Story By: Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
We left off last week at Mid-point Texas. As we approached, the signs said you have to try the “ugly crust pies” so that was good enough to get us to stop for lunch. We had a fun lunch and talked with the owner of the establishment and learned some more “mother road lore”. We did eat the ugly crust pie and set on down the road for New Mexico and a long-awaited overnight stay.
Did I mention that my gas gauge was not working so well? I didn’t think it would be too much of a problem as I would just gas up on a regular basis and watch my odometer. It was starting to get late so Carlene looked for a nice hotel and we made reservations for one in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. I was watching my gauges closely as we had not gassed up since Shamrock in the morning. I figured I was getting close to needing gas but could make it to Santa Rosa. About 8 miles before we got there, the car died and rolled to a stop on the side of the road in the middle of a construction zone. Figuring I had just run out of gas, I called AAA and they dispatched a truck with a little over a gallon of gas. After putting the gas in the tank, the car still would not start. The AAA guy drove his truck back to town and came back with a flatbed tow truck.
And now we come to the drama in the story. A Facebook friend, in an effort to make me feel better, made the comment that “it’s all part of owning a classic car”. While I appreciated his intentions, it did not make me feel any better. Retrospect gives you a much clearer view of the big picture and now that it is behind me I can see that my prayer ninjas were effective in keeping us safe on this trip. You see, we had driven across miles and miles of nowhere with a car that had some serious electrical issues, and we broke down 8 miles away from a hot rod shop with decades of experience building cars just like the one I was driving. And we already had reservations at the hotel in town. You might call that a coincidence. I call it divine intervention.
So, our car is now in the hands of Bozo’s Garage. The name may have been a little scary, but it turned out that Bozo was a town jewel. A great guy, pillar of the community and owner of the Route 66 Museum just down the street from his shop. We unloaded our luggage into Mel’s truck and checked into the hotel. It was late, getting dark, we were tired, and I was stressed. We found a nice Mexican restaurant that also served margaritas. A perfect way to end the day. Bozo would check out the car in the morning. At this juncture, we could only speculate about what was wrong with it.
It really wasn’t that bad as we had it under control. The car was in the hands of, who I would find out tomorrow, were the right people for the job. Oh yeah, did I mention that when we got the car off the trailer that the windows were no longer working? With the electric door locks not working properly, my windows were my workaround to be able to lock the car. So now, there is no way to lock the car. That’s not going to prevent us from getting home but it certainly makes me cautious about parking it and leaving it for any period of time.
I asked Bozo just to get the car running again so we can safely drive it back home to California. The windows and doors can wait.
They dug into it first thing in the morning. Mel and I ventured to the shop to check out their progress. They were telling me that it was difficult to diagnose the problem as the wiring harness was a mess. I knew about this problem as it had been pointed out to me before we left for the trip. It was not an easy fix and would require basically rewiring the whole car. Bozo could just patch it for now. I hope that works because we are stuck.
