Those of you who read my blog from last year's trip will recall two things.
First, the Defender had to be shipped 2500 miles back home from cold, snowy Salina, Utah, last December after it improbably broke down for the 4th time on the trip, this last time just as we were about to get onto the last of the hundreds of highways, byways, and trails that we drove on for that fated journey.
Second, during the trip, I made the occasional, muted reference to my “pesky sciatic nerve problem.” Although I did write in muted terms, the fact of the matter was that I was in pain with every single right step I took during that 14,500-mile, 117-day journey, ranging from moderate pain, to pain bordering on and getting into excruciating. Since there was nothing more I could do about it on the trip, I just tolerated it, learned how to deal with it, and moved on.
As for the Defender, it was towed back to my mechanic in Virgina who eventually discovered that distributor had been installed incorrectly at the mechanic’s in Utah, and somehow the fuel pressure line had gotten disconnected from the engine. I guess these things happen. I retrieved the Defender from the mechanic in April, only to have it not start a week later due to a dead battery, caused by a small light on a new recharger outlet that was hard wired to the battery. I then had it towed to a closer mechanic who, as a former master Land Rover technician, discovered a number of other things needed to get it running in top condition, and so that is where it still is now. I am told the work is almost finished and I will have the Defender back in a week or so.
The news about my “pesky sciatic nerve” problem is not as optimistic, not yet anyway. As soon as I got home, I checked into my orthopedic doctor, who told me to see a back doctor, which I promptly did. That doctor told me I needed serious back surgery fast, which I had done on January 30th. When that didn’t solve my problem, I then went to see a hip doctord, who replaced my right knee on May 1. After 20 sessions of physical therapy, when I still could not walk without a cane, I went back to the doctor and he took an MRI of my knee, which showed a lateral meniscus tear, which happened during my hip surgery recovery. I then went in for arthroscopic surgery on my tight knee on July 13th, and the doctor found and repaired not one but two meniscus tears. After 10 more sessions of PT, when I realized that the physical therapy was not working and there was nothing more this therapist could do, I signed up with another therapist this past Wednesday, where I plan to spend the next three weeks or so to get to the point where I can walk without a cane, not to mentioned climb into a low-door tent leap up onto my roof rack, lug around 50-pound supply containers, and other things like that.
All of the above is by way of saying that there will be no OnTheRoad.camp trip this year, as originally hoped anyway. The earliest I will be able to get on the road now is mid-September, and that is too late to drive to Labrador, James Bay, or the Arctic Ocean beyond Inuvik in Canada’s Northwest Territories. But I am not giving up for some kind of road trip. I cannot. I need them to survive, now that they are in my system. If I am able to get on the road by mid-September, I might drive to the West Coast and spending the next six weeks driving that spectacular highway, and then finishing the trip as I did last year, through the Nevada and Utah deserts, and then on home. I cannot afford another breakdown again this year if I follow this schedule because my two-week travel companion from last year, Stefanie, the medical student from Germany who jumped from reading my blog last year into the driver’s seat of my Defender will be coming over to visit me in mid-November.
Interestingly enough, I am not disappointed with this change of plans. Sure, I was anxious to get on the road again, especially in my “new” Defender, and out of my comfort zone, especially after being “imprisoned” for eight weeks on last year’s trip and then since I returned home on December 4th. But I often said that 1/3 of the fun of these trips is the planning, so I will at least get that. On Monday next week, I will start the serious planning for OTR-9, wherever that may take us.
I will end this blog posting with the same last three words of the Turandot aria, Nessun Dorma, that got Stefanie and me through a rather adventurous two weeks, and then me home from some very tough predicaments after that, Vincero, Vincero, Vincero.
