Stephen H. Long Trail 1819 — 1820

Day 4: August 27th, 2008 Pittsburgh (Chevrolet Dealer)

Today I am awake around 6am. I wait for Helen’s call, then I get up and into the bathroom. I use the opportunity when she is on the phone. There I can make myself ready and do not disturb anyone. After breakfast I take care again of my waypoints. But before I take a look at my emails. To my surprise I still don’t have any emails received yet. It seems that I have forgotten to stop my server at home from polling the email address. As workaround I have the idea to add a new folder at GMX and set up a new filter, which moves all emails to this new folder.

A brief test with my other account shows me that this works. Then I must realize that my new roof rack does not contain any mounts! So I quickly order these. With ground shipment they should arrive within 1–2 days. After this short shock I continue working on my waypoints.

Around 2pm Jay is calling me that my car is ready to be picked up. I quickly eat a sandwich, then we depart. At my Chevrolet dealer in Wexford I see Jay and we have a brief chat. Then I walk over to the cashier. The almost 1200 Dollars do not really shock me, because I already expected something around 1000 Dollars. But the guy behind me was wondering if I have bought a new car here…

I receive my truck and drive with a big smile in my face in the direction of Cranberry. At Wal–Mart I pick up my oil (now they have the 5W‐40 again in stock) and some Pepsi, which is also almost out of stock at home. Then I continue to Pep Boys to get the transmission oil filter and transmission oil.

Slowly it starts to rain while I am driving back to Helen. When I arrive there I quickly change mny clothes. Around a quarter past three I leave to drive over to David. Because the inner door is closed at his house I assume, that no one is there and I look for the key like last time. I drive to his garage and when I exit my truck I see David approaching. And I assumed he is not there!

We chat for a while and he quickly arranges a workbench for me. He also helps me to store my tires. Then I start my oil change. This one goes really easy thanks to my piggy pack oil drain screw. While the oil is draining I collect my stuff. Then I start my lube job. After some issues at the beginning it works out pretty well and I find all grease points. Only at three of them I am not able to reach it with my grease gun. Let’s see if David has any bright idea on this.

Then I am tightening all screws and fill up the oil. Now it’s time to fire up the truck and fill up the rest. Then I take care again of my roof rack. This one I assemble together on David’s work bench. The screws come without any snap ring or tooth lock washer. It seems like I will go shopping tomorrow to make this reasonable.

Then I take a look on how I could mount my CB antenna. The “Universal Mount”, which I have bought a long time ago seems to fit perfectly. Then I start to take care of my offroad lights. Also these I am able to mount perfectly. There they have at least included some self–locking nuts. Therefore there is no additional rework necessary.

Around half past seven I make myself ready to drive back home. At David’s house I stop and have a brief chat with David. Unfortunately he also has no bright idea on my lube issues. Only for the drive shaft he suggests that I could try to turn the axle to get the U–joint to open up enough. I say thank you for this hint and drive back to Helen.

There I jump under the shower first. Then I have a hamburger and pasta for dinner. Afterwards I do my book keeping on the laptop and write down my diary of the last couple of days. Since the long waiting at the airport I have noted nothing down yet. Around 10pm I have slowly finished this task and make myself ready for going to bed. But before I quickly check my emails. Then I fall again dog–tired in my bed…