After the Country Fair was over, we spent most of Monday eating and sleeping at the home of our new friends in Springfield. It was another one of those rest and recovery days where we caught up on voice mail and email, did laundry, reorganized the truck, and otherwise charged up and re-centered for the road ahead.

On Monday afternoon, Obbie dropped the truck off at the mechanic. When he took his bike from the rack for the return ride to Becca’s house, he discovered a broken brake cable. Not sure when that happened, or whether it happened while the bike was being borrowed on the last day of the fair.

So on the way to retrieve the truck on Tuesday, Obbie had to make a stop at a local bike shop to get the brake cable repaired. Once his bike was safe to ride again, he got the verdict from the auto mechanic. Yes, the source of the rumbling sound and sensation was a bad u-joint. Actually, both u-joints were in need of replacement. But that’s not the whole story.

The story is, if you ever break down, try to do it near Springfield, Ore., and get your work done at the Springfield Service Center on A Street South. For less than $150, they replaced the u-joints, did a safety inspection (telling us how much brake pad we had left), washed off and vacuumed out all the dust and dirt we’d gathered over the past month, and even left mints on the seat. First class service at an incredible price.

Becca prepared an awesome chicken barbecue, which was a great send-off meal for the second half of our road trip. Even though it was 10pm by the time we were ready to leave, we needed to get some driving momentum and take a bite out of the drive to Crater Lake. We may have put off Crater Lake to get to Springfield, but we had no intention of skipping it.

Happily, the truck ran silently up the hills into the night. We found a room in the little town of Oakridge. It’s right about where the valley ends and the mountains begin, so it’ll be a great place to start tomorrow.