Saturday was supposed to be a day of hiking and hanging out with friends.  Little did I know, God had other plans:  Allison called in the morning and invited us to go hiking with her family to Camel’s Hump, the highest peak in Vermont.  We were all for it, and even made plans to go to dinner at Kwame and Julie’s once we got back.  Driving to the mountain, my car decided it didn’t want to go.  Step on the gas, nothing.  Any alert lights on the dash go off?  No. Nothing.  Turn off the car and try starting it again and again and again. Nothing.  It sounded like it wanted to, but it wasn’t turning over.  We made a call to Allison and let her know we were stranded in a church parking lot and were going to call a tow truck and to go on without us.  So that’s what we did.  My poor car might be on it’s last leg. It is 16 yrs old (Honda’s last FOREVER!) and has even taken Grant and me across the country to Arkansas from Oregon.

Blog 185

We are having it looked at, even as I type, and if the cost of repair isn’t too much, I’ll get to keep my car for a little longer before I upgrade to a new one.  If it’s going to cost an arm and a leg for a new part, I might have to say good-bye to my little Honda.  I want a new Honda CR-V and was planning on buying one, but not until next summer.  But, if we end getting a new car, this tow truck guy, Matt, told us to call him first because he loves Hondas–he has a few and likes to fix them up.

Matt: “So before you trade it in or put it up for sale, give me a call and I’ll buy it from you.”  

Us: “Umm, okay!”

A couple hours later, we were at Kwame and Julie’s eating up her delicious guacamole.  But we made room for dinner and dessert, of course!  It was good to see them and the kids.  We heard from Allison via text message later that evening about how they were soaking wet, bleeding, and starving from the hike.  You can kind of see the ominous clouds in the background of that picture, but it poured rain that afternoon, about 10 minutes after my car broke down and kept up for a couple hours.  So maybe missing the hike wasn’t a bad thing?  We will have to try to go some other time, I guess.

Sunday, we went to church and ran a couple errands.  I got on my bike later that afternoon to ride to the bike shop so they could put in my tires, and as I was shifting gears, the chain came off!  Luckily, I was still on my block, but still… I had to walk it back to the house and have Grant help me get it back on.  And it kept doing it until Grant finally said, “just don’t switch gears while you ride up there.”  Arg.  So I did (ride) and didn’t (switch gears).  The nice man at the bike shop filled the tires and worked his magic to get the chain to stay in place while shifting–he even tightened my brakes–and I had a much easier ride home.  I’m glad my bike got fixed, because being sans bike while also being sans car would have made for a grumpy Monday. I could take the bus or have Grant drop me off, but it just messes up my routine, you know? 

I’ll update you on my car once we get the call!  Hopefully nothing else huge will happen between now and then!