ODO: 346,683
The truck still isn’t ready. Another hotel day and night.
Back to the mechanic the following morning, only to discover they still haven’t fixed the truck. There is a hitch in the gears, so Berne sends everything back across town (how many times is this now?!) for the gear guy to fix again again again. Which means one more hotel night. We find an Aloft for around 6000 Marriott points (which is almost nothing), that happens to be across the street from some of the best Chinese food we’ve had in ages. We walk our food back to the hotel and settle in for the night.
At 7:30 am we are outside of the mechanic, waiting for them to open. Our early arrival is to see if we can finally get out of here. Time is running out, we fly out of here soon, and need to know if we have to schlep back some parts. Berne is whisked away to the gear guy right away. He discovers that everything was initially put together loose (this is bad), and yesterday the gear guy once again did a bad job fixing it. After his visit with Berne, the gear guy says he understands now, and it will be fixed properly. Berne brings back parts, so now we install and test. The test does not go well. The rear end is making a different noise this time. Berne and the owner go for a quick ride. They are in disagreement over the cause. The owner thinks it just needs some miles to calm down, Berne is unconvinced. We have the weekend to drive around and see what happens. We head out of town, partly to get some miles, partly to get away from the city, to a campground that is also part animal rescue. We arrive late, so animals will have to wait for the morning.
Its hot today. And we have stuff to do to get ready to fly on Monday. First up, the cab of the truck gets a good cleaning and reorganizing. Nothing better than coming back to a clean house. The camper gets a good reorganize too, that opens up a lot of new storage space. This is good and bad…We have room for more, but everything isn’t tightly packed anymore, so might get damaged as it thrashes around. While our laundry washes, we relax in the pool. This is where we meet Loki, the rescue monkey. He’s essentially a toddler on drugs. He messes with the cats, steals Berne’s empty cigarette box and beer can, and is generally a menace. But also very cute, and seems to love laying on Berne’s arm, while licking him and staring into his eyes. Maybe the monkey is a little creepy. We do a couple rotations through the pool between chores until it cools down enough to make some dinner, and head inside for the night.
We did three loads of laundry yesterday. Today we have one last load. Which we sit in the pool while it washes. And of course, play with Loki more. And the dogs. And the cats. The only animals we don’t play with are the horses. Final travel prep: clean out the fridge (because we cant trust that the power we leave the truck plugged into will stay on the entire time), pack our bags, and put clean sheets on the bed. Once we feel good about the state of things, we head back into Asuncion to store the truck. The noise from the rear end does not go away. It gets a little better, but not better enough. Shoot. After we put the truck in storage (it’s always stressful to leave the keys with a stranger), we head for a hotel.
It’s 4am. Thunder and lighting disrupt the early morning quiet. No rain yet. Hopefully this storm passes, since we are on our way to catch a flight. The international airport in Asuncion is small, like it only has a handful of gates, small. Just as boarding starts, KoKo gets called out of line to identify something strange in her luggage. After a few minutes of unproductive back and forth, they escort her down to the bowels of the airport to figure this out in person. Four pound wrist weights look questionable in the x-ray machine. We are the last people on the plane. Flight number one is very uneventful into Panama City, everyone sleeps. Our second and final flight is so empty each person on the plane could have a full row, both sides of the aisle, if they want to. And is also delightfully uneventful. We arrive around 8pm local time, head straight to the hotel and go to bed without dinner.
Wake up. Shuttle to the airport. Fly into Medford. Uber to the tire shop. Pick up a truck and trailer. Drive to the Farm. Our next several days are going to be spent driving back and forth between Medford and Woodburn to move Berne’s things off of the farm he grew up on. Once at the farm, we park the trailer in the back, and go for a wander. We survey what’s where, and make a plan for what needs to happen to everything. Then hotel. Then dinner. Then sleep.
