I promise I will eventually post all that interesting info from T-stan I've been talking about. But for the moment I would like to discuss my last road trip.
In an earlier post I described the difficulty in getting my car, my stuff, and myself from NoCal to Illinois. Now I wish to describe my difficulty in getting my car, my stuff and myself from Illinois to New Hampshire. One of those three things never made it. Guess which?
First, it took 2 trips with a Uhaul trailer. They wouldn't rent me the 5'x10' that I had used getting from Cali. They said it was too big. "Must not have had that much weight in it." It seemed easier just to go with it, rather than explain I had hauled all my mom's free weights and my dad's reloading equiptment over 2 mountain ranges on that last trip. But they let me have the 5'x8', which happens to be a foot taller than the 5'x10', so I got the same amount of space. I wasn't able to drive it out of the lot though. Why, you might ask? Because the Uhaul dealer in Eureka installed the wiring wrong. Yes, I drove across 7 states without brake lights. Hmph. He called in his mechanic and showed Dad and I how to rewire the car ourselves. 3 hours later...
All was well, and I drove out of Chigaco very early on a Sunday morning. Less traffic. Bayram (my dog, whom I probably haven't mentioned yet) seems to like long road trips luckily. This first trip was uneventful. The biggest challenge was getting a king sized mattress and a portable dishwasher through the front door. And it rained the whole time.
The second trip was much more 'exciting' shall we say. I felt I had been overcharged for the first trailer, $770, so I argued with Uhaul, and the local dealer gave me the 5'x8' trailer again but for the 4'x8' price, $450. Big difference. Then Dad insisted on changing the oil before I left. It had been to NH twice after all. My car has had an oil leak for the last year or so. Walmart wouldn't touch it. 'Bob' said that Walmart are idiots and it was just a leaky seal. Integrity Auto Care said someone had tried to fix it with a coil of some sort, but they did it wrong and now it strips the oil plug everytime the oil is changed. They said I needed a new oil pan. Dad said yes, someone put the coil in wrong, so he simply took it out and put a bigger drain plug in. It didn't leak anymore.
Again, the drive was uneventful. Until I got to Danbury, CT that is. Then my car made a horrible grinding noise and the service engine light started blinking. Not good. "Well, I'd better get off at the next exit," which happened to be 5 miles down the road. I pulled off I-80 towards Newtown, where one of my many relatives in CT happen to live, but I only made it to the first stoplight when my car stalled, and died, never to move again. It was towed to the auto shop that happened to be 1/2 a mile from where I was. Though towing the car and the trailer proved to be difficult. My aunt, whom I haven't seen in 10 years, came to pick me up and brought me and Bay to my grandma's house. It was already closing time, so they couldn't look at my car that day. They didn't look at it for 3 days. I spent a week with no car, and no money, wandering around Brookfield. I had only $50 left, just enough for gas to NH. I had never walked so much. Bayram and I must have circled the condo complex 20 times in 4 days.
But the car was dead. They looked in the engine and said it needed a new one. They called the junk yards, but none could be found. Not that I could afford it anyways. "It has 270,000 miles on it, it's not worth fixing." Yeah, it's not worth it to you because you have a car. Karl came down in his boat and used his Uhaul hitch for the first time since installation, and we made a slow drive home. This was in June. I still don't have a car, and I still don't have a job, and Bayram and I probably walk 20 miles a week, out of sheer boredom.
I miss my car.
