Following a busy week of boat work in the barn we planned to pull our unnamed Celebrity to New York for finishing and a planned sail in Seneca Lake just after Mothers' Day. Sunday morning (May 5th) we packed the car and the boat with all the plants Eileen wanted to put in the yard in NY, all the yet-to-be-installed parts of the boat, the new weed-whacker, and all food plus clothes for two weeks. Car and boat were stuffed! Oh, did I mention it was raining while we loaded?
The boat trailer was sporting new tires and wheels plus new and freshly packed wheel bearings. However, I was not able to install the new Bearing Buddies because they would not fit easily onto the old hubs. No Problemo…..I tapped in the old dust covers for the four hour drive and "figgered" I would deal with the Bearing Buddies in NY.
Left the driveway at 8:45 AM with "a song in our hearts and a smile on our lips". After driving about 5 miles I patted my left upper thigh. NO WALLET in the usual pocket! Small problem. Turned around and drove home. After retrieving the missing wallet I glanced at the trailer wheels as I stepped off the front porch. To my horror there were no longer any dust caps on the hubs! No Problemo….the local Exxon station is just 2 miles out the road, and I could get new dust covers there. When I scanned the shelves (I mean walked around the aisles for five minutes) I found that the gas station stocked only 1 dust cap. A friendly worker at the station came out to look at the trailer with me and even held an umbrella while I tapped in the one new dust cover. Again, No Problemo…….We would just drive to the newly opened auto parts store about 5 miles farther in the rain along our planned route.
I parked in the lot in front of the auto parts store and ran inside through the increasingly annoying rain. Unfortunately, this fully stocked store did not carry ANY dust covers! The manager did take pitty on the now drenched rat that had entered his store. He let me "try" the Bearing Buddies he had in stock, but neither of the two sizes fit my hubs. He suggested driving to Tractor Supply in a nearby town to check on dust caps there. I thanked him for his kindness, but turned the car, boat, and PITA trailer toward home.
With the boat and trailer safely in the barn we rearranged some of the stuff that was to make the trip to NY and we headed out of the driveway again at 12:30 PM. Of course, the aforementioned smile and song were no longer in evidence!