The trip from hell

We headed out for two new shows, Minneapolis Quilters in Duluth, MN and NQA in Columbus, OH on 6/1/9. We thought it would be our normal uneventful trip. Boy, were we wrong!

It started with Greg blowing a hole in the black tank. We dripped sewage through Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota. The insulation in the underbelly was soaked and the bottom cover is destroyed. The good news is that our insurance (Safeco) will cover the repairs with only a $250 deductible. Our Safeco policy evidently has a "stupid" clause in it.

The Duluth show was downright AWFUL!! I heard they only had an attendance of 5,500 this year, as opposed to the 10-15,000 they claim to draw.

We got to Columbus, OH after skirting a few "thunderstorms that could turn into tornadoes". When we got here, Greg noticed a problem with our axle. The tires on one side were separated by 1 1/2", on the other 5 1/2". $760 later we had an axle that worked. The guy that repaired it said the axle on one side had totally separated from the trailer. An L-bracket had torn in two. The only thing holding the tires on the pavement was the weight of the trailer.

While it was in the shop, we decided to do a little sightseeing. There's a district called Short North that's filled with all kinds of highly rated restaurants and art galleries. Unfortunately, all closed on Monday. So, we went to the Franklin Conservatory which boasts 27 species of butterflies flying around freely. Closed Monday.

We did find the best Greek restaurant we've ever eaten at. The Happy Greek

During setup at Columbus, the end of the booth fell over on me! It's six steel slat grid racks. I hung one too many stencils and down she came.

Sales were disappointing in Columbus, as well, but not nearly as bad as Duluth. We had a 20' booth and had two demo stations running, demoing Angelina, foiling supplies and Paintstiks. Three Quiltart list members, Bobbie Vance, Lisa Quintana and Brenda Jennings did great jobs with the demos.

When we left Columbus, the air conditioning on the truck started acting up. It was in the 90's with godawful high humidity. We had to turn the air off 15 minutes every hour to let the fan "rest" or we got no cooling at all. Greg got it recharged. It was then blowing colder air for 45 minutes of every hour.

The next day we were cruising down I80. There is LOTS of construction going on on the interstates. On a stretch in Iowa, it was a signle lane with barrels partially in our lane, forcing Greg to have the right tires on the freeway and the left tires on the shoulder. He saw a GREAT BIG pothole coming up on the shoulder. Having just spent $760 on repairing a busted axle, he swerved to the right to miss the pothole. He caught one of the barrels with the bottom of the canopy support. Fortunately ???, our air conditioner had stopped working and we had to roll the windows down and heard it whacking the side of the trailer. Also, fortunately, there was no duct tape to be found in truck or trailer. (I would have posted a picture, but it always loads the picture at the top of the post.)

When the axle went wonky, the tires started wearing very unevenly. One tire was REALLY bad, another pretty bad. The guy who repaired the axle in Columbus replaced the REALLY bad with the spare tire. We were hoping the pretty bad would get us home. Wrong again! We blew the pretty bad tire just west of Mountain Home, Id. Good thing we have roadside assistance because Greg couldn't get the lug nuts off. He had to put the REALLY bad back on and we knew we'd never make it home with that one so we had to buy a new set of tires in Idaho. And pay sales tax on the darn things.

The next morning we went to Les Schwab Tires to buy our new set. The guy who was going to put the tires on was directing Greg backing into the bay. He didn't see the air conditioner on top. They will pay to have it replaced, of course.

We spent that night in Pendleton, OR. I woke up the next morning and saw that the vent hood over the stove had fallen off. It was STAPLED to the bottom of the microwave shelf.

We managed to drive the last 200 miles home without incident.

Whew!