I told you about Roscoe and The Mullet. Well, the time has come to list them for sale. We're getting Roscoe ready first and once we do we won't have a place to stay up there at the lake. So we found a little RV to tow up to the Mullet and we can park it and make it part of the sale there. It's ugly as sin but it has a kitchen, a bath, comfy bed, air conditioning, new water and propane tanks, heater and fridge. Of course it is what it is these days and since we are hardly ever there I put bars over all the windows and a huge shed lock on the door.

We hook up "Bob," our 4x4 Silverado workhorse with several tasks planned and enough stuff with us for a few days among the oaks. There is a bevy of 12 little quail running around under there that are so cute!! Anyway, off we go, eager to make progress on preparations to double our money. We hope. We think we did well finding two unicorns in a down market. Now the lake is full, our road has been resurfaced and the speed bumps are gone. We added value little by little since we've been there and new appliances. Also, there is talk of a solid fix to the 178 from Bakersfield to improve the commute. Wouldn't that be nice. That is one scary road in a big ol' truck. We take the 14 up from LA instead, adding a few minutes, but it is much less of a white-knuckle ride winding up along the rushing Kern River.

The ride up the 14 through the Mojave Desert up to Kern takes us a little under 3 hours door to door. Wakitu was feeling crappy so I talked her into getting out of the city for some good mountain air. An overnighter to drop off the RV and finish the gasline upgrade for the new heater and stove.

It was cool when we left and we kinda knew it would be hot by the time we got there. Bob has what we call "272 air conditioned luxury," that would be 2 windows down, 72 miles an hour on cruise control. We have upgraded, adding the optional hydro dispersal system known as SWS or "spritzy water sprayer." It's a smart evaporative cooling system we learned from the ancient Egyptions or Aliens or something.

There is a freaky spot on the 14 where on a trip with a garage on a trailer we had to leave it for new tires at Tony's in Mojave when we got two flats. After leaving it and driving north I thought perhaps we're not past the point of no return and it would be quicker to go back home and come up again in the morning. So I asked Wakitu how many miles is it to Roscoe, she says "Hour and 29 minute." I asked her next how many miles back to the shop and she says "An hour and 29  minutes."  What are the odds? To the minute on a whim?? It freaked me out a little and still does when I pass that spot to be honest. It just feels weird now. We laughed our asses off and continued north.

I think of the trips progress in three steps. An hour to Tony's and hour to the 178 and an hour to the house. For me it goes quicker in my head somehow. Two hours in we make the turn up the hill on the 178. A five  mile 7% grade uphill push with a speed limit of 65. There is a short, flatter spot just before the cattle grate where you can put your foot in it and build up a little momentum. Bob likes that and usually does just fine. Even pulling the light RV he ran up the beginning of that hill like a boss until the midpoint and then it started slow pumping gas, vrooom 2000 rpm. mooorv, 1000 rpm. Odd, as if it was a squirt gun and shot just that much with each trigger pull of the firing order. Finally it comes to a stop as if it has run out of gas.

This is my life now. I've got the RV, Wakitu on a portable oxygen tank in the heat of the sun, a ton of stuff in the open pickup bed, a half a pack of smokes and 2 bars on the phone. I panic a little but worries are prayers for things you don't want. I dutifully open the hood and look in there like a man. Looks like the motor was still there. Check under it, no puddles. Gas guage reads half a tank and I know I need a fuel pump. I returned from checking under the hood with a swagger and say "Our trucks gonna get a little newer but we're gonna need a ride."

Triple A premium RV is one of those things that you should be born with and are entitled to until you're dead. I can't tell you how much money I have saved with the dozens of tows and batteries from Triple A's finest. She calls them and I panic-call my son who is 3 hours away and get him on standby to bring oxygen and come and get Mama if she needs to bug out. We agree it is probably the fuel pump and make a plan to swap it out. I go back to Wakitu and we all go to youtube university for a crash course in simple mechanics. We each recieved a nice certificate and a tassle after only two or three videos each. BAM we're experts.

Triple A is on the way! By this time it is hot. There is no shade and Waki is way overheated and feeling it. I get her in the RV to cool down while we wait and got waters out of the cooler. We waited. Less than an hour later Mike arrives up from Ridgecrest in a flatbed with a hitch. We load up the 4x4 on the truck hook up the RV, pile Wakitu and her stuff into the cab and off we go. We finagled AAA to make it two calls one for the RV to the Mullet and one to Roscoe with us and the truck. We drop the RV outside the gate in the lot of our ancient antique store and lock it up. Then up the hill to Wofford to Roscoe where he drops my truck where it will be easy to load it on the tow truck home in the morning if we can't figure it out.

Josh and I plan for him to come up and bring stuff and we'll fix it here. Then we can move the RV inside the gate and go home. I can get it started while he's driving up and it shouldn't take too long after that.

The first thing in the morning was to move the truck from up on the road down my driveway to the flat. I had Mike park it there thinking I was going to have to tow it. He dropped it right in front of my driveway. Unfortunately a little too far forward for me to just turn the wheel and nose down the drive. I let it roll back a little but it stopped before it was enough. So what do you do? IN A PINCH? USE A WINCH! I have one of those badass winches that I can hang from the hitch on the back of my truck. I put that on there and thus began the artful dance of rigging stuff to move in the direction you want with only one post on each side to hook to for the anchor.

I set the hook on the right front corner and yanked it forward and cranked the wheel. I got out of the hole and let it roll back and pushed it past the post. I pulled it forward and still didn't clear it, I dropped it back again and this time I got past it. I pulled it forward but now the post was at my front bumper. I ran the cable under the bed and out the side and pulled again until I ran out of room. I switched the snatch block to the left post again under the truck and pulled and finally after a rewrap I crested the hill of my driveway and rolled down a bit, unhooked and rolled down to the flat. Whew. By then the sun was up over the trees and Josh was an hour out. He was bringing parts, tools and smokes.

We learned a great shorcut to make it easier and between us we had all the tools to do it. Now, I don't know if you're as knowledgable as we are on fuel pumps on a 2002 Silverado. You know we all went to school, but the pump is under the bed just behind the cab. There are four ways to access it. You can either drop the tank which is between the bed and a spider web of pipes and shafts and tubes and wires which all have to be disconnected and or moved or snaked out from under. The second way is to cut a hole in the bed just over the pump and patch it later. That would require a cutting wheel, a welder and a hinge to make it right again after. You can also take the bed off, 6 bolts on each side and push, but then you have to pick it up again and put it on top and line it up. An eight foot truck bed empty weighs 3 to 4 hundred pounds. Mine had some stuff in it.

The best way to do it is to TILT the bed up just on that side and crawl under the thing to get in there. That's what we did. While Josh was on the way up I loosend the bolts on the far side and took out the bolts on the pump side. Well, most of them, he found two more when we tried to lift it. Then we grabbed a jack and a jackstand and got ready to lift. He goes "Wait a second" and gives it a tug, I grab the jack stand and my littlest (who is actually the biggest) forklifts the bed up with his arms in the wheel well and I stick the stand under it and we both jump back. It holds and we lifted it again to raise the jack a little higher so we could get the pump out and the new one in. I'm glad we play chess instead of wrestle.

When we get the pump out we can't believe the shape it is in. The floaty thing is below the pumpy thing and the tanky thing has exploded into pieces and is cracked in several places. How does that even happen??? Inside the tank?!!  We look in there kinda and see what looks like a piece of plastic floating there but we couldn't reach it. The gas flows to the pump through a sock so it can't get in there. We leave it and install the new one. The new one requires that you cut off the old connector and put on the one they send you. We twist it all together and try the key. Nothing, and no gas guage which should read 1/2 tank as it did when it died.

We try every possible wire connection with no luck and we are starting to question our sanity as we try over and over expecting different results. We take a break when neighbor Dave shows up. He sees my truck up in the air from the street and knows exactly what we're doing. We explain everything we've tried and discuss the wiring. He asks for a multi-meter and checks the connections on the old one. With the connector wires properly identified and verified he agrees with Josh. We had it narrowed it down to two possibilities and just had the second method fail again as he showed up. He agreed with the first one and put it back. We tried again and still no gas guage. Finally, significantly smaller than both of us, he grabs a flash light worms his way in so he can really get a good look in the tank. Essentially, it is empty. A little puddle where the plastic was and he can see the grit on the bottom of the tank.

Well shit, how can that be? I contemplated theft as it has happened before there but it seemed impossible with me there. I should have a half a tank. Of course as soon as we put some in it starts right up vavoom! Now if you know me at all you know that this is the first truck I've owned since the 70s that has had a working gas guage. I have always wanted to fill up until it stops by itself. CLICK! As luck would have it my filler tube leaks. The first time I tried to fill up I poured 5 bucks worth of hightest all over the parking lot. I had a momentary fantasy about a zippo lighter walkaway no-look-back explosion. So I always stand at the window and watch the guage and just before full I quit. We fixed that while we were under there and after putting everything together and dropping the bed back down we drove it down for a fillup test run. For the first time since 1976 I put gas in a MY OWN TRUCK and waited for the CLICK.

Remember that Jimmy Stewart movie Harvey with the pooka rabbit? A prankster whose pranks often frustrated but somehow in the end all turned out well or better than before. It implies your pooka will provide unexplainable incidents where your keys would move or your fuel pump blows up and then you find your keys next to a pile of money or whatever. Let me offer an explanation for what I think actually happened.

I think that Harvey had us run out of gas so we could find the fuel pump issue. I don't think the pump had actually stopped working. The pump has a float arm like a toilet except instead of stopping the flow when full this float simply sends variable voltage to the guage based on the float height. When my float broke my guage was reading 1/2 tank but I was actually empty. When I filled it to full I really only put half a tank in. With half a tank and towing an RV that is exactly where I would have run out of gas. I think the pump was actually still pumping at this point and adding gas would have gotten us home. After the tow we never looked in there until Dave came by so we always assumed we had a 1/2.

So essentially the float broke and eventually it got hung up and broke the bottom part but it was still pumping gas. So even though the pump was still pumping I never would have known that the guage was off. It is possible we could have run out of gas in a spot on that road with no cell signal or in the middle of the night or the rain or any number of possibilities.

Had God intervened, though He chose not to, I feel like there would have been some shade or it would have happened closer to home. If Angels were involved we would have gotten stuck in front of a place where I could have pulled out my guitar and buskered enough to cover the cost while waiting for the tow truck. Since none of that happened I'm blaming Harvey. That's right kids. A 6ft alcoholic rabbit ran me out of gas. Put us in the path of Mike the tow truck driver who needed to hear how our Kern investments are going as part of our ride. He's buying a house in Ridgecrest you know.  Then he sent Josh up so we could have father and son mechanic time. Everytime he banged a knuckle I told him how much I was enjoying our time together. He also sent Dave over to be a hero;  feels like he needed that. I know his boss. I have a brand-new fuel pump installed without injury. I wouldn't even have noticed that the air filter was plugged so we replaced it and my truck ran 10 degrees cooler and I saved at least an eighth of a tank of gas on the way home.

All in all, it turned out really well for me. We spent two days in the mountains and on the way home I got the RV parked inside the gate. Mike, Josh and Dave did all the work and my truck is, piece by piece, getting newer. I paid for parts, Josh's gas and I owe Dave a sixpack of cold beer. Firestone wanted 1500 bucks. Blessed. Oh, Harvey! It is adventures like this that make life worth living.