I left Cape Cod driving this truck. It had it's problems, probably the worst one it turned out was that it would not stay in high gear. It kept jumping out of gear and I was driving with one hand on the shifter and pulling it back into high gear when it would pop out. A few hours into my trip, while on the Mass Pike, I felt something weird. Stopped on the shoulder to check it out and discovered a couple of studs on one of the rear wheels had snapped off and the wheel was loose. Tightened the wheel and continued on my way, but no longer pulling back on the shifter. Some time later got a real weird feeling and pulled over again. Four out of the five studs on the wheel were gone. I sat on the guard rail behind the truck and waited. After awhile a State Patrol stopped and asked what the problem was. I showed him and he called a wrecker. While waiting for the wrecker, the cop said I was smart to sit on the guard rail where I could see the traffic coming at me. He said he had had to dive over the guard rail a time or two because of vehicles coming at him. Seems those videos you see about cars or trucks hitting cars parked on the shoulder are not a recent thing. Probably been happening since there have been more than a couple cars on the road.Anywho, the studs breaking ruined a new chrome reverse wheel which pissed me off enough that I junked the truck for the tow charge. I could have fixed it, but figured if I didn't even make it out of the state then it would probably not make another thousand miles that I had to go to get home.
I got most of my stuff out of the truck(there were some car&truck parts left), called a cab and went to the bus station. Some things that I had boxed up, I shipped on ahead and bought a bus ticket to my brother's house. Spent some time at my brother's house as I was not in a hurry to get home because it was the middle of the winter and I knew the snow would be asshole deep to a tall giraffe at the 'Ranch' UP on the Tundra.
After several days I bought another bus ticket for the rest of the way home. On the way, I stopped in Detroit and visited my cousin for a few days.
Finally after two weeks or so of traveling I arrived home(or the town with bus service closest to home) and was greeted by a snowstorm.
The next day I went to the unemployment office to sign up. The woman at the unemployment office(the one who acted like the money came out of her pocket) said I couldn't sign up for 'x' number of days because I sold back 'x' number of days of leave. I said count the days since I got out because it has been 'x' number of days. She had to admit I was right and signed me up for unemployment. I was to get the handsome amount of $45 a week. My vacation had started!!!
