We were down for breakfast when it opened. Usual stuff, this time including bacon.

There are signs saying trucks, trailers must park in the truck lot. Someone didn’t and they are blocking the route for others of us who didn’t. I need to drive through the truck parking lot to exit. Lot isn’t too bad, no large craters.

Last time we looked last night we were at 7/16 of a tank of fuel. This AM it is on –0-. The fuel should still be there, this is something I really don’t like about these fuel gauges. There is a truckstop a couple of miles down the road but by then the gauge had started to come up. It was only at 1/8 but it was moving in the right direction.

Driving in to the sun was a challenge but traffic is light so we get past that issue.

Then with less than an hour on the road I notice smoke coming from my left rear tire area. By the time I got stopped and figured out my camera I was still able to get a video of the last of the smoke. Lucky for me, the bus company opens at 5 AM west coast time. I talk to tech support but without any warning lights on they tell me to continue. I go another 10 miles and pull off at the exit. When I walk back I can see it is still smoking, but not enough I could see it while driving. This time I see where oil or grease is on the wheelwell, the wheel seal seems to be leaking. I call tech support again and am told to head to Odessa, about 120 miles away and not in route.

By this time I was about 200 miles into Texas where towns are few and truck shops are fewer.

From where I was on the exit ramp, I headed north on a two lane road. I drove about 45 mph only pulling off once to let people past. There were no shoulders on this road and surprisingly slow traffic. No place to pull off when I got to the I-20 ramp so I pulled on the freeway and stopped as soon I as I was on the freeway. All looks good.

A couple of miles later there was a ‘picnic area,’ a rest are with no outhouse. It would have been safer to stop there but I didn’t know it was coming up. 20 minutes later we get to a Loves Truckstop. I added enough fuel to get to Odessa. I don’t want to leave too much fuel in the bus if I have to leave the bus.

Another 20 minutes later there is a rest area. We stop there. I have been driving only 50 mph on the Interstate where the speed limit is 80. It helps to be a big orange bus. Almost everyone is getting over in the passing lane a half a mile before they got to me.

We get to the 1st truck center but they only worked on leased trucks. Five miles down the road and we are at the correct shop. The can get us in in a couple of hours. A few minutes later I hear the same service person tell someone on the phone that they could not help them until tomorrow. We got there just in time.

That is where we are now. Waiting for them to look at it. It seems to have delayed us enough that we aren’t likely to make delivery tomorrow, but we will cross that bridge later.

Then I get a message that we are having issues on the farm again … and I’m 1,000 miles away.

We sat there from noon to 5 pm eating only junk food. Finally someone comes to tell us that we are here for the night. They need to get the part from Dallas or Huston or somewhere. They offer and we accept a ride to the motel. NO food in the area to walk to and we call three pizza places before someone says they will delivery. It will be about 45 minutes.

Two and a half hours later we finally get our pizza.

As soon as I heard it would be tomorrow I called dispatch, they said get a room. Closest one is $130 tonight ... over twice what it will be this weekend and this is one of the cheapest.

Paperwork says we can only delivery M-F, but IF we get going I will call and see if they can take it over the weekend. IF they can then we need to see which place we will go for a bus wash. We would have had to leave tonight by 6 PM to have any chance of making Friday delivery.

Tomorrow, if we can get going by noon, we have a chance to get to the was in McAllen before they close at noon on Saturday. But that would mean we couldn't deliver until about 1 PM on a Saturday. We'll see when the time comes.

Not sure how this all pays. with the RV's they pull us off the RV within an hour of the breakdown.

So far, just in my mind, I am trying to show how people make money doing driveaway. Today while we were waiting I tried putting that into a spreadsheet. The first numbers I came up with blank ... BB had to show me that it was blank because the net was -0-. It shows we should not be making any money, but we are. And making enough to put a little more away.