Well, not quite, but we’re into our second week at Camp Parking Lot, and we’re learning a bit about our capabilities. I think The Barge will outlast this more than we will. Most ships will.

Propane lasts two weeks, black tank lasts two weeks, grey tank lasts until someone decides the lawn needs watering, and fresh tank lasts four to five days.

It started sucking air so Mom decided that we’d fill it via bucket. As in I tote the bucket and Mom holds the funnel. It worked fine; four buckets equals  one-quarter tank plus at least a half-gallon down Mom’s armpit for having such a half-assed idea. But I must admit it did work. And then we were too lazy or inebriated to actually take hot showers.

Something happened today; a bunch of plastic containers were moved out of the shop. Recon showed that they were labeled “Allison” and “ATL” so I reasoned that the truck that came to pick them up might leave a present for us. We’ll see tomorrow.

This sojourn has been striking  in its lack of conflict. In any normal couple there would’ve been huge arguments, blame and complaining; we’ve only had a moment of frustration. In a past life I was stuck at the dock with a busted rudder for several months so I’m familiar with impatiently waiting. Mom and I are in tune; if we’re not on fire there’s no excitement. But we’d like to get fixed and move on.

Please!

Well, we appear to have cascading simultaneous problems. Hmmm…simultaneous…

Back to it. Our tech thought we had a bad turbine sensor but the replacement turbine sensor is still bad, but while rummaging around in Mr. Allison’s innards he found that clutch C1 is “burnt, welded.”

Not good. An Allison rep confirmed the diagnosis.

So we have a new reman Allison 3060 coming, expected no sooner than a week. So we’ll be in Camp Parking Lot for a while.

By the way, did I mention that it’s going to cost EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!??

Things didn’t exactly go swimmingly so we decided that we needed to go to an Allison shop and not just a truck shop; I reasoned that since the brain box came from W. W. Williams and we were closer to W. W. Williams in Montgomery that W. W. Williams in Atlanta especially considering the Atlanta traffic we would proceed to W. W. Williams in Montgomery. So I plotted our route there.

It appeared, according to the topo map, that we would encounter many hills, even some that were called mountains, on the direct route and with an ailing gearbox that didn’t look like a good way to go.

We toddled down to FDR SP south of LaGrange, Ga., and stayed the night. Actually we had a two-night reservation but getting Mr. Allison in good shape was a whole lot more important than sitting in a campground.

We launched for Montgomery this morning and had a relatively uneventful trip with Mr. Allison only once taking a dump and arrived at W. W. Williams just in time for lunch.

After lunch the tech came out and asked “Where’s you port?’  I replied, “Don’t have one.”

The tech said “I’ll find it.”  I said “Good luck, I’ll help you look.”

After a lot of rummaging around the tech said “They hid it too good. Let’s go for a ride.”   I believe there’s no port at all;  neither the chassis manual or the engine manual make mention of any sort of port. There is no port.

Mr. Allison huffed and puffed and blew up his back feathers and hunched and hissed and spat and took the tech for a ride and threw codes that don’t even exist.

The decision was “Park over by the fence; we’ll fix you in the morning.”

When I tried to back out to get over by the fence Mr. Allison had decided we didn’t deserve reverse gear either. But we made it through the neighboring business’ parking lot.

I think this tech’s going to fix it. I’ll post his accolades when he does.