Smart Family at HOME (wherever that may be)!

Still in Wagga...

Well, here we are finally back online. After leaving Canberra on 1st November, we have had quite an interesting few weeks. Lets start with the day we moved out of our house, the truck we bought to transfer our furniture and bits and pieces to Tassie, had a little hick-up with the suspension. It didn't work...We had to get it to the suspension specialists in Queanbeyan and let them replace and upgrade all the suspension. That was supposed to take a week...which was good, because Stu was off to National Run in Brisbane with God's Squad, on his Harley, and wouldn't need it for that amount of time anyway, and the kids and I were off to Wagga to spend time with the families before we headed south. But, when Stu got back to Canberra on the 6th November, the parts still weren't in yet. So he rode (poor guy ;) ) to Wagga on his Harley with his good mate Glenn (and his Harley), who was over for National run, from the UK. that was on the Wednesday 7th. On Friday 9th, we (Stu, Shell and kids) drove the 4WD back to Canberra to pick up the Truck. Stu wasn't happy with how the load was sitting so we (he) re-packed it. Then we headed off back to Wagga. But as you will soon work out, if not already, nothing is simple with the Smart family. Stu got a blowout just at the exit onto the Hume Highway, We stopped, changed the wheel for the spare and Stu noticed that there was one stud previously sheared off, and we had just done another, what more can you do at 9pm other than head off again, so we did, we still had 4 out of the 6. A few km's down the road I noticed the wheel we had just changed was wobbling a little. I should mention here, that I was following the truck in the 4WD and we both have 2-ways. so I said to Stu to pull over, by the time he got off the road the wheel was badly wobbling and I said stop NOW! When we checked we had sheared off 2 more studs, now 2 out of 6 isn't so good, so we could do nothing but leave it for the night, and deal with it in the morning. So we drove into Yass and caught a motel and slept. In the morning Stu repaired the blown tyre, and sourced a tow truck driver/mechanic to tow and repair the truck's wheel studs. We met him there, and he loaded the truck onto his tip tray and headed back to Yass (see photo's) and we headed back to Wagga. So at the moment we are still here. We had trouble sourcing the studs, got them now, but can't find the nuts, we're having them manufactured. So we are hoping to leave Wagga this Saturday. We will know more later in the week...of course.