The Longest Day

Well, I am back in Vero Beach after towing my car (the Honda named "Hope") up to Kissimmee, and picking up Elliott's broken down car. Does a "couple of months" of jerking as a car shifts gears mean trouble? I mean, it wasn't every time it shifted.

I've never towed a car before, so this was a first. Borrowing Kevin Aldhizer's truck and renting the car-dolly, accidently figuring out how to get my car hooked up (thanks to Ian, who figured out how to release the tire straps at 7 AM today), getting my car on the dolly and heading for Kissimmee was a pretty good morning's work by 7:30, eh? Not worrying about going too fast, but not wanting to be run over by Interstate 95 traffic was fun, but I survived. I even survived the obstacle course known as route 192's construction zone. Oh, then while cruising through St. Cloud, this guy motions for me to lower the window, and he informs me that one of the ramps is dragging the road. Something had popped (he said), and the ramp slid down just before we came to the stoplight where he was telling me this. Working my way across two lanes of traffic, and looking for a nice big parking lot, I got out and sure enough, the spring-loaded cotter pin for that ramp was gone! Now I am desperately scrambling to find something to hold the ramp in place. Fortunately, there were some bungee cords in Kevin's truck, so I cleverly got that situation taken care of.

I was supposed to meet Elliott's friend, Tyler at the school, unload my car, then go to the Aamco Transmission place and rescue Elliott's car. As you can see from the previous post, we had plenty of help, and the process was actually much easier than I feared. You see, Elliott's car won't go in any of the forward gears. Oh, reverse works just fine, but forget about going forward. That meant the Rescue Crew had to push the car up on the ramp of the car-dolly. Like I say, it was much easier than I had imagined. Myles (one of Elliott's apartment mates) was a whiz at getting the tire wench taken care of in a hurry, and we were off once again.

After a brief pause at the apartment on campus, where Myles got my new Dell Axim X50v hooked up with the wireless internet system at Florida Christian College, I decided that I needed to eat lunch before heading back. Myles and Tyler went with me (my treat), and so Dennys got feed me a Philly Cheesestake and fries. Alas, while the company was wonderful, and the respite not long enough, it was time to head back to Vero Beach.

The trip back was without incident (which is a good thing), and I dropped the car off at Kevin's house. His son Cole wants to tackle the problem. Cole is a 4th grader, and a much better mechanic than I will ever be. Okay, that's not saying much, but Cole is great with mechanical stuff (takes after his dad that way...Kevin is a Dodge mechanic for the local dealership in town). My cell phone rang right after I had deposited Elliott's car, and the call was from Ian's chemistry teacher. Let's just say that the news was not good, and leave it at that.

Now, I am in the office, going up to the projection room to check the computer that blew Wednesday night, then to the pool store to get some chemicals so Peggy and her parents can enjoy our ever-warming pool water (thanks to the new solar heater) tomorrow. Me? I'll be at the radio station and here at the church office doing the work that I should have been doing today.