What they didn't warn us about, however, was that the speedometer didn't work. Okay......we still knew how fast we were going, due to a driver (me) in an accompanying car.

Or that the odometer didn't work. Or the gas gauge. Or any bloomin' thing on the WHOLE instrument panel. We're dern fortunate and grateful that the only thing that happened was....well, about that in a minute. Let me insert here that we didn't realize nothing worked until too late because the U-Haul pick-up spot was just around the corner from our house and Mark was too busy getting used to the mirrors and trailers, etc, to notice something was amiss.

So after throwing things out into the alley cuz they didn't fit in the famed 26-footer, or in our Ford, OR in the '85 Camaro we'd stuffed to the gills, (the things in the under the hood transformed quite interestingly) (I'm kidding), we take off in the hot, instrumentless truck hauling a car trailer across hot Texas (high 90's), across hotter Louisiana (higher 90's and added humidity), and just over the Mississippi into Vicksburg, Mississippi where the truck decides to stall. Mark discovers at this point that the oil cap is very, very loose-fitting and is spraying oil all over the engine. We sit dismally envisioning unloading all of our belongings into the Kroger parking lot and reloading them who knows how many days later into another equally malfunctional truck. Instead, I determinedly got a hotel room and Mark got the truck started enough to follow me to about 3 blocks away to where it stalled again. On an overpass. At 10pm. In traffic. Mark sent me on ahead to the visible gas station where I gasped for help and the clerk dialed 911. Before I made it back (2 minutes later), there were blue and red lights already there. (I hereby insert a very heartfelt thanks to the Vicksburg police force - actually, it was a couple of Sheriff's dept. men, who just happened to be passing.)

Well, to make a long story slightly shorter, the truck, it turns out, was out of gas. We'd been monitoring it via the Ford's, calculating stuff, but obviously got one calculation a bit wrong. The sheriff's deputy offered me a lift to a nearby Wal-Mart to buy a gas can and gas while Mark yelled at U-Haul on the other's cell phone (U Haul offered to give us an ETA within 30 min......not GETTING there in 30 min, mind you, an ETA......sheesh). I sat in the front seat of the sheriff's SUVand got to see all the gadgets (he told me there was a mic right over me and recorded most of what went on in there), we parked right in front of the entrance, and were back in minutes. The truck, whew, started and made it to a gas station and then the UHaul guy shows up and can't do anything, either with the gas (already done) or the panel (unknown cause). Quite exciting, that, with 4 police cars all flashing lights and people rubbernecking and us blocking lanes.....

SOooooooo then we get to Georgia......but not to Waynesboro yet. Oh, no, the bypass around Atlanta was having construction done and had a traffic jam hours long. The valley (and the cab of the U Haul) was filled with diesel smoke. Oh, and yes, the Ford, the car I'm driving, has also started bucking and flashing lights at me. The manual tells me it's misfiring and needs to get looked at before the catalytic converter blows up in my face and sets off the air bags and flips us over onto the roof.

We crawled into Waynesboro at midnight and all vehicles collapsed at the hotel. I could continue on in this vein (yes, more went wrong), but I think I should continue that in a Part II and let it be a voluntary reception type of thing. So until next time (if there is one), in more than one piece but not too many,