March 2003, our annual Bighorns trip finally rolled around. We had been anxiously watching the reports come back from Burgess Junction of a monster winter storm making it's way through the 'Horns. The snow was piling up, Intestate 90 was being closed down as the storm swept through, those who were there were reporting awesome riding conditions, the likes of which hadn't been seen in many years out there. All this and we had week yet before we headed out! Talk about torture...
The trip did not start out very smoothly. We had made it down the road about 2 90 minutes when those in our vehicle hear a WUMP, and then a low growling noise. Dad quickly pulled off the road and I climbed out to inspect the trailer. The right wheel had fallen off! We had left at about 4 am, so it was still dark; the wheel was nowhere to be found, stores were not yet open. We gathered our whits, unhooked the trailer and drove into the town of Worthington, which was about 5 miles distant. We passed the time waiting for an auto parts store to open up by picking up a few tools at Wal-Mart that we figured would be needed to make repairs.
After about 45 minutes, a store opened up, but he didn't have the parts we would need. The studs on the hub had broken and the hub was ruined. We asked about a store that catered to trailers and the proprietor didn't know of any - great, what are we gonna do?! Well, we drove around and found a boat dealer open. Yes! He had the hub, but no grease seals. So back to the auto parts store to look for those parts. While we are waiting for these parts to be found, a couple of guys from the group bought rolls and juice and we all (boat dealer included) had breakfast in his shop watching the CNN's coverage of the less-than-1-day-old War in Iraq.
The parts we needed were eventually found and we headed back out to the trailer. It was light by that time and the wayward wheel was found. We replaced the hub and installed new bearings on the right side. While doing that, we figured it would be wise to replace the bearings on the left side as well, so we had two groups working on both sides of the trailer as traffic flew by us on the Interstate! It was quite a site! Thankfully all went well, and while our delay was significant at about 4 hours, we were back on the road by about 9:30. We encountered no more problems on the way out. We made good enough time that we were able to stop for dinner at Perkins in Sheridan and still made it to our Ranchester hotel before 10pm that night.
