A trip to the shop

Monday, April 25, 2011

GRETNA, NE – A few raindrops were spitting on us as we pulled in the trailer slides and prepared to set out this morning, but Mother Nature was kind and waited till we were on our way before starting with the real rain. However, Val had checked the pressure on the trailer tire which had picked up a nail the other day – and which had been plugged by the truck stop folks near Grand Junction – and found it down again, so we needed to stop and replace it with the spare.

Our KOA host told us of a tire shop in town, and Steve, another man in the office at the time, said he was going that way and would lead us there. Dawson’s Tires was just on the other side of the Interstate, and Steve even got out of the truck and went inside with us to get some help. It turns out he is a retired teacher and Eric, at the truck store, was a student of his back in the day, so he said we’d be in good hands.

The shop was clearly used to handling big rigs, because they opened the big garage doors and we were able to drive the entire truck and trailer inside while they worked on it! That was nice for Julio, the attendant, who didn’t have to change the tire in the rain. He not only put the spare in place of the plugged tire, but checked the latter so it would be roadworthy as well. What he found was that the nail we had picked up had actually pierced the tire twice, but only one of the holes had been plugged! He took the rim off and did a proper patch job in jig time, and put that tire back where the spare had been. We were on our way again without much delay at all – and the bill was ridiculously low as well.

Our destination today was Gretna, just west of Omaha. For pretty well the whole trip, the rain came down, sometimes heavily, so that tractor trailers passing us trailed a huge plume of wet mist every time – and there were lots of them! We had picked up some mud splashes on both the truck and trailer on Saturday’s drive, so this took care of them big time.

Nebraska is big on agriculture, and that was evident with the miles and miles of cropland, combed into stripes and ready to sprout this year’s crops. Alfalfa is one of the biggest crops, and it grows well because the roots go deep into the aquafers underground, according to Eric at the tire shop. We tried to remember what alfalfa is good for, and figured it must be good fodder for all the cattle we’ve seen. There were thousands more grazing by the highway today as well. We caught sight of a few more wild turkeys, but with the wet, not as many were venturing out today as yesterday.

Our route took us past Lincoln, NE, the state capital, named after President Abraham Lincoln not long after his assassination. It’s the second largest city of Nebraska (population 258,000) after Omaha (450,000). Given its central location, Nebraska is a hub of transportation for the country, and we sure saw that on the Interstate – but also in North Platte yesterday, which boasts the largest trainyard in the world.

Our early arrival at the KOA here in Gretna has allowed us some welcome rest time, as we listen to the rain pattering on the trailer roof. It’s spaghetti and meat sauce for supper tonight – we want to use up the meat in our freezer before we cross the border back into Canada!