The trip home

After the last song was played and the lights came on reality set in.  It was over and we had a huge task in front of us.  Moving home to Oklahoma.  As we were separating and loading our equipment, separating because Beau and Bob were loading theirs to go their on way, Leon Saught  me out.  We were in the alley behind the club with the trailer door open loading our stuff.  He said he had a speaker cabinet that needed to get back to Oklahoma to a relative and asked me if I would transport it.   I said sure.  Then we talked about a few different things.  I could tell by his actions he wanted to say more.  I finally said to him “ Leon you have a problem don’t you?”   He answered yes I do.   I said why don’t you go with us, go back home dry yourself out and get your mind right.  He paused for quite some time and finally said “I can’t”.   He turned and went his way and I continued loading up.  I will always believe he wanted to.  He only lived a few years after that and I was told alcohol killed him.  We loaded up said our goodbyes and went home to pack up for the long trip home.   I can’t remember when we finally got on the road but it was a sight to behold.   Gary had his car and his travel trailer.  He also had his dune buggy and our boat.  I had my van and the equipment trailer.  With the wives that gave us three vehicles to drive with four drivers.  With one of the vehicles a Volkswagen dune buggy pulling a boat and trailer.   Now not many people would set out from Salem Oregon headed to Holdenville Oklahoma driving a dune buggy pulling a trailer.  It did, thank goodness, have side curtains but of course no heater.  Top speed on a good highway was maybe 55mph.  To make matters worse the boat trailer was one of the old style with small eight inch wheels.  Known for more flats and burned out wheel bearings.  Now as far as my stuff all was good.  I was in the habit of pulling the equipment trailer all over the country so no big deal.  Susan had done a lot of our driving so again no big deal.  But did mention for the last few years we had traveled with two large dogs.  They were Afghan hounds with long hair, pretty dogs but the male was pretty mean especially to strangers.  We had two wire dog crates that were always placed in the back of the van but many times as we were going down the road the dogs were out of the. Crates and free to move about the van.  More about that later.  Our route was to the east out of Oregon into Idaho.  I can’t remember how long it took from point to point but our first delemma was somewhere in Idaho where we had a blow out on the boat trailer.  I was driving at the time.  Keep in mind this is waaaay before cell phones and cb radios so it was difficult to stay together.  So while Gary and I were dealing with the flat tire Susan got ahead of us and we lost her.    She was driving the van with Shannon and the dogs.  We kept looking and looking hoping to find her.   Somewhere along the line we came upon a toll booth.  I asked the man in the booth if a brown van pulling a matching trailer had passed through there.  He replied “ you mean the one with that big ole mean black dog”.   I laughed and said yes that would be her.  He said they passed through ihere just a few minutes ago.   We caught up with her shortly after that.   The trip was pretty uneventful for a while after that.  We would drive all day and stop in a motel at night.   We made it through Idaho and into Wyoming with no problem.   Then one night somewhere in Wyoming we stopped for the night .   We got settled in our rooms and decided to go eat.  Susan convinced me the dogs would be fine she would just put them in the bathroom.   I said no let’s unload the crates and put them in their crates.  As usual she won the argument.  The bathroom had an adjoining closet with red shag carpet.   We came back to find the shag on the carpet was in a pile.  That danged male dog had clawed all the shag off the carpet and nothing remained of the carpet but the backing.  One thing I can say for Susan she had a talent for being crafty.   She said go away I’ll handle this.  She sat down and thread by thread put all of that shag back in place where you couldn’t even tell it had been disturbed.    We did what any fine upstanding scoundrel would do we got up the next morning packed up and left.  Now I’m not proud of that and I really wish we had accepted the fault and made it right.  However I must admit I would have loved to see that housekeepers face the next day when she vacuumed the carpet.   We proceeded on across Wyoming and into Colorado with no problem other than being slow.

Next.   The Kansas wind vs a dune buggy and boat trailer