On to Rosamond…

Arrived in Red Bluff, Wednesday, Oct. 28th. There was to be an Oregon Ducks game on Thursday the 29th. I’d asked the park manager and thanks to him knew there is an Applebee’s nearby (and no other ‘sports’ bars within bike riding distance) so called them and discovered that yeah, they did have the channel the Ducks game was on, and yes, I could watch it in peace. Next evening, at 7 pm I call the local taxi, decided not to bike ride since it was a late game, and take a $5 + tip ride over and the gal I’d talked to remembered talking to me and set their main, giant bar TV on the game. And what a game. They played Arizona State, at Tempe, and the game went into triple overtime. Wow. Ducks won, 61-55. Hell of a game. Have to say, the staff at Applebee’s really bent over backwards to accommodate my interest in the game and I ended up the only one left in the place, along with the manager, because the game ran on so long. The manager actually kept the place open just for me after it had emptied out. I did have dinner there earlier, and I left a big tip, $20 just for the bartender. She had kept my game on the main TV instead of switching to the NFL game and making me move to a smaller TV. Very nice of her. Often in bars I have to fight to even watch an entire game.

Very nice weather here in Red Bluff. I did ride my bike the one mile to downtown a couple times and found a nice and just opened coffee shop with mocas, and what looked like great food…but no WiFi yet. Right across the street from the county courthouse. Pleasant restaurant in a pleasant town. But I could imagine how hot it would be during summer.

While in Red Bluff, I was waiting for my new meds from the VA pharmacy. The VA has no mechanisms in place to deal with wanderers like myself. People without homes, who perhaps wander around the country in their RVs nearly full time. As though they would rather the homeless dropped off the rolls. As a matter of fact, from my observations of the way clinics and the web site operate, that seems to be exactly what they’re trying to do. It appears to be a purposeful hassle on their part when you need or want to change clinics, or to receive meds. Even though they have an extensive online presence that could easily adjust for changes if they wanted to set it up that way. They also have a database in place so every VA clinic and hospital in the US has my records. But each one would make me fill out the entire application again, and give my ‘local address’. I can’t use a temporary address, or my address back in Gresham just for an office visit…I have to be a local resident. All I want to do is, without hassle, to be able to have my meds shipped to an address different than my permanent address, or just walk into a clinic anywhere in the US and get my flu shot after showing them my VA card. Simple with computer databases and online ordering these days, huh? Millions of online and big box retail businesses do it every day. Well, with the VA, you can’t even do those simple things.

Because I have to have a permanent address, I use a friends address up in Oregon, order my meds, they’re sent to my friends address, she ships them along to me wherever I happen to be at the time. So, I’d been using a certain type of medicine formula that was suppose to shrink my prostate, making it easier to urinate and decreasing the number of trips to the bathroom at night. But they’d decreased in effectiveness (if you remember 5 years ago or so, 3 drug companies were caught relabeling and selling meds to the VA as though they were brand new when actually, they were returns that had aged out and expired – I had the feeling they were up to their old tricks).

When I was up in Gresham and had gone into the VA clinic for my yearly physical, I’d explained all that was happening with the meds, and they prescribed a different kind. The clinician (I don’t get to see a doctor anymore, since I’m in fairly good health, that’s another way they’re cutting costs – no doctors around) mentioned that she was going to prescribe a new drug [as seen on TV – which made me groan a bit], and I’d gotten those back in early September. About a month later, it was obvious that the new pills didn’t do shit! And my old pills were pretty ineffective as well. {To my readers that aren’t in the US, the drug companies here are allowed to advertise drugs on TV, one of only 2 countries on the planet that does, and we consumers want the FDA to review prescription ads before they air to prevent BS. Currently, it’s against federal law for the FDA to do this, so it must rely solely on consumer complaints after the ads have run. As a result, dumb people request those drugs before they’ve been proven effective, or, doctors or clinicians susceptible to advertizing think they might be effective and prescribe them. As you can imagine, the ads are misleading, inaccurate, and minimise the side effects.}

Anyway, I’d settle here in Red Bluff, contacted the VA and asked them to change my meds back to something that worked, and to wait for them to be shipped, first to my address up in Gresham, then on to me. Eventually, my friend received them, and charged me $22 for 2 day shipping via USPS. With guaranteed delivery. They were suppose to arrive on Friday, then Saturday, then Sunday according to the tracking info. On Monday, I rode my bike over to the post office, and yes my meds were there. Why didn’t I get them Friday? They didn’t know. Saturday? Same answer. Sunday? Oh, we don’t deliver on Sunday (some PO’s do though). Gah!

With my meds finally in hand, and actually working, I enjoyed a couple more days in Red Bluff basking in the sunshine and riding my bike around. But, my brother was bugging me to come down to his place and help work on the Studebaker so sure, I’ll do that.

And off I go…

A couple hours into the trip, and hey, lookie there, it’s the Oscar Meyer weiner mobile. Huh.  And the thing passed me. Weiners can go fast I guess. Bye, you wienie you. And then, south of Bakersfield, I stopped at the Calif Fruit Depot again. Everything can be sampled. Yumm. Ended up spending another $20. Like last time I stopped here.

And later that day I was parked near Dan’s house. The next day, we got to work on the Studey.

The funny thing was we were going to try to use 4X4’s and a big floor jack wedged against a cement step in his garage to try to get the harmonic balancer (hb) back on the drive shaft at the front of the engine. Dan had taken that off because it wasn’t aligned with the proper timing settings, but when we gave the 4X4 and floor jack method a shot, it was pretty clear that wasn’t going to work. You’d need to remove the entire front end section of the car to get the room and angle in order to be able to press, hard, on the hb. Lots of work. So I suggested he go to the junkyard and get a two foot metal bar we could use. He had a brainstorm on the way there and instead stopped and got a 1 & 1/4″ diameter metal pipe, and a coupler. Better idea. Ground down the coupler so it would fit neatly inside the hb, preventing slippage, then used a hammer to whap the end of the 2 foot long pipe. Craptastic, the hb slipped right on! No big deal afterall. Did take some pounding but not much.

A couple days later, we’d gotten pretty much everything back together. For my part, I got the front bumper back on, and the last bolt holding the driver’s seat in place, which was a bear. Installed the replacement tail light assembly. Then I got all but one of the spark plugs and wires installed. Installed the distributor cap. Helped get the radiator back in place by running out and getting self-tapping bolts for a couple of stripped bolt holes in the thin metal that holds the rad (I’m pretty clever sometimes – Dan didn’t realize they made self tapping bolts), then devised a method of easily getting the fan, spacer, and long bolts attached onto the water pump. Then we installed all the belts and filled the rad with antifreeze of course. We tried to get the brakes working and Dan found a blocked line and cleared it, but it appears that the master cylinder is bad.

Dan got all the valve lash settings properly adjusted, tried to crank it, and gas dribbled out of several places on the rebuilt carb. AND, the carb was missing an important linkage! We looked everywhere, but mostly around the workbench where Dan had rebuilt the carb. No luck. So, he orders the part then a couple days later heads off up north to go to a couple Ducks games, visit friends in Eugene, then on to his son’s family home for TDay, etc. And I hang around Rosamond a few days and enjoy my friend Brennan’s company, and a visit or two to Norma’s Pub. We even went sailing again. And that’s where we’ll pick up next time.

Thanks for visiting!