Today, we complete the two-day drive, arriving in town late after a frustrating day on the road. We have discovered that the van accident, back in Georgia, had damaged the radiator, causing the engine to overheat if you turn on the A/C, which is a bit of an issue while driving through the desert in June. Jeff discovers that, if you crank the heat, for some reason it helps keep the radiator happy. To make matters worse, the engine on the RV has started to act up. We will be driving along and suddenly, it will backfire a few times and then lose power. We find that, if we just sit there for a few minutes, it will restart and drive again, but this is happening every 50 miles. I’m hoping that this has nothing to do with us running out of gas yesterday, but, even as someone who knows nothing about engines, it’s pretty obvious that it must. Out of necessity, we are now a close caravan on the road, each ready to stop when the other breaks down.
At this point, Jeff has decided to drive in the van with Jim, rather than ride with the band in the RV. It’s the first outward sign that there’s tension in the band, as he’s sacrificing an air-conditioned living room on wheels for the van, which is, essentially, hell.
We don’t have a lot of days off going forward, leaving no time for repairs. so we make the best of it, stopping every hour for the Tioga to catch its breath and to add some coolant to the van radiator. At one point, I’m driving the RV and we pull abreast of the van and I glance over to see Jeff, shirtless and expressionless, hunched over the wheel, deep in thought. Jim tells me that he plays almost nothing but Dio on the stereo all day.
Tomorrow: Woody takes us to his favorite restaurant and Ron Klaus is in the house!
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