It has been a loooooooong day...
Y'all remind me not to drive to Alabama on one day and drive back on the very next day...
And, definitely remind me never to drive anywhere on the "busiest travel day of the year" (day before Thanksgiving) again...
I woke up at 4:30am central time, wide awake, and too excited to go back to sleep. I got up and drank coffee with my dad and he told me again all the things to remember and watch out for while pulling a trailer. I listened, nodded along, and fought the urge to say, "I know."
At 6:30am, I was on the road, driving 3.5 hours to the tractor dealer in Centre, AL.
The salesman had the tractor ready to go when I got there. We spent about 10 minutes signing paperwork, 30 minutes getting instructions on every button/ switch/ doohickie, and about 20 minutes hooking up to the trailer and strapping down the tractor.
The whole process was very simple and easy. It was WAY easier than buying a car and a lot less paperwork...
I took a few pictures, texted them to my dad and my wife, and got back on the road at about 11am central time.
Traffic in Atlanta is always bad, but today was the worst I've ever seen. I bet I saw 5 car wrecks, just on I-85, in Atlanta. Google maps told me to get off the interstate and take a shortcut, which literally consisted of me pulling this tractor through a couple of run down suburban neighborhoods. All in all, I wasted 1.5 hours sitting in traffic in Atlanta.
Aa soon as I got out of Atlanta I pulled over for gas. While the pump was running, I took a walk around the trailer and found that the dust cover had fallen off of one of the wheel hubs and bearing grease had been flung all over the rim.
I drove 4 miles to an auto parts store and bought a grease gun, grease, rubber gloves, and a dust cover... As soon as I walked back into the parking lot, it started raining HARD. I quickly found that the grease gun had been used and returned and the dust cover didn't fit. I stood, in the rain, dicking around with the faulty grease gun and bearing grease for almost an hour, and still never found a dust cover that fit.
Thankfully, the nice Orielly's store manager let me return everything for a full refund, even after using most of the grease to repack the bearings on that one hub. I got soaking wet, but I got grease for free, and I felt confident that I could get home without frying any bearings.
I pulled over, several times, on the way back to check the temp of the 4 bearing hubs. None of them even got warm to the touch. I called the company that built the trailer. They apologized for my inconvenience and promised to send me a free dust cover to replace the one that fell off.
All total, I spent 8 hours driving to Alabama and 17 hours driving back. I saved a lot of money on a new tractor, I got to go see my dad, and I had a damn fine adventure...
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