Oh, what a day!

OK, I now realize that I have my days/dates wrong on the previous posts - geesh.  So everything I said happened on Thursday, move it up to Wednesday.  So here we go on Friday morning.

Some of y'all might know I'm having problems with my reverse gear.  I usually only park in spaces on an incline so I can coast backwards or park where I can drive forward.After I left the rest stop, the van would not shift out of second gear or go over 45 miles per hour.  CRAP! Now I was having problems with the forward gears!

So there I was, 70 mph speed limit and I was going 45 - emergency flashers flashing.  I figured I was about 450 miles from Brasstown, and at 45 mph I could make it in 10 hours.  All I wanted was to get to Brasstown then put the van in the shop while I was teaching. 

I pulled off at the first McDonalds I could find to use their wifi.  I looked up the rates for AAA and saw that with their premier service you could actually get towed up to 200 miles to the location of your choice.  I calculated that Johnson City, TN was about 200 miles from Brasstown, so I just hoped to get to Johnson City.  Triple AAA will sign you up for coverage and let you use it the same day, so I knew that if the van quit all together at some point AAA would be there to help me.

I again got back on the highway but this time the on ramp ended on a decline in the highway, so, gravity being what it is, the van actually was coasting at almost 60 miles per hour.  I pressed the gas pedal and sure enough the car kept on going in overdrive.  This taught me that I only had to be sure not to stop unless the on ramp led to a decline on the highway. 

I didn't have many problems to Johnson City, or actually to Brasstown.  There were a few times it wouldn't shift up from Drive to Overdrive or felt/sounded like the transmission was slipping.  But, I actually got to Brasstown.  YAY!!!  (My daddy must be shaking his head and laughing - he used to say "Poor people have poor ways" and I think I was proving that! 

I spent the night at Wal Mart in Murphy, NC.  I looked for a repair shop but none were open on Saturday morning.  Then I thought if I could get the van to Jasper, GA I could stay at Leonard's place while the van was being fixed, then if the went over a week, I wouldn't be stranded in Brasstown. 

Plus, there's a highly rated mechanic in Jasper (according to Yelp) and if there are problems, I can always go back there while its being fixed.

Whew - that's an awful lot of money to spend on fixing the van, but necessary.  I may be asking people "do you want fries with that" in order to keep me afloat for a while.  Or I need to go back to Okie homa and work on the houses and get them listed for sale.  So again, decisions....decisions....
 
 Times like this make me miss my family. 

(Sigh)