We left New Orleans, and pointed west towards Grammy’s house in Arizona.

The voodoo doll that was supposed to bring us safe travels.

On our way to Lake Somerville State Park we stopped off to eat at a fancy joint with DVD rentals (that’s still a thing apparently), free pool and air hockey, and a pretty decent burger. We ordered a couple of beers and were told, “I can’t sell you beer, but I can (wink wink) give them to you.” Texas, man, what a weird state. Freedom, freedom, freedom, except let’s have the gov’t and church let us know in what county, or what day, we can have a Coors Light with our burger.

This campground was blissfully quiet. A big State Park, on a lake, and only a couple of campers in the whole place.

We spent a couple of days there, and took the time to get rid of some more decades old wall to wall carpeting. The bus remains a rolling work in progress.

Down the road a ways we spent a night in Bastrop State Park, and then the next day had to navigate our way past Austin. Honestly, that place is a nightmare. Insane traffic in the middle of the afternoon, endless stoplights, toll highways, the list goes on. We plowed our way through as quickly as possible, which was made doubly difficult by the fact that the bus was running super rich and didn’t want to idle. No adjustments I made was helping, and I was coming up empty on my google searching. To compensate, I was doing the pedal dance, with my left foot on the brake at the stoplights, and my right foot giving just a little gas to keep it running.

Finally on the west side of Austin. Free to drive again. Just need a little gas and we’ll be on our way.

Click. The voodoo doll curse, strike one.

Nothing but one hard click when I turned the key. Okay, well, there are worse places for this to happen. Two possibilities, bad battery or bad starter. I put the voltage meter on the battery and had Ali turn it over. The voltage instantly shot from 12.6 to 10.5. I hoped that was all it was. Fortunately, there was a Napa just seven miles back down the road. I hailed a Lyft and was there and back in no time. Hooked up the new battery, and… click.

Dang. So it’s definitely the starter motor. I had visions of replacing the starter in the Dodge Travco. That starter was not fun. Difficult to reach, and nearly impossible to get the teeth lined up so it would slip on. I crawled underneath this bus, though, and was happy to find that the starter was just sitting there wide open. Two easy to reach mounting bolts, one battery cable, and it was off.

I called Napa and was thrilled to be told they had a replacement, so off I went a second time. It was now getting a little later in the afternoon, so the price of my Lyft had jumped from $15, to $30. About half the price of the $66 part.

While I was doing all of this, Ouest sat in the front seat reading, and Lowe made Lego stop motion videos. The fact that we had been stuck in a gas station for three hours didn’t occur to them.

I got back with the starter motor and was excited to pop it on and get rolling. Clunk. Clunk. Starter motors aren’t perfectly round. They have a half moon shaped piece that extrudes out of one side. This piece had been about 1/8 further around than on the original starter, and was hitting the engine block, making it impossible to fit. I called Napa, explained the problem, and the guy I’d been talking to all day, after clicking around on his computer, said, “Oooooh, yeah, here it is. We do have the one that matches exactly.” I asked him to grab it and compare it alongside the old core I’d left behind. After a few minutes he confirmed they were a perfect match. I asked if they delivered parts. Haha.

So back to Lyft I went. By now the sun was going down and rush hour just outside of Austin was in full swing. Surge pricing had this ride up to $92. My $66 part, when adding in my new unnecessary battery and three Lyft rides, was now approaching $500. Fortunately, for Ali and the kids, there was tacos next door. Five hours after stopping to get gas, I put on the new starter, turned the key, fired up, and we were back on the road. An hour of driving in the dark (something we never do in our vintage vehicles) later we pulled into our campground.

Honestly, the only thing that upset me about the day was that I should have known the starter was going bad before it happened. The engine cranked slowly ever since we got it. Since I’ve been through this before I should have remembered that a new starter makes these old buses sound like a jet engine is blasting off into outer space. It’s crazy how fast they crank. Starters give you lots of lead time, and they are cheap. File that lesson away for my next 50+ year old vehicle.