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7/18/09, Bentonville, IN - I now plan on pulling out during the middle of next week. The past few days I’ve managed to get a little work done on the wagon. Below you can see my latest creation. I call it the Wagonteamster, model 2009, Belgian Scratch Resistant Surface. I had my buddy Ken at the Fab Shop cut me some 16 gauge steel to cover the side. Hopefully this will prevent Bob from caving in the side of the wagon when he has those really itchy spots to take care of. Although, I’ll still have to use a Tommy-Tippy cup to eat my soup.
Today, I picked up a new water pump (the old one sounded like it was dying and not really delivering the water too well.) Tomorrow, I pick up the new master cylinder for the brakes. The guy at the part store took one look at it and said, “That’s the same one they use on a ‘66 Chevy.” I bet the young guys in the store didn’t know that! I’m also going to run a roof vent for the black water tank. I meant to do this before I took off the first time, but ran out of time.
The horses are getting some good rest and plenty of feed. Early during the trip to Horse Progress Days, they picked up some minor sores from the britchen and collar. I treated these with Gall Salve and readjusted and padded the collars and they started healing. They’re now starting to callous, so I don’t expect a lot of problems on leg two of the trip. However, I am going to carry a 24” collar as Bill’s collar is adjusted for 25” and won’t go any smaller. When a horse starts a road trip like this, they usually lose 1 to 2 inches of neck size as the fat starts melting away. It normally takes about 8 weeks of steady pulling to tone up their muscles. Right now, I’m working 3 days and resting one. In a couple of weeks I’ll pick that up to 4 or 5 days on and one day off.
You would think that I would get excited about the chance to drive a truck and live more or less like a normal person. That’s not really true. When I’m traveling down the road at a sedate 3 or 4 miles an hour, I actually feel privileged to be able to do so and sorry for the people that go bustling past me on their way to - well somewhere.
One of the goals for the next leg of the trip is to take advantage of the fact that I have a shower on my front porch. This affords me the opportunity to take a full shower while I’m actually driving a team down the road. Now, you might ask, “Why in the Sam Hill would anyone ever want to do that”?
To which I reply, “It will probably be fun, but I wouldn’t know, I don’t think anyone has ever done it.” So fair warning, sometime in the future expect a traveling shower blog!
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