1/7/2010/ More brown, flat, boring drive and some exitment!

Left Demming, New Mexico, passing by a funny little town named "Truth or Consequence". Wonder how this town got this name! Went on our way following Davids truck and little trailer with the kayak. David was worried all the way because the trailer has just those tiny wheels and he and Dan put new bearings on just for the trip plus David had a pair of spares with him.
Well you guessed it. Suddenly Michelle and I started smelling burned rubber, then we saw something flying of the right trailer wheel and then smoke coming from that wheel. We radioed David to stop and being in the middle of the city of El Paso (Texas) in high traffic we had to pull on a barely existing emergency lane. David got out and checked the wheel and decided to pull on to the next exit.
In 30 miles winds and freezing temperature we started to unload the kayak, the weight set weights (David put on the trailer to keep it from bouncing) and boxes of rocks from Morocco we couldn't fit into the moving truck anymore. Then the fun begun with taking of the wheel, digging in the truck for the grease gun, repacking the bearings and putting everything together. By then we all where frozen stiff and Michelle already having a sore throat in the morning came down with a full blown cold. Oh how much fun it is to move!
About 2 hours later we were back on the road. David stopped about ten minutes later to check if the wheel got hot but it seemed okay. On we went. About an hour later David stopped again to check and....you guessed again..., the wheel was hot, hot, hot!
Here we repeated the whole shebab again, unloading the Kayak, the weights and boxes of rocks! Taking the wheel off and ding, ding, ding all the little balls rolled out of a practical worn down to nothing bearing housing! Just a bit of metal scrapping left. So David started again in freezing weather with a windchill factor of about 10 degree to put the new bearing on with plenty of grease which covered by now also our clothes and everything. Another couple of hours later we were back on the road and made it with no more problems to our next stop in Odessa, Texas.
Arriving at a motel we unpacked our stuff and since it was freezing out side and Greg, David's brother advised us to take the huge LCD TV out of the car so it wouldn't freeze, we also hauled that monster out of my car.
Michelle was meanwhile miserable with her cold but after we all including Trina piled in my still filled to the top Xterra and went to have a delicious Mexican dinner, she felt a bit better! All the way on our journey she was out for American junk food to get all she can before returning to Germany.