A shaft, no, not the character of the critically acclaimed television series of the same name, but the auto part that connects the front axle to the rear. I bought a motor home for $2500 dollars on Wednesday night and drove it to Molalla on Thursday, only to have the drive shaft tear itself loose and fall out from under the vehicle bouncing, clanging, scraping and finally flying away from the motorhome and off the road into a ditch, leaving my new house and wheels motionless. The open road, once again closed.

You’ve heard the story a thousand times before; someone buys something, anything, when they use it, it immediately falls apart. I hardly attribute the seller to the accident, his whole family probably too busy playing World of Warcraft to have anytime to travel in a motorhome. Don’t believe me? Penny witnessed it too. A whole family of WoW players, with two giant flat-screened TV’s stuffed into a little apartment bedroom in Vancouver WA.

After I buy it and go back inside to look at it again. I notice three leaks that I didn’t notice when I looked at it before, but I don’t care because as Penny and I headed back over to it, she pointed out a giant rainbow that ended where the motorhome sat. We took it as a sign that I needed it. God… I feel like a fucking hippie…(shudder). I needed to get it covered and dried before anymore water damage occurred. I needed to get it to my mother’s in Molalla where I could work on it.

So I called my former car insurance agent and asked him if I could get temporary insurance to move the RV to my mother’s in Molalla where I could restore it enough to the point where I would want to pay insurance and take it places. He told me that I couldn’t, and that I should have someone with current car insurance to call their agent and get them to temporarily extend it to the RV. I told him I understood and hung up. I thought about it for a moment. I asked Penny if she knew her insurance agent, she didn’t. She said irritably, “Just drive it.”

She has a mean streak, that quiet woman. Just last week we missed one night together, and she ate a bunch of junk food and dined-and-dashed at a local restaurant, eating cheese covered pasta! Sooo not paleo. She’s edgy. I couldn’t stand there and have her think I acted like a sissy, so I jumped in the big diesel rig and she followed me down the freeway back to Portland. We stopped at Willem’s house and loaded our gear, staying parked outside his house that night. I woke up and drove to Molalla alone. Penny would meet me there later, but had other business in P-town.

I’ve driven plenty of big rigs like this one when I worked as a Production Assistant for television commercials for two years in Portland. It felt like no big deal to me. I prayed and visualized making to my mom’s without an incident. Sometimes the universe likes to make you pay just enough I guess, because when I had driven nearly all the way to my mom’s, driving down the home stretch not 1 mile from her house, something breaks underneath me and the motorhome stops.

A nice man named John came out of his house next to the highway and told me that it looked like the drive shaft and when a one breaks, I learned, the vehicle will not move. I ran back to get the pieces from the ditch some 100 yards back as he began directing traffic around my now stationary home. I picked up the hunk of metal and ran back to him. No, I don’t have triple A. I only need to go one more mile! I just bought it yesterday, I don’t have insurance. I need to get it off the road before the cops swing by.

He runs inside and comes out a moment later with a phone book and an umbrella. It begins to rain. He opens the phone book to the towing section and points to who I need to call. As I dial he holds the umbrella over both of us and continues to direct traffic. The first towing company doesn’t have the machinery big enough to tow a motorhome. They give me another number and that place has the gear, but they don’t have it available at the moment. They give me the number of a third place that sends a truck out right away.

C’mon… C’mon… I stand there and wait and cross my fingers.

My mother drives by on her way home from a funeral, with two of her friends in the car. Yes, your son’s motorhome broke down just a few blocks from your house. Yes, I feel fine, the mechanics failed. No, don’t call the cops because I have no flares or cones. NO, don’t call the cops. NO DON’T CALL THE COPS! Moooooom! If you call the cops, they will give me a ticket for $200 for not having insurance, than a tow my motorhome to impound which I will have to pay at least $100 for that tow, than another $200 to get out of impound, and then another $100 to tow it to your house! No, mom, the cops will not “understand.” I know they “do things differently” in the country, and I also know what cops do in general.

…She doesn’t call the cops, but instead drives down the road and borrows some cones from a road construction site. The tow truck arrives and the tow driver tells me what I need to do to detach the rest of the drive shaft, gives me the tools and I go to work. We get the mo-ho up and away before the po-po’s see a thing. We get it to my moms where I throw a giant tarp over the whole thing and run an extension cord out to the space heater to dry out the inside.

Penny shows up and we set up our bed and “criss en” the motorhome and go to sleep.

The Stats:

1984 Ford “Suncrest” Class C Motorhome Diesel 350 V8

It has a kitchen with a sink, oven with stove top, and a freezer/refrigerator. It has a bathroom with a sink, toilet and shower. It has a table/chair living room area with a fold out couch that turns into a bed that sleeps two. It sleeps two in the canopy above the cab as well.

Current mo-ho goals:

1. Seal water leaks (possibly take off the roof air conditioner and replace it with a sunroof).
2. Fix drive shaft.
3. Receive motor repair manual in the mail and figure out what else I need to repair.

Future mo-ho goals:

1. Hook to solar power.
2. Remove toilet and replace with humanure system.
3. …Biodiesel? Veggie Oil?

I got a mo-ho! I broke my corn fast in celebration. Taco’s have never tasted so good.

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