On the way back over to Dale's, we happened to run into Will, Michelle, and Derek, who were loaded up and leaving for Illinois. I explained what we had to do, and discouraged them from waiting for us.
"We'll be a couple of hours behind you so stay in touch with Rachael and let us know where you are", I implored them.

Boone was busy loading and re-arranging things in the small trailer when I arrived at Dale's so I walked over to see if I could do anything to help Dale.
"Are you going to run these M/T 31X10.5W slicks again?" I asked pointing at the tires laying in the grass.
"Crud! No, they won't pass tech for the Modified class, they're too wide, I need to switch back to the ET Streets", He explained.
"When did you plan to do that?"
"Here in a minute...Robertson's will close in about two hours!"
I had Rachael bring me an electric drill with a 7/16 socket and I started removing all the rim screws so he could take them to the tire shop. When I flipped the second wheel over to remove the screws from the backside, I noticed it was soaked with gear lube.
"Is one of your sealed axle bearings shot?" I asked him, tipping up the wheel so he could see it from where he was working under the Gremlin.
"Both of the axles are over on the table have a look", he pointed.
Sure enough, one of them was very bad, with the outside bearing race cracked in several places, and for some strange reason, the press on retaining ring was backed up the axle an inch or more. He made a quick call to O'Reilly and they had one, but it didn't have the groove and o-ring on the outside. I handed him a Dana 60 axle seal a few minutes later and explained that would keep the lube from leaking, even if he broke the bearing again.
"Where'd you get that?" He laughed.
"Bag of stuff that was still in the truck, I bought them for the Dana that still hasn't made it into the Belvedere."

Dale left in his truck to get the tires mounted and pick up the new axle bearing, so I turned my attention to loading the small trailer. Boone and I unloaded the Valiant, then pushed the small trailer over to the back of the two car open trailer. With the help of nearly everyone left in the yard, we managed to push it up the ramps, all he way to the front position on my trailer and secured. We had the Valiant loaded again and were ready to leave when Dale returned, so Rachael and I put his rims screws back into the other tires before we pulled out and headed for Cordova.

I headed for Joplin up I-44 and fueled up just after we crossed into Missouri. The ole 12 valve was running good, and with the lighter load than the usual two cars it was making good work of the Ozark foothills as we were counting down the miles to St. Louis.

The first exchange of texts were with Will and Michelle. When we told them where we were, they asked why we stayed on I-44, explaining that they had turned off in Miami OK, and headed due north on US69 to Kansas City. Then they were taking I-35 to Des Moines IA, where they would catch I-80 East over to Cordova.

The second to tell us we were idiots was Boone, who explained that he was going straight north up US169 to Kansas City, then I-35 to Des Moines, basically avoiding all the hills completely.

Next was Dad, who reminded me that there was nothing wrong with my choice to take I-44, but I should have taken US54 through Jefferson City. "You're going too far east, now you will have to drive up through Peoria Ill. and actually head back west on I-74 to get there!"

Rachael asked me several times why I chose this route and finally I explained to her, "I didn't...I just started driving!"