Day 6: Home

So I had planned for day six and seven to be photoshoot stops on my way home to Austin, but the weather had other plans. Tornados tore through the midwest all day on Monday and chased me all the way back to Texas. At one point, I thought I was clear of the weather and made a gas stop just east of Tulsa. When I got out of my truck, I was shocked to see how windy it was. I’m guessing thirty to forty mph winds? Inside the station, a trucker asked me if I was crazy for staying out there on the road with the old trailer.

Maybe I was… But the thing is, I didn’t even realize it was windy until I got out of my truck… and what were my options? Stay behind and get picked up by a tornado and pebbled by hail or stay on an empty highway at 65mph and try to outrun mother nature’s fury? I chose the latter.

It worked and I drove from a campground in Smithville, MO to Dripping Springs, TX in one haul. Feels damned good to be home too.

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Anyway, all of this had me thinking this morning – Before I left on my trip, I was really tempted to put a hitch on the shoebox and pull the old trailer with it. My thinking was it would be a pretty striking package on the road and would make my coverage of this trip much more relevant on The Jalopy Journal.

In the end, I decided it was too much stress to ad to a trip that already had a bunch of unknowns. The goal of this trip was to get away from my computer/phone for a week or so and kind of get off the grid. My truck made this possible with no stress what-so-ever.

I can’t help but think what it would have been like had I chosen to take the old Ford though. My trailer only weighs around 2300 pounds fully loaded and the tongue is light enough that I can roll the trailer around on my own pretty easily. Plus, it sits really low, is very well balanced and has impeccable road manners as evidenced by its refusal to be bothered by wind of any kind.

I think I could have pulled it off. I mean, they did this shit back in the day – right? Why couldn’t it be done now?

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Like I said though… I’m home now. And I have a ton of catching up to do – the least of which is a bunch of features to get written. I saw a lot of cool stuff over the past week and can’t wait to get it all documented. Talk at y’all soon.