Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Hope Y'All Had A Nice Easter

I hope all who celebrate among my family, friends and readers had a wonderfully nice Easter despite the terrible attacks in Sri Lanka. For sure there was a lot of sadness this Easter too with what happened there. Please keep the victims and their families & loved one of the bombings in Sri Lanka in your thoughts and or prayers.


Sorry, I am days late withmy happy Easter wishes and prayers but I was in AR and headed home on Easter. Had a lot to do to get my return trip under way and then a very long drive that did not wind up quite as many miles as I had expected. 

Had an interesting and pretty lousy night on Easter night when the rental cargo van's engine or transmission (or both) went out. RPM going up and down wildy, not able to maintain speed on highway, engine almost literally screaming, put in neutral and back into drive and all was well for a couple of seconds then engine racing wildly again and unable to maintain speed. Loud bang from engine compartment, then a snap/crack and something making noise as it fell onto roadway and bounced off road onto van bottom a couple or three times. I threw it into neutral to coast to shoulder of road and went quite a ways doing that but was short of next exit by about 2 miles. Lots of nasty smoke from engine compartment. I called AAA but they would not send tow because I told them there was smoke coming from under hood. I had to call 911 and the fire department and highway patrol responded. Smoke was from oil that was on hot engine block, lots of oil inside of engine compartment. I am guessing the engine was the problem because of all that oil but damned if I know. AAA sent a wrecker that got there about an hour and a half later. Got towed to next exit, into the lot of the only motel there. I had called that motel to make a reservation after highway patrolman, who responded to my 911 call, told me about it. I wish he had told me more about it.

It wound up that I spent the night in that motel, a real shithole, in Baileyton, TN. Just hope you never need to stay at its only motel - very nice elderly woman running it but it was the most decrepit room I have ever stayed in and I have stayed in some real dives before. At least it was close to an Enterprise rental location. They had another wrecker come by in the morning yesterday. The driver brought the van and me to Enterprise and they gave me a car for the rest of my trip. Today, when i turned in the car, I got $100 off my already discounted rate at Enterprise so it was not so bad after all was said and done. I am just happy that the van was essentially empty when it happened as opposed to this happening when I had my stuff in it.

All the best,
Glenn B