Okay, it's true confession time.
I have not been 100% honest with you.
Good morning. Here is today's window view.
If you saw the last episode,
you know that the brakes started smoking again and I had to pull off and I ended
up on a tow truck. Tow truck driver took me over here.
The driver seemed really nice and I told him about the break in back in El
Centro and he told me that their lot is gated, you know,
and locks up really tight. So I had a really good sleep in here,
pretty much dead to the world, you know, um,
I'm just starting to see trucks move around,
which means the place is opening up.
I'll head out to see if there's a way I can kind of push things and get them
rolling as soon as possible so that I can get rolling toward Los Angeles.
So they let me set up a little office here in their break room,
which is fantastic. They're out there right now working on the bus.
And there was some debate about whether they were talking master cylinder or
calipers and they finally decided to replace both of the calipers.
I also got a lot of phone calls made since I've been here,
which is great cause my plans are all messed up. Like the plan was,
I was going to leave from Ehrenberg and you know,
just sort of swing quickly through San Diego and then go to Los Angeles.
And in Los Angeles - Torrance really - And in Torrance I was going to have
dinner with all my friends at once in the same place cause I have such a short
amount of time there, you know, and that was going to be Tuesday night.
So leave Ehrenberg, hit San Diego quickly, then go to Los Angeles, have dinner.
That's a long driving day. But you know, it would have been,
I would have seen everybody.
But instead Tuesday night I spent in the parking lot at the tire store getting
broken into and then I rescheduled everybody for Wednesday.
And then Wednesday night I spent in the parking lot here.
Today's Thursday I've got everybody rescheduled for today and yeah.
Oh. And, just to speed things up even more,
the people who I am supposed to meet here in San Diego,
they offered to come here and bring my package here for me to get.
So that's amazing cause that saves me even more time. So yeah,
I'm thinking I'm going to make my deadlines.
So they just let me know that the bus is ready and my package is here too.
It's true
confession time.
I have not been 100% honest with you.
Are lies of omission really lies, though?
So when I started getting weird vibes from that other rescue,
the one that had Buster,
I went back on Petfinders and I came across this.
Now the first thing I noticed is he, yeah, he's really cute.
But then if you look closer,
yeah, a copilot, they're calling him a copilot.
I mean that's exactly what I need. You know,
I've never seen a dog advertised as a copilot before.
So I thought okay, I have to pursue that.
I figured if anybody's going to be cool with the whole, you know,
bus life thing, these people probably will be,
if they're looking to get this guy a good gig as a copilot so I got in touch
with them,
and I heard back like right away and I had a chance to have a really long
conversation with Stacy,
who was fostering him and she sent me pictures and videos.
I made a plan to meet him.
And right then I heard back from Buster's rescue and I figured I'd meet him
first and then Buddy would just be the backup dog.
But then on Tuesday when I never heard from the lady in Phoenix about Buster,
I thought, okay, Buster's out. It's going to be Buddy.
But then of course I started getting massively cold feet, you know, because I,
you know, I was really attached to the idea of Buster. His name was Buster.
That was the first name that I gave my bus. He had one eye and Neo,
who was my brother's dog, had one eye. What a great dog he was.
So I started thinking it's all meant to be. And he kind of looks like Cowboy.
Once I started thinking about cowboy,
I started thinking maybe I'm just not ready.
So I wrote this long email to Stacy.
I'm really sorry but I'm just not ready and you know I'm not going to come to
meet him. Well, I never sent the email and yeah,
I went behind your back and I met this dog. I'm sorry about that, but I just,
I didn't want to deal with everybody's saying, Oh I hope it works out.
And all that,
so I just figured I should just do this on the down low and if it works out,
I'll tell everybody. And it's worked out. The minute I saw him,
I just loved him. My heart cracked open when I saw him.
He seemed to feel the same way about me.
I mean he kissed me on the nose the minute
he met me. Not traveling alone anymore.
Okay. We're going to get on the road to Los Angeles.
Captain. Oh, I forgot to tell you that's his name.
He's captain. Oh no.
It's feeling hard to accelerate again.
Okay. I'm not going to jump to,
it's the brakes cause like how could that even be? You know, it's just,
I mean it's probably this road.
It's probably steeper than it feels like it is.
You know, it's probably the grade.
So we just pulled into the park and ride lot in Carlsbad,
California. Three guesses why we're here,
is it so that we can park the bus and hop on the train? No.
Are we here to visit the natural preserve of the Western snowy plover?
No, we probably will but that's not actually why we came.
Is it because the brakes are smoking again?
Yes. So we got three hours before the mechanic gets here.
That's how long they said it's going to take.
So I was actually using the time to do a little bit of research on my friend
Captain here. Scratch My Belly, which is the rescue that he came from,
They have a Facebook page.
So I went on that page and saw their little listing about him and they had told
me that they actually got him out of a really high kill shelter in Downey on
like his last day. Like the day that, yeah,
he doesn't like me to talk about this, I don't think, but it was the last day,
the day that he was um, you know, he was going to take the walk,
let's just put it that way. He just climbs on me.
He just thinks I'm like a jungle gym or something. He digs birds.
He really digs birds. She had sent me a copy of a listing from Facebook.
There was a group that was like the friends of the shelter kind of group that
had posted him as a code red and that's the listing that got her to go get him.
And they were calling him Arlo at the time.
And then when Scratch My Belly got him they changed his name to Buddy 2.
So I guess Buddy one was taken. So anyway,
I went on Facebook and I searched for Arlo code red cause I wanted to see if
there's anything else there about him. And there was,
there was the same listing that Christine had sent me already,
but there's also a little video.
It just kind of broke my heart to see how sweet this guy was, you know,
in that hell hole, like in that cage.
What are you doing there, buddy? Are you trying to get out or are you trying to get more in the frame?
There you go. Now you're in the frame.
How he could ever be unloved, I don't know.
But his teeth were completely rotten. Now he only has three teeth left.
That's how many they had to pull! And he wasn't neutered, and he had a huge tumor
on his back, like not cancer, just like a dermal mass.
And the Scratch My Belly folks, they took him to the vet and got that tumor taken off. Yeah,
he's still got the scar.
I got the sense that somebody probably dumped him on the street like most likely
he got that tumor, they didn't know how to deal with it.
They didn't want to spend the money on him. So they dumped him on the street,
you know,
and that's how he ended up in the worst high kill shelter that can end up in for
a little guy. Hey captain. Captain!
I'm not sure if he knows his name really quite yet.
It's only been a few hours really since he's been named that. So yeah,
you can see in the back here. See that's,
that's this amazing little passenger seat booster thingy that I got from
Scratch My Belly.
They are amazing rescue and they gave me all kinds of things for him.
So he's got clothes and food and toys and all kinds of things from his friends
At Scratch My Belly.
Right now he's going a little nuts cause he wants to get out and chase these birds.
Well the mechanic is here.
Come on man.
Let's get the master cylinder in there.
It's the only part left that hasn't been changed.
But he's been Googling for two hours and I am paying by the hour.
What do you think about all this, Captain?
I mean it's gotta be the master cylinder. Right? Right?
And why is a mechanic a Googling?
I mean he's Googling for two hours.
So I'm finally leaving San Diego. Hopefully for real this time.
I've already left twice and got pulled back in by the fact that the brakes are
not actually fixed. Yeah. So hopefully they're fixed this time.
He was trying all kinds of other things for like, 4 hours. Then finally he changed the master cylinder.
So we took it for a little test drive. He took it for a test drive with me first
and he saw everything I was talking about.
Then we took him for a second test drive and he drove again and it seemed a lot
better. It seemed to be fixed. So I guess we'll find out cause we're about to hit the road.
hopefully put San Diego in the rear view mirror.
In the next video, you're going to get to see Captain meet all my friends who I haven't even seen for like two years.
Maybe on the next one, I should tell you the story of how I ended up on the bus.
Yeah. You know what? I think I will. I'll see you over there.