Jan 7 - an amazing car

It has never let me down.  In 250,000 miles of traveling, never.  Even yesterday when the alternator went, it limped as I watched the voltage, up and down, down and up, finally failing as we rolled into Parry Sound.  It had started as we got onto 522 -- what to do ?  Do we leave the car dead at the cottage or drive on ... we drove.  I was hopeful that it was the belt but not, it was the alternator.

It got us to the Canadian Tire and there it is staying.  I've made arrangements for repairs and we'll pick it up on the way back through.

What to do now ?  Well, rent a car and continue of course ... but they were going to charge a drop-off fee of $150 at the airport and then of course we'd have the same coming back.  Nope.  So we continued that conversation and rented to get back to the cottage, pick up Sandy's car and then back to Parry Sound.

That was not without incident either.  We drove back ok in our rental BIG truck with the Hemi engine, no 4-wheel drive but the roads had been cleared.  Backing Sandy's car out of the garage, it basically wouldn't move.  Dang summer tires.  Not even all-seasons.  Ok, put on the snows.

An hour late, with Sandy's help, we were on the road -- two vehicles now.  Abby moved from the truck to the car.   The day's issues weren't over yet ...

When we got to the Enterprise location, Sandy said that she had a balancing problem.  I started driving ... no.  It's not a balancing problem, it's a sticky brake caliper.  We stopped for a moment with Bonnie an Jim and I used a screwdriver to open the caliper.

We were able to drive to Stef's without incident basically because I didn't have to use the brakes.  Thank goodness for manual transmission ... gear down.

Along the way we'd cancelled dinner with Alnasir.  We got to our hotel around 9pm and had dinner in the bar -- Greek Salad and sandwiches.

Packing Sandy's car with skis, big bags and Abby was quite the feat.  I had no idea whether we'd even be able to do it.  The skis, in their bag, were between us, the ends on the dashboard.  The big bags were in the trunk ... just.  Abby had 2/3 of the back seat, the remaining 1/3 taken up by our other bags.

We're now at the airport, just finishing breakfast.  5:58 a.m.  We board at 6:25.  Hopefully we have no more travel adventures today !

Back to the car.  Perhaps one day it will let me down ... we could have ended up waiting for a tow truck yesterday, but didn't.  I give thanks !

Onward ... westward old man !