Friday I sold my bus, and the new owner asked me to drive it for him to Tucson, so I did. It took about 6 hours of driving, which was tiring. Along the way we drove through 2 cities having rush hour traffic, which was anxiety producing. Driving an old bus 235 miles was also anxiety producing. We also drove through rain storms along the way, which was also anxiety producing.
The contemplative who wishes to make progress toward mysticism really needs to radically modify his or her lifestyle to reduce anxiety. We often times end up living simple lifestyles, which means little money coming in.
However, sometimes life simply presents stressful situations for us to deal with, so while I drove the ancient bus on the highway, I recognized the rise of tension in my body as a response to these anxiety producing situations. I relaxed the body, let go of the tension, kept my mind empty, and still. Every time anxiety arose due to a thought regarding the stressful situation that I was in, I would simply release the thought, and take refuge in the still mind of the second jhana, and the charisms that arise in the 3rd.
We drove in convoy and arrived in Tucson around 8:30PM. I parked the bus in the yard of its new owner, and made a bed for myself on one of the platforms that I had built, and rested for the night.
Rainstorms had passed through the city, which had made the air cool and most, so with the windows all open, I felt cool. The city had its noises, which kept me awake, so I rested in deep meditation until I left the body into the immaterial domains for a few hours around midnight.
The next morning AJ, the bus owner took me out to breakfast. We had quite an interesting conversation while we waited for my bank to open to get the money out to purchase a truck that I had been shopping for to replace the bus. It turned out that he too is a genius, and he has had a number of religious experiences.
After breakfast he drove me to Benson, Arizona to inspect the truck. It turned out to be even better than I expected from the stand point of features, such as it has a crane that it can deploy with considerable lifting power, but the crane folds up against the bed of the truck and takes up little room otherwise.
The truck is an M756A2 pipeline construction truck, driver's side, which based upon the chassi of the M35A2 troupe carrier.
When I first heard of the Multi-fuel M35A2 engine about 7 years ago I thought it would be the perfect engine to run alternative fuels, and since I like to camp off-road in remote areas, then the M35A2, deuce and a half, 6x6, 2 1/2 ton vehicle, seemed to be the perfect match for my interests.
So, after much research, and tracking people who want to sell surplus military vehicles, I finally found one that had more of what I needed than the average M35A2. It is a 1968 M756A2 pipeline construction vehicle from Kaiser Jeep Corporation. It is based upon the M35A2 but was modified for pipeline construction. It has 3 winches, and a A frame boom that the winches operate to move large equipment around.
M756A2 pipeline construction, front.
I plan to run it on my waste oil-gasoline blended fuel.
Driving it back to Sedona was another anxious sequence, because it is a large vehicle, which I had no experience driving. The truck came with a 5-speed manual transmission with over drive, so on the rolling flat from Tucson to Phoenix I was able to get the truck up to 60mph (96K/H). The vehicle turned out to drive even better than the old bus.
However, just north of Casa Grande the vehicle had a blow-out, which caused it to swerve radically to the right. Fortunately I was in the right lane. The vehicle drove across the shoulder, through the medium, across an on-ramp, which thankfully had no other vehicles on it, before I brought it to rest on the shoulder of the on-ramp, just before a ditch, which brought me to wounder if a 6x6 can be rolled. The maneuver required me to stand on the brake peddle with all of my weight, while pulling to the left with all of the strength in my arms.
The advantage of a contemplative life that bares fruit is I was able to keep my mind still to the depth of the 3rd jhana throughout the event. However, once I had the truck at rest I found myself shaken and week.
I sat on the door step in the shade from the southern Arizona summer sun, and called AAA. I had just upgraded to AAA RV, which states its use is for large vehicle, such as RVs, motor homes, and trucks with campers. They told me they do not service surplus military vehicles. But, they did send out one of the local tow truck drivers to help me figure out how to change my tire without a jack or a lug wrench.
The local tow truck drivers told me that when he had heard that an M35-class vehicle needed service he jumped for the chance to help. However, he could not help me. He spent an hour calling every tire shop and commercial road service business in the area, and found one of them would come at any price. So, he left.
I called the man I bought the truck from, he couldn't help. I called the man I sold the bus to, he was willing to help, if I could not find another option. Then I called Daniel, my friend in Prescott, who I call Superman, because he comes to the rescue of homeless people. He was homeless until he met and married a woman on disability, so you can imagine that they do not have much money. The local churches and service groups in the area cover his expenses for driving the disabled, homeless, and veterans to their medical appointments, and rescues of road gypsies, like me.
While waiting for Daniel to come I sat in the shade of the disabled truck. It was hot, so I ended up drinking all of my water before he arrived. It was 150 miles drive for him, so it took him 3 hours to get to me, which was well after sunset. He bought me a 20 ton bottle jack, and his 1" socket set, and a 10foot long 1" pipe to use as a cheater on his 1" ratchet to move the 1 1/2" lug nuts. We needed the cheater.
Once we had the truck raised on the jack and the flat off, the fresh tire was too tall to fit on with the jack fully extended, so I had to dig a pit under the tire to get it to fit. We then lifted the spare onto the truck, which took everything both of us could muster. It nearly did my back in.
Once the spare was tied down, I then tried starting the engine, but the batteries were dead. I inspected the battery box where 2 12 volt batteries are tied together in a 24 volt array, and found that the battery cables to one of batteries were not even tightened, and one of the cables had come off, and the other had shorted out on the metal battery box. The two batteries were ancient as well.
So, I called AAA, being a good member for years, for a jump. They told me that none of the tow trucks in the area had the ability to jump start an auto with a 24 volt system. So, there was a 24hr-Walmart super center only 5 miles away. So, Daniel drove me to the 24hr-Walmart super center where I bought 2 of the largest 12 volt batteries they sold at $100 each.
We then drove back to the military truck and I loaded the batteries into the battery tray, and wired them properly to the electrical system, then I tired starting the truck. It started right up.
Daniel lent me his 1" ratchet set in case one of the other old tires gave on along the way. I stowed my new 20 ton bottle jack with the 1" ratchet set under the driver's seat and set off to Sedona, with Daniel following me at 45 m/h (70K/H). It was 10 M/H below the speed limit, but acceptable, because it is a big, old truck, and it was by then late at night and traffic was low.
Daniel suggested that I stop at the first exit for us to inspect the tire and tighten the lug nuts again. We found the lug nuts needed considerable tightening.
After getting underway I stopped again after an hour of driving just south of Phoenix, where we inspected the tires again. The lug nuts needed a small amount of tightening. The spare that we had just put on had never been used. It still had the nubs on it from manufacture; however, it was ancient and was heavily checked from sun damage. Daniel noticed a large chunk of the tread was hanging off. So, I stopped again just north of Phoenix to inspect the tire. I could see no more deterioration of the tire, so I figured it would get me back to Sedona. We checked the torque on the lug nuts and found them all tight.
It was very late by then, so I told Daniel, "When I get to the steep incline coming up soon, the truck is likely to slow down to 25M/H, so you are welcome to head home, because I think the truck should make it the rest of the way to Sedona."
He said, "My old van needs to run above 35M/H to keep cool to avoid overheating, so I will run on home. Give me a call if you have any more trouble."
From my window I waved goodby to him and yelled, "Thanks for everything."
The old military truck drove fine the rest of the way on the flats. It did well on the gentle slope leading up to Black Canyon City, so Daniel followed me. However, driving up the steep slope toward Cortes Junction, the truck slowed down to 25M/H, so I put on the wrecker lights that the truck came with, and Daniel drove by waiving out his window.
I stopped at Camp Verde to take a break and inspect the tires and the rest of the running gear. There was still no further evidence of tire deterioration from the mounted spare. I checked the heat on all of the tires with my hand and found them all cool. Rains had passed through the area earlier and had cooled everything off. I even rolled up one of my windows. I also checked the heat of all of the hubs and inspected under the vehicle. There were no drops of oil, but there was a spider web oil stain on one tire, which suggested a break fluid leak, but the breaks were very good, and not spongy, so I concluded that the driver side front hub was most probably leaking lubricant; however, it was not hot, so I figured I could continue on.
I drove to Cottonwood; where I found the whole Verde River Valley was filled with fog. I also noticed a glow on the horizon, and was confused by it, until I realized that it was 5 AM. I drove on to Sedona, and arrived there by 5:30AM. I had not slept in more than 24 hours, and slept little the night before, so I was exhausted. I parked the truck in front of the warehouse, and went straight to bed and slept for several hours. I spent the rest of the day resting.
Even though we contemplatives with attainment radically modify our lifestyle to maximize our religious experiences, sometimes we have to rise to the challenges of life. While I was exhausted, could still feel the charisms that accompany me every day all day long, and I rested well, and entered the immaterial domains with ease, where I was rejuvenated somewhat. Form experience full recovery can take days to weeks or rest and meditation.
