Travco Mechanic

We stopped for a bathroom break in the parking lot of a small town grocery store on the backrounds of Texas. We were getting ready to hit the road again when an older gentleman with long, white hair and a white beard that would have done Santa Claus proud, pulled up in a beat-up Honda Accord. The hood was held down with a bungee cord and it didn’t seem like it was going a whole lot further than where it stopped right in front of the bus. The car combined with a certain over-eager look in his eyes combined to make me a little hesitant at first, but he motioned me over and I walked around to the driver side. I said how you doing and he just looked at me and said Travco, right? and I said yup, 69.

It’s not often someone knows what a Travco is, so I waited. He went on to tell me that he was a retired mechanic and we talked abou the bus’s engine a bit. He called it a Canadian 318, a term I had never heard before. I’m guessing that means maybe it was made in Canada. No idea if that’s true or not.

He told me about a person somewhere here in Brazoria that had a blue one, just like the bus. He had done the rebuild, or reassembled it after the machine shop had done it’s thing with the pistons and case. He also said he’s done the brakes and electrical wiring, chased 50 miles electrical wiring as he put it. I said yup, done that. And then the person who paid for all the work he did passed away. The bus went to the man’s wife, but she sold everything and then she passed away and poof, just like that a Travco disappears from your life.

I would have liked to talk to him longer but I knew I had four hours of driving ahead of me, including Houston, so I said nice talking with you and hit the road.