We had another adventure

Whenever things don’t go exactly as expected or planned, my friend Pat Gaume says, “They had an adventure”.  It could be said that this past week, from Monday through Saturday, has been an adventure.  Monday was, bring the dead Oak Tree down with the chainsaw. Tuesday was chop up the bulk of that downed tree into chunks that will fit into our woodburning stove. Wednesday was the day the water feed hose broke off from the back of the washing machine, clean up that mess and replace the water feed lines. Thursday while finishing off the ice cream that we’d placed in the freezer, we noticed the ice cream was very soft instead of rock hard like it normally would be. 

Around three in the morning I was awakened by a prompting, “Go check to see if the freezer is working”, my brain wouldn’t let me sleep as it went over the earlier observation regarding the softened carton of ice cream.  There was no whirring noise coming from the freezer and upon opening the door there were drops of water falling from the inside of the freezer.  The freezer had died and the next question, how much of the content would be ruined?

That started our Friday adventure.  The Houston Temple was closed for maintenance, so we had the day off.  Instead, we’d be driving down to Huntsville to do our regular grocery shopping and, since our freezer had died, we’d be looking to purchase a replacement freezer. None of the places we looked had a replacement freezer in stock that matched or even came close to the size we wanted; however, one of them mentioned that their sister store in Bryan/College Station had one that could be delivered the following Tuesday.

If we waited until next Tuesday, anything that hadn’t already been ruined inside the broken freezer would certainly be ruined by then.  Lucy and I decided that the best solution would be to drive back home, put the groceries away and then hook the trailer up to my old pickup truck, drive to Bryan/College Station and purchase the freezer so we could take it home and start the process of changing out a dead freezer’s content into the new one.

Did I mention that my truck doesn’t get very good gas milage?  It gets even worse gas milage when pulling the trailer, averaging between 8 to 10 miles per gallon.  We started from home with almost a full tank of gasoline.  My truck’s AC is on its last leg too and pulling the trailer stressed out the radiator to where the red warning light came on when we were only fifteen miles out from home.  I turned off the AC, slowed down to 65 -70 mph, rolled the windows down and that solved the over heating issue.  We’re tough Texans and can put up with 95 degrees, letting the wind blow through the truck’s cab.

We arrived at the location where the freezer had been marked ‘sold’ and ready for pick up and we had 30 minutes to spare before they closed.  They loaded the freezer onto the back of our trailer, and I was glad to have brought some of those cheap tie-down straps, the kind they put on half price at Tractor Supply just to get rid of them.  They made sure the freezer was secure and off we went, doubling back the way we came and keeping our speed around 60 to 65mph, another blessing since we were in rush hour traffic and everyone else on the freeway was maxed out at 65mph. 

We decided that, instead of going back home via Madisonville and Interstate 45 to Centerville, a safer route would be to turn off at North Zulch and head north on highway 39.  I kept watching the gas gauge as it plummeted closer towards an area known as, “You’re Walking”.  I figured we’d fill up in Centerville just to be on the safe side.  That wasn’t to be either. 

When we were just outside of Normangee the truck’s motor gave us a slight hesitation, as if we were out of gas, along with the yellow warning light on the fuel gauge letting us know it was time for gas.  Normally that warning light meant the truck could go another 30 miles or that there were 2 gallons left in the tank; but pulling the trailer and only getting 8-10 miles per gallon meant we needed to find a gas station right away.

There might be a real gas station in Normangee, somewhere.  We drove into what looked like a real gas station; but it was closed, might have been closed for a very long time.  We then figured there might be one close to the Brookshire Brothers grocery store.  There was a single gas pump at the local convenience store, and we almost didn’t see it except there was a Post Office vehicle using it to fill up.

I put twenty dollars’ worth in the tank at $2.89 per gallon, or a little over 6 gallons. That permitted us to begin breathing again as we continued toward Centerville where we could fill the tank at our Shell Station for $2.53 per gallon.  We topped off, having combined for a tad over 18 gallons of gas in my truck’s 18-gallon capacity tank. 

I like the line from the alien commander in Galaxy Quest, “On!”, as he gestures with his arm.  We headed home as the sun was fading low onto the horizon.  We’d made it home.

I don’t drive with a trailer all that often; but upon backing up so that the trailer would square up with the steps leading to the kitchen, let’s just say I put the 3-point shot right through the middle of the uprights, those are the posts on either side of the steps leaving me an inch and a half gap to drop into.  Am I good or what? A near perfect positioning so that the ramp of the trailer would drop down onto the middle steps and permit a mostly easy off loading of the freezer onto the porch, and I didn’t even touch the uprights on either side.

That would have been true had there not been a slight gap on one side where the two-wheeler dolly decided it was time to let the freezer tilt and slide onto the top two steps at the edge of the porch.  For an old guy I did okay getting out from under the freezer; no major dings on me or the freezer.  We got the freezer back upright and plugged it in on the outside porch so that it could start getting cold inside.

This morning we brought the new freezer into the kitchen and then we began offloading a remarkable amount of still frozen meats and other frozen items from the broken freezer. Yes, there were some items that needed to be tossed; but most of those were from freezer burn or from having been kept long after their expiration date.  All in all, we had to say how blessed we’d been, not complaining at all for having experienced this adventure.  The old broken freezer was difficult to pull out from the laundry room since it barely fit through the doorway opening.  It’s now sitting on the porch awaiting its turn to be hauled off to the dump.  The new freezer is nearly full and whirring quietly in the space previously taken by the broken freezer.  We cleaned the floor where the old freezer had been with Lysol so it will be good for another 8 years.

Time to sit back and wonder what our next adventure might be. See you at church on Sunday, we’ll be the folks thanking our Father in Heaven for the tender mercies provided to us this past week.