Well, after getting the house re-financed to get a lower interest rate.....and all the stress and paperwork that brings......we decided to go get the Hummer which had been in Tulsa getting some warranty work done. We went and picked it up, headed home and planned to head west. However, on the way up there, I was laying on the couch watching TV, in the bus, and suddenly got a terrible hard hit on my head! It felt like a 5 pound hammer! It seems that a 1/2 inch thick lucite wall of the display case above me, just suddenly, let go! It hit right on the edge on my head. Needless to say, I was screaming and crying, couldn't tell what it was because it was dark (nighttime). Jimmy was trying to find somewhere safe to pull off the road and I looked at my hand that was on my head....it was bloody! Holy cow, did it hurt!!! He pulled over, halfway out in traffic to grab an icepack, wet washrag and look at my head. The gash was about an inch long, but I bled like a stuck pig! We were somewhere in-between Tulsa and Texas, at night, so....no doctor. I told Jimmy to watch me when we went to bed that night...so I didn't wake up dead or somethin'.....ha!

We got home and stayed for a couple of days...long enough to get the brakes on the bus worked on, then we took off for Ruidoso again.

We were 12 miles out of town when suddenly the bus just went out of gear..so Jimmy coasted to the side of the road. When he got out to look, the back left tire was soooo hot, and smoking that he couldn't touch it. We saw a road at the bottom of the hill, that turned off to the right, so we disconnected the Hummer and I followed him, coasting, down the hill to the turn off. Luckily, it was an old dirt parking lot in front of a defunct Episcopal Church. After getting stopped...he investigated further. When they did the brakes, they tightened a bearing too tight and it caused the drive shaft to build up heat. It melted and broke!!

So, here we are....12 miles from town, broken down on the side of the road, with a broken axle.....(sigh)! Some well meaning guys in a pick-up truck, stopped and gave Jimmy a phone number to a mobile service guy, they knew of...and he turned out to be a gem! Anyway, Jimmy had already gotten the tires off, when he got here, but the bearing had melted to the metal, and the axle would not come out. Jimmy had ordered a new axle from Prevost (the bus company), so they were going to overnight it from Dallas.

In the meantime, a friend from Ft. Worth , was here to meet us, so he and Jimmy could go skiing. Sooooo, since the parts wouldn't be here until the next afternoon, they went skiing, Friday morning.