Brainwaves of Sken

Just for you poor folks whose eyes utterly glaze over when any one person utters more than a few sentences in their journal, I have bolded my entry to easy skimming. I considered color-coding it, but that would be more helpful and less sarcastic, and we all know that’s not my style. ;)

Leaving work on friday, I found my car did not want to start. At all. All of my camping gear was packed in. I reached thatguychuck who suggested I tap the starter… but I had no idea where that was. However, while talking to him, it roared to life on its own. Fair enough! I drove it to netmouse‘s and we were off!

Being an earlybird, she fell asleep in short order, but I make good time, so we were up and through traverse before she knew it. We made it to the Empire camp ground (with a few creative turns), and in the dark of night, Anne pitched the tent Maybe it’s cause she’s familiar with it, or she might have better night vision, but we like our crutches! I met her friend Jenny, and played on the swings while they used facilities before bed.

Morning came as always (note: this is when we should have called the mechanic) and we took Jenny’s car to the dunes, packed with lunchin’ and swimmin’ supplies. The first ten feet of water were rocky, and most of my clothing got wet, but we didn’t care, we were too busy splashing in the cool water off the coast of Michigan. :) :)

We had our picnic and returned to camp, where we played our first (and thus far only) game of Carcassone. It was neat, and I thought it was a bit more fun than Settlers of Catan, especially with the rules Jenny played with. (For those of you who know the game, we used the big guys for scoring instead of to knock off other people, which made it a much more cooperative game.) I started the game with a farm inside a 4-city piece, heh.

And then it was into town, where cherries exploded from every surface! There was a red store that served Cherry everything, with attitude. Cookies, ice cream, pie, even dinners. After some quality bar burgers, we did the cherry ice cream thing, which was a very nice cap for the evening. We returned, I started a fire. It was difficult to maintain due to a lack of reasonable mid-size logs.

There was much conversation. I really enjoyed this, whether we were discussing good or rough things – it fills me up, in some way, to hear people speaking from the heart. After Jenny went to bed, Anne and I stayed up with our silly and serious conversation until sleep was mentioned, and BAM! out. Yes, I always forget my pillow, so a pile of clothing will have to do!

Sunday was a big day. We all packed up, and when my car wouldn’t start, we went into town for breakfast. We found an open shop in Traverse City, which was on our way anyway, so on our way back, we called a tow truck. Before it arrived, Anne woke up from her nap, in the mood to make genius suggestions, so we gave the push-start a try, and for the first time ever, it worked!

The mechanic looked at things and called me back a few times while we were at the consignment shop, so let me summaries the final conclusion:

The flex-pipe for my exhaust is busted such that the exhaust ejects directly onto the starter and starter wire, thus melting them both. Also, it was a loose U-joint in the rear making that clacking sound, not a clutch issue. The U joint had to be done, and he didn’t want to do the starter without the exhaust, but there were no exhaust parts to be had until 8 am the next day.

So we did what any reasonable adults would do. We had lunch! In included some seriously tasty Alligator at a place he recommended called The Big Eazy

Back to the car: I drove it as is (after he knocked on the starter to get it going) all the way to Anne’s uncle’s place 30 minutes away, packed in the chairs we came for, and headed back home without shutting off the car. By now I was starting to cheer up from the car thing – Anne and Jenny were lovely, but I was feeling bad about my car putting people out. We drove with the windows down, singing to music, and enjoyed the beautiful Michigan afternoon.

I made it home eventually, and was ready to pass the fuck out, when my toilet overflowed. Yeah, remember how happy I was with it? Well this was insane – it just wouldn’t fucking stop until t here was a quarter-inch of water on the ground or so. I was so pissed and frantic. It took at least an hour to mop up, throw the towels etc in the shower, clean them, clean myself, clean the floor and get to bed. UGH! What an ending to my weekend!

I’m not letting it ruin the good times, though – it was totally worth the bullshit to get out under the stars again, chat, swim, hug, learn a new game, meet a new person, see a new place, and even learn new things about my car. The mechanic was so cool, he let us under the car to see exactly what was going on.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I wanted to write this up before I go out to try starting my car, and (if it doesn’t start) call AAA and take it to the repair place I went to last week. I’m going to tear their ass off and hand it to them… but in a sweet and civil way, of course.

~ by Skennedy on August 7, 2006.

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: events, grrrr, priority, remember me, travel