Trials of Travel

A major breakdown is always worse when living on the road. Not only do we lose our vehicle, we lose our house.

Then there is the stress of finding someone who'll do the job. There's added stress from not knowing if the cost of the repairs will break the bank. We talked to a lot of different garages who did not want to attempt our brake line repairs. One kinda shady sounding guy hinted that the job could grow to over $3000. I backed away from him slowly and drove down the road. (pouring in containers of brake fluid every few miles)

Long story short, the van was ready on Friday morning. We were able to hit the road before noon. The cost? Just under $450. I thought that was reasonable for the amount of work that had to be done. The funny thing is, I'd just set aside $500, hoping to catch up on our savings. Oh well, at least I had it.

We were in the Jacksonville Florida area. My lovely wife has a sister and brother-in-law there. For years we've been avoiding the brother-in-law, meeting my sister-in-law without her husband. Long story. However, in recent years, the rift has slowly been repaired. When we first came down in January we actually checked up on him as he'd been hospitalized. More recently, being in the area, we got together with them again. He said we were welcome to stay anytime.

Then we broke down and took him up on his offer of hospitality. My lovely wife and I stayed two nights and it was a good visit. The universe works in funny ways. I've learned to roll with it and see where life takes us.

It certainly feels good to be back on the road and meandering our way homeward. (slowly, as it just snowed again up there. Will the winter ever end?)

-Sixbears