Monday September 29th, 2025, Long Road Ahead

“Without frustration you will not discover that you might be able to do something on your own. We grow through conflict.” ~ Bruce Lee

Today’s trip was incredibly long but this was to be expected. The original intent was to have arrived in Arkansas by midnight, or maybe between 1 and 2am.

Unfortunatley, the tarp was completely shredded by a thunder storm in Texas. Two of the straps broke and the rope used to secure the tarp under the body had vanished, I assume somewhere on the road. I took every strap remaining, including the two broken straps and reapplied the straps with some additional blue rope I had purchased from a gas station earlier in the morning. This in an effor to limp along to the next larger gas station where I had intended on purchasing another strap.

The vibration from the poorly kept roads rattled the bolts holding the trunk lid to the spring loaded arms right off. The only thing holding it and the bumpers zip tied to it was a small hiking rope which I used to keep the lid closed. Luckily nothing was lost and I didn’t see any additional damage done.

The gas station we stopped at had a classic car musium, which I didn’t have time to walk through, and absolutly zero additional straps to use. As frustrating as this all was, there was a 40ft line of paracord in my armrest that I kept for a rainy day. This came in handy and was used to secure the remainder of the tarp, tatters and all, back down and hopefully for the last time. In total, we spent arround an hour or more addressing the tarp situation that placed us well past the originally intended arrival time. We were now scheduled to arrive somewhere after 5am. The dicision was made and we quickly found a hotel in Oklahoma and checked in at midnight. 1 more day of driving, but only 6 hours.