I was up at dawn last Thursday to pack up and go into town for my blood work etc...appointment at 1:30 I am on the road by 2 pm headed west and south...the truck is "not well"...I miss my hwy 95 south turn and take the second hwy 95 south turn at needles ,calif....if you have ever not wanted to break down this is the road you do not want to break down on...winding, hilly, desert dangerous...the truck is "not well"...after what seems like hours I finally get to I-10 intersection and the truck barely makes it up the hills headed east towards Quartzite...I feel like a disaster is about to happen....the truck is "not well"....I go up the hills with my emergency flashers on at 25 miles and hour on the interstate...I finally get to the first Quartzite exit and when I take a left towards Main Street I wonder if I should leap from the overpass onto the highway...too messy I decide....I take a right onto Main Street and after a few hundred yards the engine stops and the red battery light comes on...the truck is "terminally ill"...I coast into an empty lot next to a store that is closed and imagine the truck is ready for the crusher....I sleep a fitful sleep sitting up in the passenger seat...at dawn I turn the key in the ignition and GLORIORSKI!...the engine starts and I put it into gear and the truck moves ahead!....I pull into a driveway with a "honey for sale" sign that I have been to before....the honey salesman is gone but another vendor (in a town of vendors) is taking about vendors stuff and life as a vendor etc...I ask him if the knows of any decent mechanics in town...he has a business card on a desk which has the name and number of a mechanic....I am not hopeful however...I drive out onto the road and marvel at the very fact that the truck moves...I go towards the scratched and dented tent (this is quartzite Arizona and 3/4 of the town is here on a temporary basis.)..I call the number on the card and the man says he is at the corner with all the statuary...never seen it but I will find it....I buy 14 dollars worth of groceries and head towards the statuary corner...I find the mechanic talking with another guy and I open the hood of the truck and start the truck...I tell him the transmission is shot...he looks and leans and listens for a few minutes...he says it ain't the transmission....I say the spark plugs are 20 thousand miles past due to be replaced...he says yep...lets do that first...he says I should go to where I am going to camp...(Quartzite is surrounded by thousands of campsites in the desert) I go to the auto parts store and buy $225 worth of plugs and boots then head to the closest desert camping area (14 days for free)...the next day the mechanic shows up and like a man obsessed begins working on changing the spark plugs...several mechanics shops I had asked about changing the spark plugs said it was too hard and they would not do it...this mechanic has worked all around the world on ships and on farm equipment and whatever...life is a challenge to him and he takes that challenge...he finished the job in more than two hours but less than 3 hours....I drove the truck 8o miles to the closest town with another auto parts store and got a serpentine belt and he replaced that too...I drove the truck 70 miles south to Yumertonville with the air conditioner on and it seems to run fine and after two years NO ENGINE LIGHT!...I suppose I should consider this truck breakage to be pretty normal but I was so sure that it was the end of "life as we know it" that it feels more miraculous than normal....
"I had rather have a fool make me merry than experience make me sad." Shakespeare
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