TheThin Blue Ride - Part 2 Days 51 & 52 - Hays, KS to Manhattan, KS (By RV)

Tuesday July 30th and Wednesday July 31st, 2019

Ride Report: None - unless ya count driving The Rig from Hays to Manhattan.  I don’t.  Readers who disagree should submit their written requests that I reconsider no later than August 5th.  I’ll pretend to think about it - and then stick with my original plan.

Tuesday, July 30th...

Flo gets the correct discombobulator in from KC and into The Rig it goes - by 0930 no less.  He starts the rig.  The same random cylinders fire and the same error codes show up on his secret squirrel decoder.  Well then.  We both hit the internet and are coming up with some of the same issues - giving the flatulator time to “re-learn” the discombobulator’s operation chief among them.  We try it. Nope. Carbon build up in the big flapper thingy that replaced carbeurators.  We try it. It looks pretty clean to us.  We stare at each other out of the corners of our eyes - knowing that cleaning it won’t make a difference, but neither of us willing to say so.  Flo cleans and re-installs it.  Nope.  Neither of us say I told you so.

Flo goes to get the boss.  “Well, ya gotta see if the signal is making it from the discombobulator to the big flapper thingy.  If it is, ya gotta replace the big flapper thingy.  Ford considers big flapper thingys wear-out parts, it mighta wore out.”  Flo and I are skeptical, but Flo says the boss man knows his big flapper thingys.  It occurs to me that this is a good thing for a man to know. We try it.  SUCCESS!

Says the boss, “Yeah, that’s why Ford has integrated the discombobulator into the big flapper thingy now.  Wasn’t that way when they built your rig.  Ya can see how hard that makes it to diagnose problems with big flapper thingys.”   This was followed by a string of cursing which would embarrass the entire US Navy coupled with the boss’s assurances that they usually don’t have problems like this figuring things out.  Where was this guy three days ago?

We let The Rig idle for 20 minutes (per Ford technical bulletin instructions when replacing big flapper thingys) and WA-LA!  We’re good to go.  We depart forthwith.  Well, forthwith AFTER parting with slightly less than 1.2k for the parts and the Herculean efforts of Flo and the boss man.  There was no surcharge for the lesson in cursing.

This is Flo with the new discombobulator.  After seeing this pic, I encouraged him to move to New York and become a hand model.  He declined.  Says hand modeling isn't in his blood like wrenching is.

Flo removing the big flapper thingy - the first time.  On the third attempt he did it blindfolded just to win a bet.  Susan was upset when she had to pay up.  This is why we'll never go to Vegas.

But once we were on the road again, it looked just like it does from a bike, except it goes by a little faster.  This was taken between Salina and Manhattan.

Coming into Manhattan from the West.  The reader should note the KS sign on the hill in the distance.  They don't have one of those at KU, and for good reason.  No one there can spell KU.

This is what ya get to do after being gone for a little over two months - go thru a giant bag of mail.  I think there were maybe a dozen pieces worth investigating.

Wednesday, July 31st...

Not much going on today worth using film on.  Film is expensive, and Teamsters run a tight budgetary ship.  So instead, we're gonna do something new and different today.  Oh OK - it's neither new nor different, but Internet Bonus Points (IBP) are on the line.

There will be 100 IBPs  for the first reader who can succinctly describe the common theme in today's pics.  But ya can't be anonymous.  Ya gotta leave your name so I can have my marketing department mail ya the IBPs.  It will arrive looking just like a Menard's rebate coupon.  So if ya shop at Menards, that rebate coupon is really from me.

While out running errands this morning it occurred to me that it was nearly 1030 and I hadn't taken a selfie yet.  This is it.  I was stopped at a stop light.  I'm quite safety conscious and not so foolish as to take selfies while in motion.  Note the seat belt.

Later this evening Susan and I had dinner at a local Chinese restaurant.  Our favorite closed due to flooding several months ago.  So now we eat at The Happy Valley.  No, it's not a real valley - it's the name of the restaurant.

After that it was off to Wal-Mart to stock up for the next leg of the trip.  I feel kinda like a pioneer stocking up the covered wagon for a trip west.  Glad my last name is Schoen instead of Donner.  I gotta believe that if we got stuck in the Wal Mart parking lot and had to resort to cannabilism to survive, Wal-Mart wouldn't look kindly on it.  They might even bar us from staying overnight ever again.

Like I said, not much worthy of film today.

Till next time...