Searching and rejecting

What a day. My lovely wife and I went on another road trip to look at a possible tow vehicle. The owner said he’d meet us at the address at noon. On the way down we stopped at the bank to have cash in hand.

So we get to the address and discover it’s a small mechanic’s garage. There’s maybe a half dozen vehicles for sale, including the one we saw on Craigslist. That was the first red flag. I set the search parameters to only display private sales, not businesses. While it was a small business, it was a business none the less.

We were a bit early but the vehicle was unlocked so we checked it out. The first thing I noticed was the bad tires. That’s not a deal breaker, but a negotiation point. The interior smelled heavily of cigarette smoke and that was a turn off.

Then we started poking around the nooks and crannies of the car. The power steering fluid was low. Could it be a leak? There was rat poison set up in the compartment for the spare. Did it have rats? My lovely wife found last years inspection paper. It passed, which was good. However, in the past year only about an additional 1000 miles were added to the odometer? I wonder why that was.

The guy was about 20 minutes late. Calls to his phone went to voicemail. By then I certainly wasn’t feeling it so we decided to go to lunch and then head home. There were enough red flags to chase me away.

Later in the day my oldest daughter sends a link for a 32 foot sailboat that a guy is giving away. It appeared in pretty good shape. However, the catch is payment for dockage is due on June first. This boat is in the Boston area and the marina is $900/month. The boat must be gone before the next payment is due. The cheapest place to keep a boat in the Boston area is on a mooring in Salem harbor for $2000. That’s for the summer season.

Had the boat been exactly what we were looking for it might have been worth it. However, it would totally upset our summer plans. We’d end up spending all our summer driving down to Boston to work on a boat. There are plenty of things to do here this summer -projects on the house plus fun on the lake.

Right now the search for a tow vehicle has left me mentally exhausted. I’m done chasing around looking at Craigslist specials for now. I am going to keep the cash handy, just in case something falls into my lap. However, I’m not going to stress about it. We can always beg a tow to launch the boat.

One thing about the day’s road trip. My lovely wife and I had plenty of time to talk about our options. It’s good to remember that we have options.

-Sixbears