On The Road Again

Nellybelle is back up and running. Unlike her namesake Jeep on Roy Rogers (best known for a habit of breaking down at the worst possible moments) my Nellybelle picked a near perfect time and place to throw her (belt) temper tantrum.

Day One

I spent Sunday night in the driveway of Chip's house where I had worked on the installation of the back panel partition for my van most of the afternoon. I was already headed to Chip's to do the interior mod when the van slung the belt. Chip is the best one-armed mechanic I've ever met so I knew that the belt reinstall would be a piece of cake. After quickly assessing the simplicity of the solution, we decided we'd wait until the following morning to do the belt reinstall. I was distracted with the interior project and there was no real rush to reinstall the belt in the fading light of the late afternoon. The temp had already dropped fifteen degrees and the gusting winds had picked up about twenty five miles an hour. It was expected to be cold on Monday morning too, but at least in the morning we'd have the bright crisp high mountain meadows sunshine for illumination, if not much heat.

I eventually finished with all the measuring, cutting and upholstery work on the rear partition around nine pm. I was a bit frazzled by the time I finished (as well as a bit off-kilter from the inhalation of the volatile hydrocarbons used as propellant in the spray glue I used to affix fabric to the wood panel).

(My self checkout session at Walmart was briefly interrupted during the purchase of aforementioned spray glue for an ID check by store personnel. Bippity, boppity, boo I'm old enough to buy spray glue).

Job complete, I "cooked" a can of Hormel tamales on my new Coleman stove, ate them and went to bed, hoping the resultant maelstrom I had set in motion via the consumption of those tamales wouldn't force me to make an embarrassing trip to the loo inside the house in the middle of the night. Turns out there are answered prayers, even for an old Yankee reprobate such as myself, as my gut somehow absorbed the essence of mass produced corporate tamales without perturbation. The weed is just that dam good around here.

Day Two

This morning, sitting inside the garage (in a little man-cave area Chip has carved out for himself) we were drinking coffee and chatting about this and that when Chip noticed a big transmission fluid leak under his Corvette, not something that'll cheer a guy up first thing in the morning. Chip quickly diagnosed a faulty hose while simultaneously swearing under and over his breath about setting fire to the dam thing or pushing it off a high cliff. Let's just say it's been a bit of a mechanical nightmare over the past several months. I got Chip settled back down and then he mentioned that he hadn't slept well and was complaining that his arm was hurting "like a mf'er".

I can be a bit of an insensitive lout at times but I'm not so dense I'm gonna ask a one armed man with an aching arm to help me on something as trivial as a belt reinstall.

As is their daily habit, my good friends, a young couple (David and Tiffany, as seen on my YouTube vids) texted me early this morning to check up on me and see what I was up to. They're good kids (in their mid twenties....lol) who've taken more time than most making sure I'm OK out here in the wilderness of south Fort Collins. When I told them where I was and what was up with Nellybelle, David was quick to offer assistance. Ten minutes later he was on the scene and scant minutes after that I was leveraging the idler pulley back while he slipped the belt into final alignment on the pulleys. Nellybelle fired right up after I boosted her battery with my lithium ion jump starter and the belt seems to have returned to it's normal operating condition, squealing and moaning like a witch on a bonfire.

A bit chilled from our work outside in the crisp and breezy mountain air, we warmed ourselves afterwards by sitting in the van "toasting out" in front of my Mr. Buddy propane heater. We got really good and toasted out.

Enjoy.