The Thin Blue Ride - Part 2 Day 50 - Hays, KS

Monday, July 29th, Hays, KS

Ride Report: None - Second Unplanned Repair Day In Hays

A quick review of nothing more than the ride report should indicate to the competent reader that repair of The Rig did not go as planned today...

Flo contacted the various auto parts stores in Hays (there being, apparently, eight such establishments) and was unable to come up with a discombobulator compatible with The Rig.  Oh there were discombobulators to be had, discombobulators out the wazoo in fact, but all of them identical to the non-functional one Flo installed yesterday.  Being not the sharpest knife in the drawer, even I picked up on the fact that when last the discombobulator was discussed, the idea was to find another one - one identical to the one that was "...bad out of the box..." yesterday.  When queried as to this matter, Flo told me that a guy with more experience than the guy who sold him the discombobulator on Sunday was working at the auto supply store this morning and immediately recognized that Flo had acquired the wrong discombobulator.  Apparently we needed the one that DIDN’T look like a triangle with rounded corners.

An aside - That auto parts guys can identify the appropriate part by whether it has rounded corners or angular ones is beyond me.  How do ya find a guy who knows the individual shapes of thousands of parts on the zillion car models out there?  "Do ya want the hexagonal shaped frazzlemeter or the one shaped like a rhomboid?"

When Flo breaks the news to me, I inquire and he lets me know that the local store can get the appropriate discombobulator, but that they have to order it and it won’t arrive till Tuesday morning at 0800.  I then volunteer to hop on the Burgman and go get it, only to find that its currently in Kansas City.  Well then.  That ain’t happening.

Second aside - Do auto parts warehouses have enough parts to actually build any given make/model of car from parts inventory?  If so, can the reader imagine the size of that warehouse?  And then, how do ya find the necessary part in a warehouse that covers acres and acres?  This amazes me. But then again, it remains to be seen that they find the right part.  I shall hold my amazement in abeyance...

But back to the story.  Flo tells me that he can have us on the road by tomorrow morning: 1100 at the absolute latest.  Probably earlier.  I go report my findings to the local Teamsters Rep.  She’s on the phone with her sister-in-law, Ronda, who happens to reside in KC.  Hmmm...do ya suppose...  But no, that won’t work.  Ronda isn’t an auto parts store kinda lady and wouldn’t recognize a discombobulator from a dazinkin - I can’t have her do it.  And I’d still have to get the part to Hays, KS.  Nope - better to just let nature take its course.  (In all fairness to Ronda, if ya need somebody to inform you concerning the etiquette of...pretty much anything - she's your gal.)

So - here we sit - still.  But as I tell Susan regularly now, “Hey, we’re retired.  What do we have we got to do all day anyway?”  I had always considered this a rhetorical question.  But the self evident answer is: Live on the street outside an auto repair shop in an RV.  As a result, we're considering taking up permanent residency in Kentucky.  We should fit right in.

Which brings me to today’s pics.  Again - not many.  C’mon, it’s Hays, KS - gimme a break.

After whiling away the morning, we went over the the local eye doctor's office.  Turns out that Susan's Dad had an appointment there today.  He does his eye doctorin in Hays.  These are my feet in the waiting room along with a profile shot of a guy I don't know. 

The entire time I was riding thru Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming I wanted to see a moose.  Did I see a moose?  No.  I became bitter and sullen whenever moose came up as a topic of conversation - which admittedly was less frequent as we made it to eastern Colorado.  Moose talk had all but disappeared in Kansas.  But today I saw this...

...in an advertisement in a magazine at the eye doctor's office.  This is why I didn't see any moose in the aforementioned states - they were all vacationing in freakin Minnesota.  Prolly come back to the mountain west this winter with weird French/Canadian accents.  Not that I'm bitter or anything...

Just to have something exciting to do we went to The Home Depot.  Turns out that when we boondock (set up camp with no services - particularly electricity) things are fine so long as we run the generator.  It powers the fan (as well as the A/C generally) in our bedroom suite here in The Rig.  But when we turn off the generator, no power to fan = hot, cranky nighttime Teamster.  This baby is a Milwaukee 18 volt cordless fan.  I already have the charger and two batteries in my shop at home.  If ever The Rig can move again, we'll pick em up there and solve this sweaty nighttime Teamster problem. 

Me, Susan's Dad, Howard, her Mom, Joyce, and Susan saying goodbye after the doctor visit today.  The van is provided by Solomon Valley Transportation out of Mitchell County.  The service is offered to local residents for a small fee.  This is a big deal - and I'm sure, much appreciated by everyone in the area.

Since we have confidence that Flo will get The Rig running tomorrow, we elected to load the Burgman tonight.  This is Susan after driving it onto the trailer.  The reader will, no doubt, immediately notice that the usual radiant smile is absent in this pic.  Teamsters don't take kindly to being asked to drive anything with only two wheels.  The more the merrier - apparently.

So there ya have it.  Another exciting day in Hays, America.  If Flo doesn't get The Rig going tomorrow I may commit suicide by rubber dinosaur at the Sternberg Museum.  I ain't explainin - Goodle it.

Till next time.