As advertised.....

 8:21 am - Thursday - January 23rd - TWW  - 22° F, humidity 19%, wind 8 mph out of the east by northeast.....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 47° F.  On this date in 2019 TLE and I were on our way back west from our summer in Maine.....we stopped off overnight at the Route 66 Casino 21 miles west of Albuquerque, NM....

....back in the land of Mountain time, and the big, long views.  We have not been east of the Mississippi since then.

As you will recall we had an appointment Wednesday to meet Daniel Brennan in Seligman at 10 am to exchange cash for his 1969 Chevrolet C90 flatbed dump truck and the 'pink' slip, however, we also needed to do a big wash so we left home around 8:40 am to make the 30 minute drive into town to get our clothes in the washers at the Seligman laundromat....$2.25 per load to wash, and about $1 to dry them.....that is less expensive than Flagstaff, or Kingman.  

After getting the washers running we headed over to the Post Office to retrieve mail, and buy a few things at the Family Dollar store....they're right next door to each other.  While I picked up the mail, TLE headed into the store.  I was back a few minutes before she was, and it was only 9:30 am, so we decided to head over to Lilo's West for a cup of coffee while we awaited the arrival of Daniel.  By the way, he drove the truck down to town on Tuesday, and we saw it parked by the Chevron station on our way into town, so it, obviously passed the 'test drive' portion of the deal.

TLE left Lilo's to head back to the laundromat while I awaited a call, or text from Daniel that he had arrived, and around 9:58 am I got the text.  The Chevron station is a short 1 minute walk from Lilo's.  The overnight low temp was 18° F in Seligman, so how easy would it be to start this 55 year old truck?  Answer.....very easy....WOW!  It fired right up, and I took it for a test drive around town to get familiar with the shift pattern on the transmission.  The truck has 5 forward speeds and a two speed rear axle.  Reverse is straight up to the left, and first gear is straight down on the left.  First gear is pretty low, so Daniel recommended starting in 2nd, which I did.  The drive around town went fine, and the transmission feels incredibly tight for being so old.  There are also two gas tanks.

Upon my return to the Chevron station I exchanged the agreed upon purchase price for the 'pink' slip (they're not pink anymore), and drove the truck back to the laundromat where TLE was waiting for the dryer to stop so we could fold the clothes....

Parked across the street from the Laundromat

......by 11:15 am we were heading back to TWW....me driving the truck, and TLE the Expedition.  The truck only goes about 55 mph in the low range, and I did not try the 2 speed axle on the way home, but it drove pretty good at 55 mph.  The big surprise is that it handled the north/south arterial washboardy dirt/gravel road way better than expected.  I was able to average around 35-40 mph on that rough road without having my eye teeth rattle loose....lol!

We arrived back at TWW around 12 pm without incident....always what one is hoping for when driving a newly purchased used vehicle home.  Frankly, in my mind there was no doubt I would get home without any problems......

......the vehicle's condition was exactly as described by Daniel.  Above you see the #1 external fuel tank.  The #2 tank is located behind the bench seat in the cab.  After changing my clothes I headed back out to see if I could free up the bench seat sliding mechanism so I could move the seat forward and feed the two seat belts up to the seat again so they can be used.  After applying liberal amounts of penetrating oil (Aero Kroil) the seat finally broke free and moved forward, and within minutes I had the seatbelts in a usable position again.

On Thursday Charles and I (oh, by the way, they arrived back at TWW around 2 pm) are going to add antifreeze, and air to the left rear Ford tractor tire to 'reinflate' it, so it can be used as designed.  At that point I will be able to begin leveling our permanent site next to the trailer so we can move there sooner than later.  In preparation for that I jacked up the left rear tire to remove all pressure from it so we can begin to push the antifreeze, and the air into the tire.

Dinner was at 4 pm on this day, and TLE had prepared Jambalaya (rice, bell peppers, andouille sausage, chicken and shrimp) for our dining pleasure, and was it ever delicious.  She put this very large bowl of Jambalaya on the table, and my first thought was there are boing to be leftovers, but was I ever wrong.  By the end of dinner the bowl had been scraped clean.

After dinner we watched TV with Charles and Phyllis until 8 pm before bidding them adieu for the night, and heading back to the Newell.....

 

....that wood burning fireplace does such a great job of keeping the house warm, and cozy!

Thanks for stopping by!