On the Road Again, Just Can't Wait...

Wednesday, Jan 7 we finally managed to get on the road (more than a week later than I intended). I stopped for gas about 50 miles into the trip, and discovered a fuel leak (there goes that travel curse again). Luckily we were at a full service gas station, and the fix was fairly simple and inexpensive. Unfortunately, it required a part that we couldn’t get until the next day! So, we got a hotel room there in Riverside and got our first good night’s sleep in weeks. Special thanks to Brian at that Shell station off I10 in Riverside. He really went out of his way to expedite the repair (originally it looked like we wouldn’t get the part for three days)! Also, he was just a warm and considerate guy, which hasn’t always been my experience with mechanics (and I used to work with them).

Anywho, we were off again on Thursday morning, but we didn’t even get through Arizona before we ran into another snag. I stopped for gas, only to discover that I’d made a miscalculation and let the balance of our checking account get down to $0 (-$227 actually)! We had only $6 cash, no credit card, no gas, no food, and no place to stay! What I did have was a few checks in my pocket that clearly should have been deposited sooner. It was now the middle of the night, and there was seemingly no way to straighten this out. As it happens our bank will credit the first $100 of an ATM deposit immediately. Of course, making three separate deposits with my three checks would only get us into the positive by $73, which could buy us gas OR a hotel room, but not both. Luckily for us, I have an elaborate budgeting system that involves having three checking accounts and three separate debit cards. I was able to deposit the money into the other accounts, and we were on our way!

We trucked on until 6am - clearing El Paso - before we stopped to rest in the car for a couple hours. Back on the road by 8am, we didn’t stop again until Shreveport, LA! We got a room for the night, then on the last leg of the drive we went from Shreveport all the way to Ormond Beach, FL - arriving at about 8am on Sunday, Jan 11. Whew!

The rest of the week we just relaxed at my Pap’s place, and visited some good old friends.