Road Trip Still Not Taken

 Oh my gosh.  Got the brain rebuilt and reinstalled.  It even came back early and that pumped me up. Worked great. Took the van to Dick's for tire rotation and rebalance.  That is where I found out that the bushings for the sway stabilizers were shot, gone, ridiculous.  One of them is held together with wire.  Why the f*** would you not just buy the right part and fix it. Dick's said $229 to replace both of them and it could wait until after the trip.  It is not a safety issue but it will clunk on occasion.  Okay so that is the plan. 

Loading all the furniture in the van was a chore.  I have bruises and tired muscles.  But I got it done.  Everything is in and all the small stuff hidden.  If you look in the windows you just see the dressers and bookcase.  I'm happy that I don't have to unpack at the other end and I don't envy the unpackers as it has to untetris the way out.  Again pumped to leave.

The day of leaving I needed to stop at Walmart for snacks and oil (oil leak you know) and flat fix.  Ready.  Start to pull out of the Walmart parking lot and it starts running like crap and here comes the check engine light again.  Home we go and part of the time that light is flashing...never seen that before on anything.  I assume it means it is a little more important than just a light. 

Rick comes back and puts the code reader on.  Fuel injector number one is throwing a code.  And he can't get to the plug to get it unplugged.  So he had to come back the following day and take the valve cover off.  We were hoping it was a fuel injector as that is easiest.  Nope it is the wiring.  And turns out to be the wire going to number six, but they all use the same ground so he tried to explain to me how it is shorting out from number six but reads as number one.  Bare wires.  Yeah bare wires are no good.  So he had to order a new wiring harness (because it was ridiculous to only fix number six), and of course it can't be here till today.  Fingers crossed.

For those keeping score; I was to leave Aug 9, Aug14, Aug 26, Sept 1, Aug 27 and again Sept 1. Today should be the tell.  If Rick is done in time I will go get an oil change and be on the road tomorrow.  I cancelled my flight to MN and the rental car.  I will already be in the Midwest and will just drive that way home.  I'm not making any firm plans at this point.  The road trip is still not taken.

The Trials and Tribulations of a Road Trip (Not Yet Taken)

 From the time Cassie was told they were approved for a mortgage I knew I was making a road trip.  Papa made beds and dressers for his grandchildren. Well let me rephrase that.  He made beds for the youngest two grandchildren.  He made one dresser and redid three dressers so that all his grandchildren had something special from him.  I have the dressers and beds for the ones I had for ten years.  And now that they have a more permanent place to live until they are grown up, it is time for them to have the furniture back.  And that means a road trip to deliver said furniture.

Easy peasey.  Not quite.  My first thought is naturally a U-haul.  A friend said I should be able to fit everything in a van.  Well guess what?  U-haul doesn't let you rent a van for a cross country trip. They are strictly for local. Damn.  So I move up to the smallest truck they have.  $4600.  Wait...what?  For eight days, are you crazy?  I've rented many small trucks locally and it is never more than $100 a day.  So I'm not renting a U-haul.   

I moved on to looking for a cheaper option for renting a truck.  Found Budget Trucks.  And the price while still high to me was much better than U-haul.  I could have a van, some packing blankets, roadside assist and tax for $2000.  Okay I make that reservation.  The next day I have email from them telling me that my car insurance does not cover rental trucks and I need to purchase theirs to the tune of about $600 because they estimate my trip taking like nine days.  U-haul never told me that, just asked who my insurer was for my car in those times I rented from them.  And it is a three day drive from here to Indiana.  Deal breaker for me, so I cancelled that reservation.  

Talking with our friend Dale we came up with the idea of me borrowing his trailer and having a hitch installed on my car.  Now I've never pulled a trailer.  But I'm willing to do it to get the furniture to Indiana.  Just knowing I can never back up.  Well I could not get a hitch installed until after the date I intended to be in Indiana.  So I changed my plans.  Then my brother said he could install the hitch.  So I cancelled the appt for that.  Saved me about $200 since I didn't have to pay for labor.  

My friend Brenda called me and put me on the line with her dad.  We talked about my experience in pulling a trailer.  We talked about how cars that aren't designed for towing can overheat their transmissions going up and down hills.  I have a really big mountain pass to go over.  We talked about how the trailer does not behave well when empty as opposed to full.  He thought maybe I should rent a pick-up to haul said trailer.  Or hey how about renting a toyota minivan.  He thought it sounded like my stuff would fit in that.  After this conversation I no longer wanted to pull a trailer.  

And all of that put me back to my original idea of buying a van, hauling the stuff and then selling the van.  And after my conversation with Brenda's dad I knew I could look at larger minivans.  First I looked at cargo vans and really opted out of that because I figure something used as a work van was probably used hard. 

I found a local minivan with only about 150,000 miles.  Price was right.  I went to see it and measured to see if the stuff would fit.  It will and just fits through the back hatch.  Took it for a little test drive.  Felt like a 20 year old vehicle.  They had kept pretty meticulous notes on when it was serviced.  New tires, brakes, etc.  So I ended up meeting them at the dmv and bought it.  Driving home the check engine light came on.  WTF.

Now I already have planned on having it looked at for issues that could come up on the trip.  And all the way home even though that light was on it drove fine.  Never sounded weird or anything.  I got in touch with a mobile mechanic who actually came the same day. Put the code reader on it and asked me how much I had driven the van and if I had done anything to it.  I drove it home and no I had not done anything to it.  Well someone (presumably the previous owners) had disconnected the battery and cleared all the codes.  While he was looking at the engine and telling me it has a little oil leak, but as long as I watch it it will be okay till I sell it, the code popped.  He looked it up and it said the brain of the vehicle was going and that is why they cleared the code before they put it up for sale.  A neighbor suggested I do the same thing.  Well that is not me.  So Rick, the mechanic, looked it up and made a call and I can get this one rebuilt and then it will be fine.  There were no new ones to be had and even so a new one would have to be programmed and he can't do that.  We were both pleasantly surprised when a rebuild only costs $340.  Two week turn around though.  Rick took the brain and it is being done.  I have no choice now but to fix it.  

I have been trying to fit this road trip in amongst planned things (that are all paid for).  I wanted to go early and be back in time for a concert I'm going to. Well that obviously didn't work since I'm still here.  Then I planned on leaving the day after the concert so I can go, have some time there with the kids and drive back all before my flight to MN in the middle of Sept.  If I can't make that work I have to wait until into Oct and be back in time for my trip to Cabo. Oy.  It's all going to be all right and I am going to get there.  I just don't know when.  Guess it will depend on when the brain gets back and hoping for no more issues.  I already know I am not going to recoup all of the outlay on this van, but I'm still pretty confidant that it will come in costing me a lot less than a U-haul. 

A House

 So the house in Indiana got bought.  And the family finally got the keys.  Once they were allowed to go in the house they discovered that the previous owners left quite the mess.  That kind of dampened their enthusiasm of being new home owners a bit.  

After that initial annoyance was over they got to work.  Cleaned up all the garbage.  The kids have all picked colors for their rooms to be painted.  I'm sure the previous people loved the colors they had painted.  But lime green is horrible and that room is now a brilliant red with black trim.  The orange room is becoming blue.  And on and on and on.  

Cassie had commented about how in the past they always lived in rentals and just didn't care much.  Well now it is theirs and she cares a lot.  A lot more thought and effort is going into making it their home.  I'm excited to get there and see all the Cassie touches.