I’d Sure Hate To Break Down Here

Day 89. (Written Saturday March 10) ~ The streak is over. It was bound to happen sometime. It couldn’t last forever. The law of averages just isn’t in your favor. So today it happened. In over 15 years of traveling all over the United States, having travelled literally over a hundred thousand miles, I had a breakdown today. In all this time I have been very blessed to never have a problem while traveling. I’ve never owned a new car and rarely owned a good car, but we have always made it without incident. The stroke was broken today. Kase and I left around lunch, heading to Fort Wayne, Indiana. We got as far as Elizabethtown, Kentucky (not quite halfway), when we needed to stop for gas. While filling up my tank I noticed a very large pool of anitfreeze running out from under my car. Uh oh. I pulled out of the way and got under the van to see where it was coming from and thought I saw a hose that was leaking. Not too big a deal. Replacing a hose is not a big problem. My real concern was finding someone/somewhere that would do it. By this point it is 4:00 pm on a Saturday. Very few places were open that did mechanic work. I finally found a Firestone place that said they could do it (thank you Siri and iPhone 4S).
Twenty minutes later a guy is checking out my van when he says, “I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is I found the leak, the bad news is it’s not a hose, it’s a cracked radiator.” He took me into the shop and showed me the steady spray of coolant coming from the radiator. It had to be replaced. Five hundred dollars. Ouch. Two hours later, and five hundred dollars lighter, we were back on the road, but waaaaay behind schedule. We were supposed to stay with brethren in Fort Wayne, but we wouldn’t be arriving until after midnight so I contacted them and told them we were going to drive as far as I could stand and then stop and get a hotel. There is still so much to be thankful for: years without incident, the radiator didn’t blow while doing 70 mph on the interstate, instead of breaking down on the side of the interstate in the middle of Cornfield, Indiana we were off the road and in a town, there was someone open who could fix it, and it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon. There’s always a reason to be thankful. Tune in tomorrow and I will tell you all about this hotel.