I wrote on my Face Book page the other day that since I now had so much to talk about that I should start a blog. Well, apparently a few years ago I had the same idea and DID sign up for a blog. So....here goes.
I will warn anyone reading this that I have no clear idea of what I will say and no clear idea when I will have finished writing what I have no clear idea of what I will say. That being said, continue at your own peril. I have always had a lot to say and sometimes found a good forum or, even better, a captive audience to talk to. Blogs can be anything the author wants them to be. They can be ranting, sweet, romantic, random, angry, happy. Basically whatever the person writing it feels at the moment. Which apparently, for me, is sometimes redundant.
Saturday last, my husband Chris and I took the plunge and purchased a new (to us) vehicle. We have been needing actually two new cars but thought we'd just start with one and get used to the payment thing again.We have not had a car payment in 13 years which made this undertaking a wee bit frightening for us. For a great many years Chris worked for a company that gave him a minivan and didn't care if we used it as a personal vehicle as well as being so kind as to pay for all of the fuel and maintenance. The last vehicle he had before the company van was a truck that was generously gifted to him by a family member when he was no longer able to drive. He drove the truck for about 2 years before he began noticing that he was having borderline migraines that always seemed to manifest after he had been driving the truck for more than about 30 to 40 minutes at a time. At the time, we lived just outside of Occidental which pretty much meant that anywhere he went was at least 30 to 40 minutes away. He has always been of the mind that if you ignore headaches, body aches or any such ills, they would just magically disappear. Oddly, this theory actually worked pretty well for him until he met his match with the truck. We took it to two dealerships that both told us that there was an exhaust leak somewhere in the cab area but they were both unable to locate and stop the leak. He was ardently advised by both dealerships to no longer drive this vehicle even, as he proposed, with all of the windows open and that they were not joking around and told him he had basically been risking his, and the girls lives anytime they were in it. Needless to say, it was parked and, for some reason, left in our yard along with a few other vehicles that for some reason we cannot seem to rid ourselves of. It seems that when we no longer are able to operate one of our vehicles, rather than selling it, like normal sane people would do, we park it in our yard hoping beyond all hope, that they car fairies would come down and magically fix whatever problem necessitated it being parked in the first place. To date we have the truck, a 1993 Ford Areostar and a 1999 Geo Metro. None are really operable, though you can actually, on a good day, get the Areostar to turn over and Chris insists that it is drivable and therefore sell able though we've not had anyone actually interested in purchasing it or either of the other two vehicles. Honestly, I do not know why we never got around to getting rid of any of them other than wishful thinking that if the fairies didn't materialize, perhaps someone driving by our property would be suddenly overcome with the need to turn into our driveway and beg us to sell them one or all of the vehicles. To date, we have had neither fairies nor overwhelmed passer biers to solve our vehicle dilemma.
Eight years ago we decided that, as a family, having a recreational vehicle of some type might be in order as our girls were still young, we wanted to give them great memories of family outings for later in life and we all enjoy camping or glamping as I believe it is called when you travel basically with your house in tow. We started off with an amazing offer from a cousin whose family had outgrown the mid sized 5th wheel that they purchased when their boys were young and they were willing to sell us both the RV and the truck to pull it with for a price that only family members can offer other family members. Unfortunately, the truck to pull the trailer was on its last leg. (not to impugn the cousins in any way as they were unaware of the mechanical difficulties that were hiding under the hood.) After trying to take the rig out twice we both finally admitted that this was not the ideal set up for our family and listed it for sale on Craig's List advising that anyone purchasing it would likely fare well if someone was a proficient mechanic and within two days it was driven away by a lovely family with a dad who, in fact, was a mechanic and this was the set up he had been searching for. (Hmmm, side note here...we were able to sell THAT vehicle and allow it to leave...I wonder if they stay only if they have been in our possession for longer than a year? Who knows.) After we waived goodbye to the family heirloom, we took the cash in hand, loaded the girls into the company van and headed down to Santa Rosa Avenue to look at trailers. We decided that a pop up tent trailer would be the way to go for us as they are small enough to be pulled by my Honda Odyssey (the company van was nice but we figured no matter how nice there were about it they might perhaps not appreciate us adding a tow hitch and an electric brake to their vehicle.) We eventually ended up in Napa on what was likely the rainiest day of the entire year and found the trailer that we wanted. It turns out, the dealership just flat out lied to our faces and told us that the specific trailer we had chosen was ABSOLUTELY PERFECT to be paired with our Honda. What they neglected to actually inform us of was that the particular style we had chose is the third heaviest tent trailer on the market as it has a full kitchen, a pop out, has two queen sized beds and sleeps a total of 8 people. (Did I mention how much we love the trailer?) The day we went to pick it up was a real eye opener. We backed the van in with its brand new trailer hitch and electric brakes, lined up the trailer, hooked it on, lowered the tongue and bottomed out the tire wells on the van. After recovering from their fluster, they nice people at the dealership tried to convince us that we had clearly not been paying attention when they were informing us of all the alterations that would need to be done to accommodate the extra weight of the trailer. After sheepishly apologizing for wasting their time with out forgetfulness we hurried off to the Pick-em-up Truck Store to have new air shocks installed. We returned two days later, hooked up our new trailer to the new tow hitch, with the new electric brakes and the new air shocks and were assured that the new electric brakes was self adjusting and we headed off down the road. About 10 minutes outside of Napa we tried to come to a complete stop so as not to collide with the stopped vehicles in front of us and after much tire squealing, trailer swaying and heart palpitations we finally came to a complete stop without having collided with anything. An immediate call was placed to the dealership to try and figure out what happened and through a relayed conversation with the people in the office it was decided that we had misinformed them as to the type of electric brake that was installed (did I mention that THEY installed the brakes?) and after driving the vehicle with said RV attached, that a quick manual adjustment needed to be made to the brake to account for the weight and the sway. What idiots we were to neglect to tell them what type of equipment they installed on our vehicle. Geez. On the remainder of the drive home, it was noted by myself, that they van seemed to be making strange hurkey jerky motions that were aggravating my vertigo. After, again, speaking with the dealership, we were assured that this was a normal occurrence when pulling a trailer that weighed a fair amount more than my car. WAIT, WHAT?????? We finally decided that the people who worked at the Starcraft dealership in Napa were actually the morons and not us and proceeded to speak to the Honda Dealership who told us that since our van did not have a tow package (which, in Napa, we were told was what having the tow hitch installed actually meant) and that we should not, I repeat, should not tow our new trailer with the van as it was likely that eventually we would collide with something and/or someone that we probably which would make everyone that might be involved very unhappy. We tried to find out if we could return the trailer because we were given, as far as we could tell, a lot of misinformation, we were told that we could not return it which, sort of was alright because we really really liked it but sort of not alright because camping in your yard in an RV just sort of defeats the purpose of outfitting it with comfy beds and kitchen appliances when you could just walk up the stairs and use the full sized versions that you already owned. After a conversion with Chris' father, we were told that we could borrow his Blazer to pull the trailer whenever we wanted because he is a kind and generous man. That and I think the sight of his granddaughters sitting at the table nodding their heads while we voiced our disappointment at not being able to use our new toy was more than he could stand.
Chris' father ever so kindly gave us the truck after his son changed jobs and no longer had the tax free car perk and though it was really a trooper, about 6 weeks ago, it coughed, sputtered and coasted to a dead, and I do mean dead, stop on the side of 101. After having towed to the Chevy dealership we were informed that for a mere 4 thousand dollars they would happily replace the transmission. After careful consideration as to the reality of our car situation, we finally decided that we needed to just bite the bullet and go car shopping. We were hoping to find a mid sized SUV that could pull our trailer as well as seat all of our family comfortably on a trip as well as accommodate the girls as well as the occasional friend for a car ride. During our conversations about new vehicles, my 13 year old Honda with more than 140,000 miles on it started coughing and sighing and even occasionally not turning over when the driver was in a rush. It was decided that we would be actually able to purchase two new (to us) vehicles with the very very generous car and fuel allowances that Chris' new job included in his benefit package. The Honda has nobly served as our family car after the relinquishment of the company van and we were planning on getting a larger vehicle for me which would also double as the family car and be able to tow the trailer and for Chris we would secure something much smaller. After a bit of adjusted thinking we realized that he is the one that usually drives when we are all in the car as well as the driver when we tow the trailer and since he no longer commuted to the south or east bay and worked out of an office right here in Santa Rosa and I usually only have one or two of the girls with me it actually made better sense that I get the smaller car and he get the larger and with that in mind, decided that we would go with whichever one we found first and after we had found the second vehicle we would then trade the Honda in. That would allow us to still have a family car but still retain two vehicles at all times...especially since we were down to one vehicles which simply does not work for us at all and his mother had generously agreed to let us drive her car while they were still up in Canada and had no need of it for the moment.
So, REALLY long story short, we found the smaller vehicle for me and Chris is now driving the van. I love love love our new car and I feel quite fancy driving a vehicle that ever so nicely informs me when I have an incoming call on my phone.
Luckily for everyone involved, I do think that, at least for the moment, I have reached the end of my story. Thanks for reading my ramblings and I hope that I did not bore you too terribly with the very long dribble that once I got started I was powerless to control.
