Dallas to SD aka Blowouts, Rainstorms, and Ants (Oh My) – Part 2

In my last post (Part 1) we left off with fire ant foot frenzy standing on the embankment of I-20 West Boonyville, Texas…

Thankfully after what seemed like hours of waiting we see a tow-truck pass us on the freeway going East and we were hoping that was our guy. A few minutes later we see it was indeed our tow truck savior and he’s heading at us this time so we start to make our way back to the coach. After some wrangling (evidently it’s not so super simple rigging an RV to tow – who knew) we’re hitched up and ready to roll. Only problem is he had to back down the freeway to latch up the RV from the rear. So now we’re facing the wrong way and have to drive down the tiny shoulder of the freeway going against traffic all the way to the next exit with 18 wheeler’s barreling at us head on. Yee-haw?

We make it to the exit intact, he swings that bad boy around, and we are heading West again. Yay. It was a Sunday afternoon and the tow truck driver was working on call so he’d come from his house and brought his teen son with him on the trip. They were both extremely nice but, how to put this.. well, it’s obviously just a bit different living in the country. The poor kid had some learning challenges not to mention A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. (one of the first things dad told us about him) which were in full effect the entire trip. Between stories from dad about some local guy Molotov Cocktailing his gf’s work (a convenience store) while she was in it and then proceeding to drag her out choking her – only to then be shot by the police (not to worry though he’d thought ahead and had a bullet proof vest on) the kid was flipping every switch in the truck constantly stopping only to playfully slap and punch dad (who is DRIVING A MOVING VEHICLE WITH OUR HOUSE ATTACHED!!!). (Run-on sentence noted)

This unbelievable scene continued to play itself out mile after mile and was only paused when the tow truck started to emit a shrill volume 10 beeping sound at which time dad would stop his story, son would stop hitting him and they’d both start coaxing “her” (the tow truck) telling her she could make it, she could do it, c’mon girl…WTF. Yeah, so turns out the tow rig had recently been injured and had sprung some sort of major fluid leak but hadn’t been fixed yet. The beeping was evidently a signal of severe overheating but our pair were undeterred. After enough loving encouragement the beeping would cease and the stories and flailing would resume. This happened at least 3 times on the drive and I know Bree was thinking the same thing I was. If this was in a movie people would scoff at it being over the top and completely unbelievable, nobody would buy it, “nothing like that would ever really happen in real life” they’d say. 3 words for y’all. Go to Texas.

We make it one piece to the Firestone in Abilene and after a few hours, 6 new tires, and about $1000 later, we are back in action. I’m so happy to be driving on all new tires because merely a few miles out of town we go from completely dry and sunny to hitting one of the most intense downpours I have ever been in. It seemed like instantly there was over an inch of water across the entire roadway, visibility was almost nothing, and the situation went to Defcon scary as shit.

White knuckled and adrenaline flowing it was a few minutes of slight terror and then it just stopped as quickly as it had started. Everything went dry as fast as it had gone wet and I had just experienced/survived my first dance with a Texas supercell storm. We ended up driving through another one not long after but I was prepared (and ahem… way more experienced) this time around so the trauma level had decreased considerably. I was able to snap the picture I used  for this post with my iPhone while I was driving (Bree was sleeping) of yet another supercell later that same afternoon. They sure are beautiful to look at but I recommend trying to avoid driving through them :)

There was an intense but breathtaking lightning storm that started at dusk and lit up the skies over El Paso and into New Mexico keeping us entranced until we reached our stopping point for the night in Las Cruces. We overnighted there in a Wal Mart parking lot with some other travelers and a few semi trucks. We awoke the next morning to clear beautiful skies and a picturesque view of Organ Mountain’s jagged peaks catching the warm light of sunrise. At that moment I could sense the romantic notion of a life on the road swelling inside and I was excited for the adventures that lay ahead.

Tally-Ho…

Nomad,
Matt