First miles, first mishaps

We launched. Not on water yet, but we hit the road—and that’s no small thing.

The past week was a blur of last-minute repairs, packing lists, untested gear, late-night epoxy sessions, and frantic repainting. There was preventative maintenance and finishing touches, but also some real “hold-your-breath-and-hope” fixes. You know: the fun stuff.

We never got around to adjusting the tongue weight on the trailer—we knew the boat was too far back. But launch day snuck up on us like a piano from a third-story window. That made bumpy roads gnarly. Even with sway bars, the trailer had a tendency to fishtail whenever its equilibrium was disturbed.

So we stopped in Needles to fix it. Semi-launched the boat in the Colorado River, standing chest-deep in cool water on a 99-degree day. Not the worst troubleshooting method—but trying to guess what 600 pounds of tongue load should feel like while waist-deep at dawn? Bit of a gamble.

And then we re-hit the road.

A few hundred miles later, Dotty was still holding together. But the truck… not so much.

We pulled off to pee and caught a sharp whiff of diesel. Not the faint kind. The “something’s wrong” kind. Popped the hood and found a cheerful little fountain of fuel arcing from the top of the engine. I don’t know much about diesel mechanics, but I’m pretty sure that’s not a factory feature.

We patched it with borrowed gorilla tape from a nearby trucker (who was mid-recreation with his lady, bless), limped into Holbrook, Arizona, found a mobile mechanic along Route 66, and made camp.By nightfall, Dotty’s chaos had been tamed into comfort. We lit the lanterns, packed the shisha, cued up Tom Waits Tuesday, and settled into an impromptu desert bivouac. Sometimes, your backup plan is also your living room.

While we wait for the part to arrive (presumably in the talons of a raven from parts unknown), we tried to make the most of our accidental layover. We had coffee at a nearby Christian café. Then we walked the long stretch toward downtown Holbrook under the desert sun, paused for Circle-K shade and a parking lot burrito from a Navajo woman selling out of her car, wandered through a magical abandoned junkyard, and followed a dusty path to the Little Colorado River—where we hoped for a cooling swim, but found only a warm muddy slough.



Five hours later, sun-drunk and footsore, we returned to the shantyboat to smoke a victory cigar—only to be rousted by the police called by the aforementioned Christians (thanks, Cafe 66, mighty Christian of you). 

Tomorrow: parts, repairs, and whatever else the road has planned.

Tonight: tea, smoke, and the strange peace of being stuck in an absurd Samuel Beckett novel.