Guyana or bust, with a stop in TN

Guyana or bust, with a stop in TN

By Edwin Davidson

Ready to Leave?

The Offending Piece

Wow, things are happening fast now that my instrument rating is complete. We have packed up our belongings that are not going with us to Guyana, and stored them in two small sheds on my parent’s property. Thursday June 23, just before noon, we finally had our things that we were taking with us, packed and loaded in our truck.  There was only a small seat for Laura in the back next to Kathryn. We had a good bye prayer with Daddy (Bryant) and Kathilee, and hopped in the truck. At that point Daddy pointed out a puddle under the front of the truck. Oil was leaking in larger amounts than is acceptable for starting off on a long road trip. I had just fixed a leak in the oil cooler lines on Monday but apparently the fix didn’t hold. Daddy went to town to try to locate the oil line connectors for the external oil cooler. Laura and I took a closer look at our packing job, how tight everything was, and how uncomfortable the 12-13 hour trip would be. Daddy had offered a small utility trailer for us to use if needed. Because we were taking a few of Edwin’s tools, winter clothes for when we return from Guyana, etc, we were heavily loaded.  We decided that the trailer would be necessary. Daddy located the parts for the truck while in town. They had to be shipped from another store and would be at that location in an hour.

We ate our lunch while we waited for Daddy to return from town with the parts for the truck. I started working on making a trailer light adapter after lunch. Shortly, Daddy arrived with the new parts and went in to eat his lunch while I put the new parts on the truck. Wow it was hot. The outside temperature was somewhere near 97, with shade on short supply. Daddy then retrieved the trailer from the weeds and it had a FLAT tire. We parked the trailer on the driveway where we could get to all sides easily. The taillight brackets were broken or iffy, so new ones had to be fabricated and welded on. The thought also occurred to us, that the bearings should be inspected and repacked before heading out. Of the 4 bearings 2 were bad. So Daddy went off to town again, to find new bearings and seals.  I set about to fix the wiring for the trailer lights. After much trouble-shooting and rewiring, the lights finally lit up like a Christmas tree. Daddy arrived with the new bearings. While all this was happening Laura discovered that if we had left when we had planned, we would have left some cash and a check that we needed, sitting on the shelf in the room. Sometimes delays are for our own good.

The new bearings were installed, and the new tires that had been stored in the barn, were installed on the trailer as well. Next, the trailer was hooked up securely to the truck. Tarps were laid out and the larger boxes and suitcases were loaded on the trailer and the things in the truck re-positioned for better seating and mirror visibility.

Ways to entertain a toddler...

Friday morning I checked the tires all around for proper pressure and topped off the coolant reservoir tank appropriately. We started off finally, around 8:45 am. As we were driving across Arkansas I started to notice the engine temperature was rising slowly. I began to wonder if several things were contributing to the gradual temperature increase: the outside temp was running in the upper 90s, the A/C was running full blast, and the transmission was over working and heating up the radiator through the transmission cooler. We tried running in Drive instead of OverDrive and turned the A/C off for a little while. That helped, but it got hot quickly in the cabin. Temp held with the A/C back on for a while. But by the time the next gas stop came, the engine temp was creeping back up. There had to be another reason. After the truck sat for a while, using extreme care, I opened up the radiator and could not see any coolant in the radiator even though the reservoir tank was full. I topped it off with ¾ of a gallon of coolant. The engine maintained good temps the rest of the way. We arrived at about 10 pm Friday night to Laura’s parent’s home. We praise the Lord for giving us wisdom and discernment in packing, troubleshooting the vehicle, and safety on the 751 miles. Thank you all so much for your prayers for our journey