Day 1 (Again)

I've done plenty of cruising around this big gorgeous country, and I love roadtrips, but not this one.

I've already done the route (what, a week ago?).

It's not a pretty route.

I have no partner or music.

As I always do, I have used this time in the saddle to compose new songs. Well... new lyrics to old songs. To the tune of "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" I give you "When You Already Know the Way."

Making your way cross the USA
Can be cold, it can be hot;
Mountains to look at, trees to shade
Sure can help a lot.
But it's no fun when you know the way

If you go South, you get Waffle House,
If North, Badlands countreeee
But driving due west,
It ain't the best
There isn't much to seeee.

You don't need a map,
or a phone with an app,
Cuz you've done it all before.
Seventy-Six, Eighty, Eighty-Four.

Ok, not my BEST work. Tomorrow I'll give you "Front Door" and maybe "Home." By the way, Wensleydale is getting 27.7mpg at 70-75 mph. Love that cab. :)

Preston on the block

Preston is for sale. We need to trim the fleet before the big move. He's on eBay and CraigsList.

Cold & Comfort

My camera has indeed suffered the January curse, but my cell phone grabbed these: Beautiful ice patterns on Wensleydale this morning, and Matt using the Plushinator as a pillow. Both were fast asleep and smiling (FatBoy smiles by sticking his tongue out the tiniest bit).

Aw, crap.

Our January isn't over. Gromit required new sparkplugs, ignition wires, and ignition coil. Total cost: $1100-some. Sigh.

Here's a little video to keep you from being too blue.

This Old Car: DIY Auto-style

We spent the weekend working on paint. Specifically, sanding down orange peel to a dull flat surface, then polishing the glow back on. This requires many, many, many gradations of sandpaper, rubbing compound, polishing compound, wax, second coat of wax... you get the idea. My arms feel enormous and are toasted like a s'more... I can barely lift my laptop! The right side is completely done now. The left ... Next weekend!

Done professionally, this job would have cost up to $1500. Our cost: about 200 smackers.

Preston's interior: Compare his stately new grey carpets and microfiber console to the old garish red. We finally got tired of the scarlet fuzz everywhere from the rugs disintegrating, and this is a vast improvement over the "pimped out" look. We used carpet from the Homo Depot and leftover material from the headliner project. Total cost: $50.

Taste of Britain

Matt, Denise, Gwyn and I took Preston out to collect Shaun from the car vet (Thanks Trevor!) and spent the day at the Taste of Britain car show. Preston has a lovely new interior, which I got terrible pics of so you'll have to wait. We did that ourselves last weekend. Which means Matt did it, except for me cutting carpet, screwing and unscrewing panels, and holding stuff while he sweated and cursed.

Shaun is running beautifully now, despite a rather alarming Windex-bottle-sized spray of diesel under the bonnet. It's a wonder we made it home without running out of fuel or bursting into flames. I think his new fuel pump isn't seated properly. We'll do some diagnostic work tonight.

Gwyn spotted the "food entry/exit" opportunity and snapped pics of a lot of car butts. She'd never been to a show before and was properly entranced.

Denise rode with me and captured the oh-so-pretty Amish countryside as we passed (barely) the horse-drawn buggys.

No Rover, No Rover, Send Clover Right Over...

Still no sign of Shaun. The mechanic's been too busy to play with him. Grrr.

Denise fell madly in love with Clover and asked if she could have her. I wanted to say no, but Blackberry has been considerably less affectionate. I thought they were going to bond well but the tiny killer rabbit kept biting Clover's butt through the cage. Clearly it was going to be a long ordeal towards uncaged friendship with no guarantees of success.

Denise is perfect for her - sweet, maternal, playful, and generally wonderful. We brought her over last night, and WOW is that one happy bunny! Somehow she just knew she was Home. She instantly stretched out, feet sprawled and tail relaxed (bunny-speak for "I'm secure and content"). All evening long she was binkying, flopping, and generally amusing us with her joyful antics.

Lost: $200 (her previous owner kindly shared the vet bill with me), a skein of silk yarn, and lots of work.

Gained: The incredible experience of knowing we saved a life, and turned a lonely neglected bunny into a supremely gleeful one.

What an awesome deal! If only people were so easy to rescue, huh?

What a difference 30 seconds makes!

Last night Matt & I went out on a date. I was working late, so we met at the theater near my clinic. Hancock is great! Funny and surprisingly touching. I love Will Smith, and Charlize, well, let's just say she's holding up her end of the marquee.

Anyway, coming home we took different paths. I was maybe going a little faster than usual... just a tad.... 80 doesn't seem outrageous when you're trying to beat your husband home to prove your route is quicker, does it? As I pulled off 202 onto the exit ramp, I heard a strange hollow screaming. Turned off the radio... no ... that's my car!

I was slowing down anyway (there's a stop sign at the end of the ramp), but I started to pull off to the side when SCREECCH!!! The wheels locked up and I skidded to a halt. The drive train was completely frozen. I couldn't even push it forward. Fortunately a Good Samaritan helped me push Gromit backwards off the ramp to get out of traffic. Then I had a 3 hour wait for a tow truck that could deal with nonturning wheels. Thus my post-date snuggle was preempted for a night of waving cars past and slapping at bugs, but at least I got an all-over check for ticks when I finally got home.

Gromit is now sitting at AAMCO, who rebuilt his tranny in March. Obviously something failed there, and they'd BETTER pay for it. Just a little earlier and I could easily have been killed on the highway. Yikes. As Gwyn said, who would finish my lace?

PS- Yes, I'm knitting! I've been monogamous with the Swan Lake stole - two pointy ends, with beads - so you'll have to be patient if you want to see an FO.

More Space-&-Time Travel

This time our destination was Colonial Williamsburg and the Jamestown Settlement. The wig with feathers is to repel water in the rain - how cool is that? We saw an unbelievable concert by Dean Shostak featuring the glass armonica, my favorite instrument. Actually now I may have a new favorite: The Grand Armonica. He also played some new instruments that he and his friends developed, like oh, a glass violin!! And glass handbells!!! And some freaky sculptural noise makers that we all got to play with.

The Governor's Palace copied its look from Hampton Court, as you can see. The firing mechanisms were all removed from the guns, though!

The Colonial Parkway between the two cities is essentially a gorgeous exposed aggregate driveway. It's twice the distance of the straight highway, but guess which route Matt chose?

Catching Up

Seems like every time I've had a second, Blogger has been feeling ill. Let's try this again:

1) Matt graduated from his internship and is now officially a resident. This means he does call from home now, instead of working 36 hr shifts, so he might actually stay awake for our dates! He and Amy (the other intern in the pic) have been gone all week on a medical mission to Honduras. It was organized by a church and the religious stuff is pretty heavy-handed (his technique to avoid surgery with a little boy was labeled "divine intervention") but they did great work there. I get him back tonight!

2) I'm really feeling like a sole proprietor these days. The calls are coming in and the book is filling up. I even bought Yellow Pages advertising (my clients say they use it - who knew? I haven't opened one in nearly 10 years).

3) We went to Longwood Gardens. Impressive... how I imagine Versailles, both indoors and out.

4) We went to a car show on Memorial Day in Gettysburg. You declared your allegiance with either the North or the South and parked in the appropriate lot. Seriously, those people are still fighting the war! The hot rods were killer: Check out the bowling trophy & bottle opener on the RatRod, and the flames that begin inside the engine compartment on the sleek one.

5) Blackberry's been getting superfriendly. If we're on the phone and I say "I gotta go, my bunny is demanding a massage," it's not a euphemism for anything. :)

Car content

Matt & I went to a show - will look up the name when I'm less fried - our favorite was the bronzy-red Cadillac (top three pics). The fins were moved inside... it was unique and truly beautiful.

Neither it nor Preston won any prizes. In fact none of our favorites received official recognition: The awards all went to local guys driving 70's muscle cars. It was a cute little show, though, and they're certainly entitled to their own taste.

World travel in a Volvo

Girlie and I had one of those random leaf-in-the-wind days yesterday. First she took a box to the post office, which I had labeled "Fragile: Live Faeries," and met a boy named Keegan who had just learned to whistle. Pretty soon everyone in line was telling stories about the magical contents of their parcels. Wish I'd been there for that.

The title of this post was nearly "An elephant and a midget are driving this car...". Skor is outfitted with an Oompa Loompa doll, who is now clipped to the right visor and looks like he's flying Superman-style. Ganesha meditates on the left side of the dashboard: An appropriate locale for the Remover of Obstacles.

We set off in search of a yarn shop in Conshohocken but a traffic disaster found us rerouted to Manayunk,* land of the world's worst street "singers." We shopped in India, Tibet, Latin America (some of the inventory still had its "Made in Indonesia" stickers, but the Spaniards vs Incas chess set was awesome), and the Mediterranean. I found a funky little menorah made in Israel, which made me very happy. We found a super-amazing surprise for Matt, so you have to wait to hear about that unless you email me.

We decided to push on to the yarn store, but by then it was closed. We wound up driving randomly through cute little neighborhoods. Spring has sprung rather violently here. We went from winter to muggy heat in 2 days! Tooling around with the windows down and no real destination was supremely fun.

Random comments log: "Was that a loaf of bread?"
"What? Where?"
"On the side of the road!"

"What's with the enhanced police presence?"
"I know! It's like a double order of bacon!"

"Generally, women who shuffle their feet appear to be highly unintelligent."

"Why does that gym have a fat gay guy on its logo? And what's with the funny hat?"

Then we stumbled across Ikea, so we took Skor to visit his native people and snagged some cheapo kitty dens.

Sharp eyed observers will note that the Peach is wearing a no-lick collar. The cut under his throat kept reopening. You know how cats love to get in that 69 position and gut each others' necks? Plus as it healed and itched he was scratching it open. We are hoping that this will finally allow it to close. The outside of the collar is now covered in claw marks, so it must be doing something!

The party continued into the evening. We visited our buddy Ken for Chinese, hottubbing, fire, and photos.

* Yes, these are real town names. Other local weirdness includes Schuylkill, Bala Cynwyd, and Uwchlan.

Such a crazy week...

... and it's only Tuesday!

1) Skor! is an awesome car. Dad put a lot more work into him than I expected, and boy do we appreciate it.
2) I have moths. My art room has changed from a pretty yarn store to a cedar-scented, plastic-encased warehouse. :(
3) I launched my website!! It still needs some tweaking, but I'm very happy. Feedback appreciated.
4) Check this out!
5) I really need some sleep.

Squeeee!!

Can't keep quiet any longer... big surprise coming!

Good News / Bad News

YAY: I've found my way out of the Horse Latitudes! The two-handed mosaic knitting acted like a jet engine. I'm cranking along on this hat - it's AWESOME - and planning a secret surprise for my Grandpa's 85th birthday. Hey Roxy - that stitchmarker look familiar?

NOOOOO: Our "reliable" car, Gromit the Jetta, lost it yesterday. I had to walk home 3.2 miles in the cold. We're awaiting the final judgement, but estimate about $2K for a new tranny. Meanwhile, the three of us are dependent on Preston.

So I'm stuck at home (had to cancel another day of appointments) but at least I'm having fun. Girlie is sick, so calling in to work was actually a good idea for her. She's been sleeping for two days straight. Ha! I'm finally gonna catch up in the FO category!

ETA: Rebuilt transmission actually cost $3500, including a new clutch plate.

Shaun needs a good vet.

Help! My poor little truck isn't doing well. His starter crapped out on me. Took me ages to find a diesel one (the petrol ones won't work, so instead of $10 I spent $300). $350 of labor later, the "mechanic" (I use that term very loosely - we will not be going back to these guys) caused an electrical storm in the dash that has robbed me of my right taillight. And he still won't start. We had a similar problem when they worked on Preston, but they said they knew Rovers so we gave 'em another chance. What was I thinking? They couldn't even figure out how to start him. Instead of calling me, of course, they wired up a temporary glow plug starter. Idiots. Now it's looking like the starter was just fine to begin with. They didn't even diagnose him properly.

Snarl!

The Rover guys are all far away. I live in Paoli on The Mainline, home of new American cars. Shaun is sitting at the bottom of the hilly driveway, so a push start is a challenge. Please, does anybody know a real mechanic with common sense? Who's used to diesels and can shepherd electrons competently?

Windshield wipers, slappin' out a tempo...

Here you can see Shaun's original rain-clearing system. The interior pic shows the vent I mentioned yesterday. The third pic compares one old and one replacement motor: I got them at a boat store. Marine supply parts are designed to withstand vibration, temperature extremes, and moisture. In other words, they're perfect for a Land Rover! For other Landites: Each motor, arm, and blade was $79 as a set. Now I have modern blades, too - easily replaceable as they age.

The funny thing is how perfectly they fit. Matt had to drill the hole for the shaft, just to enlarge it a smidge, but otherwise they plopped right in.

He also hooked up my heater with a proper switch. Check out my ultra-sleek dash! The nail polish and white-out are SPOTs (Stupid Previous Owner Trick).