Super Epic - Super Pacific Road Trip - Days 15 & 16: Beaver Lake, Tow Trucks, & Good Guys Named Chris

Outside of Warren Buffet's house in Omaha, Julia was getting nervous.

"Will you PLEASE just get on down the street before you start texting your boys your selfies in front of his house!!! Did you see all those cameras???"

To be fair, there were a lot of cameras, but surely I'm not the only person who drives 20 minutes out of their way to see where the Oracle of Omaha lives.

But I conceded, and we headed on to the Ozarks.

It was a long, flat, and boring drive from Omaha, Nebraska to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and about the only thing we saw worth mentioning were the airplanes buzzing around dumping glyphosate on all the corn growing there.

It's corn, corn, and more corn, as far as you can see, and with so many airplanes, it's no wonder a recent study found that 93% of us have Roundup in our blood.

But we passed through without incident and arrived at an Airbnb just after midnight. A massive storm came through that night, and we were up several times watching the lightning light up the lake about 300 feet below our cabin.

The following day started with coffee as the sun rose and honest-to-god wifi with high-speed internet! Owing to the third-world internet situation for the previous two weeks, I needed to catch up on work, and it was great to have the morning to myself while Julia slept in.

After lunch, it was time for a boat ride! Beaver Lake was formed in the 1960s when the Army Corp damned the White River. It's over 200' deep in places with crystal clear, emerald-tinted water surrounded by natural limestone bluffs that were once high above the river. It is among the most beautiful mountain lakes I've seen.

Back at the cottage, we fixed steak and broccoli on the grill while the sun set and then got in bed early. The next morning, we were to be fishing for monster trout 80 miles further down the river. As with the night before, we were treated to thunder, rain, and lake-illuminating lightning all night.

Early next morning, I had everything packed and ready to go before waking Julia up at 7:30. We needed to be on the road by 8:15 to meet our fishing guide, and it felt terrific that we were in the truck a few minutes early.

"You ready, babe?"

"I'm ready."

I turned the key, and. . .

Nothing.

No clicks. No starts. No nothing.

"Did we leave the lights on?" I wondered.

No worries, I have an extra battery plus a jump box, so a dead battery is of little concern.

But the radio was on, the AC was blowing, and the windows worked - so a dead battery was not the problem.

I checked the connections.

I checked the fuses.

I swapped the starter relay with a known good relay.

I tried jumping the starter straight from the battery.

I tried it all to no avail, and by 9:00, I threw in the towel and called AAA.

Well, the first truck they sent out was a rollback, and that driver said he couldn't get us out because we were on such a steep hill. While we waited on a wheel lift rig, I made an appointment at a nearby Toyota dealership in Rogers, AR, that could work us in that morning.

And we waited.

And waited.

Then I made some coffee.

And we waited some more.

Y'all, it was 8 hours before the 2nd tow truck arrived! Mind you, check-out was at 10:00, so we'd been sitting in a hot-ass parking lot all day. I'm hoping and praying that we'll make it to the dealership before the service department closes for the weekend, but it took 45 minutes to load the truck, and I knew that wasn't happening.

We got to Landers Toyota at 5:30.

I asked if any techs might want to pick up some overtime and a cash bonus for fixing us up so we could head down the road.

No luck. With only two weekends left before school started back, they were already gone. It would be Monday before they can look at the truck.

In the parking lot, we unloaded what we needed for a long weekend in a hotel. Having no way to take the fridge with us, I asked Chris, the service advisor, if he could use the unopened food. I hated wasting it and was glad he took the beef, the pork, and the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream.

We checked into a hotel across the street for the weekend, and I headed straight to the bar to drown my sorrows in a cold beer. I have to be back in town Wednesday, and since they couldn't work on the truck until Monday, the Super Epic - Super Pacific Road Trip had come to a decidedly non-epic ending.

No Vicksburg, MS.

No New Orleans, LA.

No Montgomery, AL.

I was looking up flights for Julia to go ahead and get her home when my phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hey man, it's Chris over at Landers Toyota. I've got you all fixed up; you're ready to roll."

I ran back over as fast as I could, and I could see him standing beside my truck as I turned the corner.

"OMG!" I was yelling, "You are my hero!"

He and I had talked about all the things I'd tried while he was checking me in. I was sure it was an electrical problem, and he agreed. After I left, he got curious. It turns out he used to be a tech. So he started tracing things and found that the starter signal cable - under the intake manifold and not visible - had come unplugged. By way of what I can only regard as a miracle, he was able to reconnect without pulling the manifold.

Bam!

I thanked him 1,000 times, ran back to the hotel to collect Julia, and we were finally on the road at 7:30 PM.

So we didn't get to fish, but we did take a detour to Little Rock, AR.

That means Julia will see the Bill Clinton Presidential Library later this morning, which has been on her bucket list for longer than I've known her.

And, more importantly, the Super Epic - Super Pacific Road Trip can continue.

Today, I'm thankful for good people like Chris. Maybe it was just the Ben & Jerry's, but I'm sure he had better things to do last night than tend to my old truck.

He went out of his way to help a stranger and for that, I'm eternally grateful.