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Daily Didactic
The day started early, in an effort to beat the humidity and get the only air conditioning the bus has working. AC in the bus is an imaginary thing, something you imagine when you hit 65 and have the windows rolled down. It's really just a stiff breeze. Sadly the bus barely started, the engine only willing to keep running when really revving. We launched out of our campsite and pulled over a little way down the side road to the KOA to check the timing. It was off a little but not bad. We got some gas, launched out of that parking lot, and hit the freeway.
The day's mission was to visit the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City to see the Thomas Hart Benton collection. This was something we drove "all of the way" across Missouri to do last road trip, only to find that during a renovation it was tucked away in a basement. We pulled off the freeway at the direction of the iPhone toward the museum, the bus running marginally better than when it woke up. We wove around and eventually found the museum and ample parking. The ample parking was a result of the museum being closed Tuesdays. Comfortable that the Thomas Hart Benton collection simply didn't want to see her, Theresa suggested lunch before we headed on toward St. Louis. We found a nice "public house" and had some comfort food before stepping back out into what had become a 95 degree sauna outside. We climbed in the bus eager to find a freeway to hurtle down. Unfortunately, the bus seemed to be looking more for a parking lot to die in. Which it did. We rolled it under a shade tree, and Brian called our mechanics in Boulder to see if they could help him undo whatever they had done. Our Boulder mechanics were helpful, but unproductive. Eventually we began the process of finding the local old VW mechanics and got our first AAA tow to Brown's automotive in a typically sketchy part of Kansas City.
One of the few pleasures of breaking down in the bus is meeting good people. Danny and Junior at Brown's automotive are two of them. They stayed late, magical mechanic Junior got the air flow control valve straightened out, diagnosed the faulty rebuilt starter that had been put in in Boulder, and got us on the road in an hour. We found a KOA to stay at in nearby Oak Grove, and scheduled another starter replacement the next morning. The heat and humidity made it an easy call to splurge on an air conditioned "Kozy Kamping Kabin", in which we called it a night.
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