The plan was to play in Tallahassee, Birmingham, Mobile and then spend Sunday in New Orleans for the Super Bowl before heading to Texas.

In Tallahassee, the brakes started to smoke. No problem. We had some money and some time so we replaced the two front brake pads and calipers. We played at The Engine Room, slept in Florida, woke up and drove four hours to Montgomery, AL.

In Montgomery, a woman pointed out to us that our front driver’s side wheel looked like it was about to fall off. We pulled over at a service center to have it looked at, hoping that the wheel had just been put back on wrong in Tallahassee. But, upon further inspection, we learned that the problem was much bigger than we imagined. in the end, basically, among other things, our entire front axle was broken. The cost would have been near two thousand dollars and it would have taken ten days to fix it. We decided not to fix it and that we would find another solution. The mechanics advised that we not even drive down the block to a motel, let alone two m0re hours to Birmingham. We drove it cautiously to a Days Inn down the street and we have been here since then (today is Sunday), waiting.

While we’ve been waiting, along with large amounts of beer, Domino’s pizza and HBO movies, we’ve done something so crazy, we can’t really believe it ourselves. We bought a new van.

On Friday, when we got the news that the old van was not going to be a cheap or easy fix, we began exploring other options within minutes, we found a van for sale on Craigslist, but it was in Birmingham and we were stuck in Montgomery.

Brother Jim was selling the van for his church. The van, also a ‘96 Dodge Ram, had been used lightly by the church over the years. It had only 77,ooo miles on it and had been kept current on oil changes by a member of the church who worked at a Jiffy Lube. The biggest selling point, though, was that it is a fifteen passenger van, much bigger than the old conversion van.

We pulled together some cash, emptying bank accounts and credit card limits, and called Jim to try and figure out, logistically, how we would get the van that was being sold two hours away. He offered to drive it down and on Saturday morning, he, with Brother Bill following in his car, drove 120 miles from Birmingham to Montgomery.

Everything looked really good and we bought it. We were all ready to go, almost. The new van doesn’t have a trailer hitch, which we knew beforehand, but we didn’t think it would be as hard as it has been to get one installed. No one in Montgomery could get it done before Wednesday. Basically, no one in all of Alabama, western Georgia or eastern Mississippi could get it done before Monday at the earliest. So, we waited some more.

We’re going to watch the Super Bowl in Montgomery instead of in New Orleans, and on Monday morning, we’re going to wake up and drive an hour north to get the hitch installed, drive back to get the trailer and then head to Texas.

Thanks to some extremely generous people, we are going to get to where we need to be in a vehicle that’s going to get us there. Its a better van than we had and in the end, it will be an all around better situation.

We’ll see you when we (eventually) get there.

February 7th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments »

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