Wednesday, January 18, 2012

The Turtle is sick.

Poor Turtle. We suspect it's the starter motor that's causing the problem, since replacing the battery didn't help. At any rate, Gray, the service manager at the Truck Ford dealership in Buda, Texas, has The Turtle and promises to find out what's wrong and let us know. We drove down there yesterday, because that was the closest Ford service centre that had a bay big enough for a 24-foot motor home. I drove, because R was still pretty wiped out after his marathon drive to get here the night before. I had an address somewhere near the dealership programmed into Maggie, because she doesn't understand addresses that have the word Highway in them -- and I had notes that I had scribbled on scrap paper, some with instructions from Gray the Service Manager, some with instructions from my brother-in-law. And I had R in the seat beside me, but I had the impression that he was in a state of shock. On the other hand, I may have been projecting.

(I should explain that as we approached Austin, we didn't dare turn the engine off, lest it not start again, so although we usually switch drivers once an hour, R drove the last four (twisty-turny, dark) hours of the trip himself, while I sat in the passenger seat and felt guilty. It's our deal, you know. R drives at night. I don't. So, by the time we arrived at my sister Pam's place, R was pretty well toast.)

So anyway, I drove to Buda yesterday morning. It's only just the other side of Austin, but in terms of time, it was like driving from Nanaimo to Victoria. In terms of stress, it had the Nanaimo-Victoria trip beaten, hands down. I almost kissed the pavement when we finally got to Buda and parked at the dealership.

As for weather, it's cold at night here, but during the day it is warm and sunny and altogether delightful, so we've pretty well decided not to go any farther east on this trip. We plan to stay here for a week or so, then wander lazily back up the west coast. On the other hand, we heard something on the news this morning about two feet of snow in Washington and Oregon, so our trip north may be a lazy one indeed.

p.s. I was going to add a clever picture at the top, but when I went hunting, I found that searching the web is a bit more of an adventure than usual. A great blackness has descended over the interwebs. I really must check the news to find out what's going on.

3 comments:

The Bug said...

Oh poor Turtle! Hope they get her up & running again soon (it is her, right?).

The black-out is to protest SOPA, which as I understand it might make the web more like pay-per-view, but I also heard that it's probably dead in the water - so I'm not exactly sure.

Linda said...

hugs to R and S! Hope the Turtle is fixed very soon so you can continue doing whatever you want.

I understand that the passes may have a lot of snow at this point, so perhaps a very leisurely trip back may be in the forecast!

Unknown said...

So sorry to learn about your Turtle problems (belatedly.) Sounds like you encountered the SOPA blackout.

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