.  You see, I happen to know that all country boys have a compressor in their shop – heck, half of their gear around the place has pneumatic tires, so you can easily see why.  He came over and plugged in a hundred foot cord from the house, mumbling something about a blown fuse panel out in the shop.  That cord looked like it had lain there for ten years.  But it worked like a charm and that loud compressor fired up.  On one knee, I pushed that inflator onto the valve stem and once I managed to blow the spider webs and dust off it, I saw it begin to inflate.  When I got to 35 pounds of air, I rolled it over to the trailer, which was parked around front.  It was picking up stickers the whole way.  Three or four of them were trying to stick me good, but I fought them off with a combination of thumping and slinging.  Those weren’t my first sticker burrs.  I grew up in Conroe where you size up a grassy front yard every time you take a summer stroll across one, or else you pay the price.  About the time I realized the old tire was a perfect match and let out a little “yahoo!”, Ralph rounded the chain link fence and joined the celebration.  He mumbled that he had not been able to find his floor jack, which would’ve made this process easier for sure.  After unloading the back seat of the truck, I found my little Toyota bottle jack under the seat and began pulling the other tools out as well.  Ralph handed me a length of two by six to put under the jack as I walked over and knelt in the dirt in front of the bad tire.  I didn’t mind that dusty little road in front of his house one bit, even though it was sticking to my sweat making me one muddy dude.  I got it jacked up, took off the bad wheel and tire, and replaced it with Ralph’s old boat trailer tire and wheel.  That sucker fit like a glove, which both surprised and delighted me and Ralph.  I dug around in my pocket with greasy hands and pulled out twenty five bucks and offered it to him.  He accepted with a handshake, we exchanged pleasantries, and after Sue had bid goodbye to the two beautiful horses behind Ralph’s place, we loaded up and waved as we drove away.  I found myself a little hot and dirty, but my spirits were soaring that we had found a solution to a fairly specific and difficult problem - just by pushing through some discomfort and fear around meeting some strangers and asking for help.  So as we turned back out onto the little two lane highway, we realized we were back on the road to Amarillo.  High five!  We were looking at 45 minutes to our waiting hotel reservation.  All was back right in our world.

I could see Sue exhale, showing me for the first time that she had been a little worried.  She’s such a great lady – always ready to face and deal with a challenge – and sometimes it sort of glosses over the reality that she might be feeling a bit insecure about our situation in a given moment such as this one.  I mean, I realize that being stranded in what feels like the middle of nowhere causes humans to feel unsettled, perhaps unsafe, and if I’m honest I have to say that for me, there was a moment where I felt pretty rattled too.  But I’ve noticed that my dude genes kick in and I move into problem solving mode before I get too distraught.  And after a few of these adrenaline releasing experiences, I’ve found that old collection of problem solving moments actually helps to overcome about some of these long held fears, old ideas, and negative beliefs.  I felt a sense of satisfaction as we tooled on down that bumpy little country road.

It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes of bliss...when we both started to hear a funny noise over The Police’s Zenyatta Mondatta album thumping from the pair of ten inch subs behind the back seat of the Tacoma.  I clicked the mute button on the steering wheel to listen for the odd sound.  It was a high pitched whine, not to be confused with the melodic and stylish tenor of Sting's silky smooth voice, and I saw the Harley start to quiver a little across her handlebars in the trailer.  About that time, Sue informed me that she saw what she thought was smoke coming up from the back of the trailer near the right side tire we had just put on 15 minutes before in front of Ralph's place.  Still incredulous, I slowed way down and tried to pull over as I proclaimed that there was no shoulder on this “hick ass country highway".  I was feeling stressed out again as I could see impatient drivers gaining on me in the rear view mirror.  So, with no better solution in sight, I moved over to the right, dragging the trailer thru the 3ft tall weeds for a few hundred yards, finally pulling off in the shoulder-less thicket.  Dreading what I was sure to find back there at the trailer, I made my way around the front of the truck to the passenger side.  The flashing glow of the red hazards against the tall weeds lighted the way as I goosestepped past the hitch to the right rear wheel in my flip flops.  By then, Sue and I were both standing at the site of the former trailer tire we’d bought off ol’ Ralph back in Channing, staring in disbelief at the complete absence of a tire and realizing we had been rolling on a 13" steel rim without any tire left on it.  About that time, the four Amarillo bound trucks that had stacked up behind me aggressively blew by us, damn near clipping the back of the trailer - no doubt Saturday night revelers headed into the big city for some drinkin' and two steppin’ at the local dance hall.  That was a sand blasting close call we could've both done without. 

Look ma!  No rubber here.

Rolling directly on a rim was a new experience for me.  Nevermind that's the fastest I’ve seen 25 bucks go up in smoke since my brief visit to those two dollar Black Jack tables in Vegas last time. 

After a moment of pure frustration, bordering on resignation and despair, I took our old failing tire - which miraculously was still holding air -  bolted it back on, and proceeded to limp down the road toward Amarillo.  By now it was dark out and we were crawling along at 25mph, hoping we didn't get rear ended by a Saturday night meth head on the way to his dealer.  Somehow, by the grace of God, we rolled into the Holiday Inn on our original tire with the half - separated tread, but still holding a little air.  Thank God we got a decent night's sleep on the brand new bed in the brand new hotel Sue had booked earlier.

You gotta love those little serendipities that come along in the middle of otherwise messed up circumstances.  Sue thought ahead to book a room at the brand spankin’ new Holiday Inn we passed while leaving the parking lot of our ratty hotel in Amarillo a week before on our way up.  For about ten bucks more, we were going to lay our weary heads on pillow perfection, wrapped in sparkling crisp white sheets at the brand newest hotel in town.  Way to go, Sue!  After some online searching for tire shops open Sunday, I found we had 3 options.  The next morning, the first two options fizzed out like a flat Coke, but lucky for us, good 'ol Walmart came thru in the clutch.  Turns out they carry the pre-mounted wheel and tire that fit this trailer exactly.  Sue recommended I buy two tires while I was there, which was quite a safe and thoughtful idea, but when Shirley rang it up at $120 apiece, I balked and purchased only one to replace the bad tire on the passenger side.  I bounded out of the Walmart totin' the sweet rubber booty on my shoulder and shot back over to the hotel with newfound zeal and anticipation of hittin' the road to Austin.  While it was still crisp and cool - as it is on most Amarillo summer mornings - I installed the new wheel and tire on the bleached perfection of Holiday Inn's brand new concrete parking lot.  Between sips of delicious steaming hot hotel coffee from my Yeti, I swapped out that shredded spare for the fresh-off-the-shelf Walmart replacement.  When all five lug nuts were snug, I took my greasy hands inside and showered up.  Freshly clean and with our overnight bags packed, I hitched the trailer back up, and off we went on the eight hour journey back to the ATX, with our new tire and wheel performing like a champ.
There is something satisfying about solving one's presenting problem successfully and then continuing life’s journey. Even when it's just a tire and wheel on a road trip to Colorado and back.  Sue and I exchanged a pleasant smile, acknowledging our good fortune, and she picked out some tunes and cued up Spotify.  Life was good...again.  I'm guessing we had traveled about three miles in this zen-like state, when both of us suddenly sat bolt upright, simultaneously viewing the side-mirrors after hearing a now familiar popping, slapping sound, only this time emanating from the driver's side where the remaining original trailer tire rolled.  In a matter of seconds, the popping and slapping completely drowned out the music and I began to see rubber chunks bouncing and flying into the air behind us. With our new found knowledge of trailer tires and their propensity for failure - we both knew what was happening.  Almost unbelievably, we were at failure number three, and what's worse?  I could hear the lovely lilt of Sue's sweet voice wafting through my recent memory saying, "Hey...why don't you just get two?"  Ugh.  I pulled off onto the shoulder and discovered that our instincts were right on - the remaining original tire had completely disintegrated, looking like what you'd see on the wheel of the losing driver from the original Mad Max movie after having faced off with Mel Gibson’s character.  We. Were. Done. Again.

There's this moment that comes after the 2nd and 3rd, may be 4th good punch, when a fighter wonders if he might be getting ready to go down.   Sometimes I see that fighter gather himself and come back with a flurry, letting his opponent know that this is NOT his knockout moment.  Other times, that wobble is a signal that the end is near.  A friend of mine told me that Mike Tyson once said, “everybody’s got a plan ‘til they get punched in the mouth.”  I don't mean to be dramatic, but for a moment when I was looking at that shredded tire,  I was feeling like I’d been punched right in the kisser.  I wobbled for a minute, but somehow, I sort of gave myself that quick talkin’ to, like the fighter always gets from the corner man while he’s dabbin’ the eyebrow with that fat stick thing and smearing Vaseline across the cheekbones.   And I guess it worked, because I got up, shook my head, and reentered the fray.

Having just inventoried the trailer tire section at our trusty Walmart, I knew instantly that they had what we needed - for a mere $120.  So, in spite of the risk in leaving my prized Harley on an Amarillo highway unattended, I unhitched the trailer on the shoulder of Loop 335, clamped down the tongue lock, and headed for Walmart.  Katie was holding the tire for me when I got there.   She rang it up and I threw down the credit card.  This was the third time I’d paid someone for a trailer tire in the last twenty four hours, and that trailer only had two wheels!  Sue was waiting in the Tacoma as I exited the Walmart out the back door of the Tire and Auto Center.  I dribbled the tire up-and-down on the parking lot a couple of times on the way to the truck as if to show my girlfriend that, even in the face of this adversity, I somehow still had it.  I'll skip the part about the unmarked detour on the way back to the stranded trailer. Damn Amarillo detour sign makers.  Eventually, we were back on Loop 335 headed west when I spotted the abandoned Harley.  We eased up behind the trailer we had left half on half off the paved asphalt shoulder.   Call it learning from my experience, or pure pessimism, but I had left all the tire changing tools in the bed of the trailer for easy access instead of unloading the back seat and reinstalling them inside.  So setting my tools out this time was quicker and easier, which was fortunate, since by then, that crisp cool morning had given way to the ninety degree noon sun.

It crossed my mind that I had expressed a happy little thank you prayer after our experience with Ralph and The Lucky Trailer Tire (prior to the impending tire failure, of course)
So for the second time in about twelve hours, I asked myself the question, "was the Good Lord that I had decided was ‘really good’ just outside Channing… still good?"  Whether I like it or not, this always crosses my mind when used boat trailer tires disintegrate into the atmosphere while towing my 700 lb Harley Davidson.  I decided I’d just have to settle that theological conundrum at a later time, when I wasn’t trying to break loose the lug nuts that I, myself, had torqued well beyond recommended spec, lest they loosen and eject the wheel.  So I shelved that thought for the moment.

The roaring semis sandblasted my sweaty, shirtless body as I cranked up the little Toyota bottle jack for the fourth time in less than a day.  Vague stories, perhaps urban legends, plowed through my mind as I lay under the trailer on the heated asphalt.  I’d heard of guys like me getting cut in half by a swerving texter while changing a tire on the highway.  But I couldn’t concentrate with such worrisome thoughts.  So, I blocked ‘em out and managed to remove the shredded original driver’s side tire and wheel and replaced it with the brand new Walmart model in record time.  I was definitely breaking a sweat, but it wasn’t burning my eyes and drenching my shorts this time.  When I secured our load, double checked everything, and jumped back in the cab, Sue handed me two baby wipes.  The dirt and grime destroyed the first two wipes and we pulled away as I worked over two more.  We were on our way at just after 12:30 pm, with a projected ETA of 8:30 pm in Austin.  Yes, we were considerably behind schedule, but we were safe, back on the road, and not too much worse for wear.  We even had a few laughs about Sue’s smoking trailer comments the night before.

This is a great place for me to make a final point.  If you’re going to go to the trouble to have a girlfriend, find one who doesn’t take herself too seriously.  I don’t know if I chose differently this time, or just got lucky.  But when we’re driving together and find myself out of sorts and beginning to coach the Austin drivers who clearly DO NOT understand the purpose of traffic flow, she just laughs.  She doesn’t shame me for being a guy that people look to for help or wisdom at times, and that “should know better than to act that way”.  She just laughs.  And eventually, I laugh.  Then we both laugh and before I know it, whatever that burr under my saddle was – it has disappeared and we have moved on to greener pastures.  Sue simply refuses to ‘should’ on me.  Ever.  And it has made me much happier and much more fun to be around, no matter the circumstances.  Some of you have heard this but I’ll tell it once more. 
I swiped right on Tinder because her profile said, “My drug of choice is caffeine, and I must confess a mild obsession with brisket.”  On top of her great sense of humor, she was smart, beautiful, and I was hooked.  We met – for coffee, of course, which is also MY drug of choice – and the rest is history, mostly funny history.  I’m lucky we’ve been together for over two years now.   So when you find yourself choosing a partner – one with whom you’re likely to travel the roads of this life – man, find somebody who makes you laugh, and someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously.  In my opinion, this is where the rubber meets the road.  And then, sit back, and enjoy the ride.