Zebulon Montgomery Pike Trail to Red River, Mexico Journey 1807

Day 39: November 5th, 2003 Pittsburgh (Preparation For Departure)

Today I plan to take care of my speedometer problem. First I drive over to the junk yard. Unfortunately the weather has changed and I am forced to search the junk cars during the cold rain to find an S10 with a suitable instrument cluster. Indeed I am able to find just one. But this one has no windshield and the rain flows on the dash board and instrument cluster. Additionally the odometer reads more than 200,000 miles. This is way too much for me, especially when I consider that they will charge $75 for this cluster. Maybe I try it again next year. But the chances are pretty low to find a car with such low mileage as mine has. Also only this year and this motor would fit my truck!

I drive back to Warrendale during heavy rain showers. I make a stop over at the Wal–Mart to get some fuel stabilizer for the long storage. Not far from the Wal–Mart is an Exxon gas station with a very low price. Therefore I gas up there. The rude awakening comes when I start to gas up: The low price is only valid for cash payments and not for credit cards! I have never seen this before!

Reluctantly I have to accept this and pay. I put in my fuel stabilizer into the gas tank. Then I drive on to my Chevrolet dealer in Wexford. There I learn, that the dealer in Albuquerque was right. The replacement of the whole instrument cluster can cost up to $500 and might take 3 to 4 days. They have to sent the old one in and then the new one will be sent out (most likely with an adjusted odometer reading). He cannot tell me the exact price, because everyone is currently out for lunch. It seems like I have ran into the unpolite guy from last year again. Unfortunately the nice mechanic is not around, who took in my car this year.

Pretty annoyed I drive back home. When I arrive there I start to repack my suitcase. During my journey I put my old clothes just somehow in bags and squeezed them in my suitcase. Now I have to put things better together to have a chance to get everything in my suitcase, what is currently stored in carry–on bags. To my surprise I can finish this task pretty fast.

Then I check my list of things, what I currently have stored in my car. There I realize, that I don’t have too much spare transmission fluid. So I quickly drive over to Pep Boys to get another 2l of synthetic oil for my transmission. I still have around one and a half liter in my car, so it should be enough for next year, even if I still should loose oil. But I don’t think so. I still assume, that it came out of the oil pan sealing. But I will see next year.

Then I drive over to Wal–Mart to buy some stuff, which I noticed this year, that I could need: A water hose to fill up my big water canister, an additional pair of working gloves for my winch and a felt to protect my inside covers from the rubbing winch. It already worked through my blanket and left some scratches on the inside plastic.

Around four I have finished my shopping tour and drive back home. Tonight I have an appointment with David for dinner. Helen does not want to come with us. She enjoys more to eat home. But a call from David’s girl friend is able to change her mind. So we all meet at the Outback Steakhouse. It is a really nice evening and I could sit and talk with all three of them for hours. But it is getting time to drive back home. Also tonight are the CMA on television, which we (Helen and I) plan to watch…