We were planning on leaving for the first leg of our trip to Indiana on a Saturday. At 6pm on the Friday night before, my Tahoe died. It started again, then died again about 15 second later. I had to get it towed. Of course there was only one repair shop open in town) the Dodge dealership) on Saturday, but--get this--they couldn't get my truck to die again. They drove it off and on all day and left it running for a few hours and it ran fine, so they said I should just go ahead and make the trip. This did not reassure me. Would you set off to drive across the country, towing a trailer, with a truck that died twice out of the blue? Me neither--I don't care what those guys at that shop said. My dad is a mechanic (he owns his own business in western Washington by you guys and has about every certification known to mechanic-kind), and after having me do some testing and listening to the symptoms I described, both he and his top tech at the shop said, "We're not betting men, but we'd lay money that it's your fuel pump." They both said that Chevys always need this at 150,000 miles (which is how many miles are on my truck) and the symptoms fit perfectly. So I bought a new fuel pump and had to insist that the guys at the shop put it in. They weren't going to do it because they couldn't find out the problem. Now I understand where they are coming from--they didn't want me to think they had fixed it when they couldn't prove what was actually wrong with it. However, I trust Dad's advice and experience far more than some young punks at at Dodge dealership. They did get the new pump installed and the truck has ran fine ever since. My starting problem had even gone away, which makes me believe Dad's diagnosis even more.
Anyway, the whole point of that story was that the trip started off frenzied and hectic. Instead of a leisurely drive to Spokane and a day to get organized for the drive to Wyoming, we got to Spokane in time to go straight to bed so we could leave first thing in the morning. The drive over here was miserable. Because I was towing my trailer (no horse, thank goodness), my mileage was terrible--we had to stop for gas about every two hours. We spent three days of 12-14 hours of straight driving. The cats were NOT happy about that. My father-in-law drove with me, which was...challenging. (Apparently not as bad as Scott experienced with his mom in the car with him though, so I guess I shouldn't complain.) The only thing that saved me was the fact that we had bought the new Harry Potter book on CD and listened to that for most of the drive.
We are still unpacking a few boxes almost two weeks later, but overall we are moved in. My biggest complaint at this point is the weather. Apparently we are in the middle of a very unusual hot spell. The humidity has been staying between 50 to 75%, and it has been been as cool as 70 degrees at night and as hot as the mid to high 90s during the day. This morning at 7am it was 80 degrees out!
(WTF??!!??!) My horse is having a hard time too (and she can't come inside to the AC to cool off). She is sweating all the time, even when she is standing in her stall in the evenings, let alone when she is out to pasture during the day. I have been going out to hose her off with cold water to help her cool down, and it has helped perk her up a little. I can't describe how much this weather SUCKS. I can't even take a deep breath because it feels like I'm breathing water into my lungs because of the humidity. Icky, icky, icky!!
That's about all that's going on here. I start teaching the week after next and right now I am trying to work on my Gree. It is hard to do though because we have an apartment so I can't do it inside, but outside it is WAY too hot. The humidity is making my paint slow to dry too.
From what I hear though, this weather is highly unusual, so how much longer can it last...? Grumble, grumble, grumble.
And that's the update from the midwest, land of corn as far as the eye can see.
