Ben - Sunday Night - Macon, Mo

From Ben via email - 12:36 AM Central Time

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All in all a good day. 696 miles completed. Sleeping in Macon, MO.

Dora was a bit problematic. The rain for most of the day which didn't help. As mentioned before the wiper blew fuses, then she wouldn't start. That resolved we headed out to find lunch and fuel. Got food around 2. Then fuel and off. The wipers worked for a while, but then the drivers side first got random. Wipe some just on the left side of the pain, then some just on the right. Then it died completely. When driving. And it was pouring. I got to a gas station and under the awning. The set screw in the adaptor had snapped off previously, but something in it had broken. So I could wiggle it off. Then I pulled the passenger wiper. I filed the driver's post so that I could get the D adaptor on. Then I found that part of the problem was that the driver's arm had stripped. So I used the passenger's arm. It would keep the glass clear at least...

Or so I thought. It lasted 5 min before it slipped off the post. Did I mention that it was raining? I found that i could still see the road through the water on the screen. It was just a bit wavey. I ran like that for 45 min. Then came a downpour and I couldn't see, so it was off the road and into a parking lot. In the rain I did some more filing and got the adaptor fully on. It's been ok since.

It must have been quite a storm. Lots of flooding and some detours.

I got a text from Bill Fishel at 4:30. He was in St Louis and pushing for KS.

As of 8:30pm the NJLR team was eating dinner in Kansas City and then aiming for Topeka, KS for the night.

Brutus has been running fine. He just has short legs with one underseat tank and a short pickup tube. 7 to 8 gal is his effective range @ 21 mpg.

We are on US 36 in MO and will follow it through KS too.

Ben