Ramblings of a Bald Man

They kept saying on the radio today was one of the busiest travel days of the year. They also kept saying how crazy the weather was. I left my apartment at about 9:00am and should have arrived at my mom’s house at like 2pm (1pm Iowa time). It’s now a little after midnight and I got here not all that long ago. So basically my 5hr trip got turned into 14. That’s definitely a record for me. I’d have to say the worst part is I’m always by myself on these kinds of trips so things tend to get a bit boring.

The bad:
It wasn’t so bad starting out. It was raining a lot and there weren’t too many slow people on interstate. Then for kicks I decided to take IN38 to IN32 to I-74 instead of taking I-69 to I-465 to I-74. Then I got stuck behind semis going through little towns and stuff. Finally got to interstate and was actually able to drive the speed limit. So thing were going well. Then it started getting cold and everything was freezing and it started snowing…..hard. Then my car overheated out of nowhere. So I pull over to find my reservoir empty. There were no visible leaks so I filled the reservoir and turned my car back on. Thankfully all the anti-freeze got sucked out of my reservoir so i then filled it back up. That means the thermostat was working. However, the car was still way too hot just idling. So I go into the gas station and inquire about somewhere to get it looked at. Find a place and go to leave. Now my car doesn’t want to start, it’s obviously burning coolant and my heat doesn’t work anymore. Now these kind of things point to other things. Things like there’s a coolant leak internally and it has something to do with the exhaust. I was a little worried at first cause I thought it could be the head gasket which really didn’t make much sense on my car. So I finally get it over to this repair place and they find out it’s a plastic half of a manifold that had worn out and cracked. This apparently is a known problem with GM cars. So the part costs $260 some bucks and with labor and fluids they quote me almost $500. So they finally get that done and I’m a mere 150 miles or so from my mom’s house. Now 7 very frustrating hours later, I’m home.

The good:

• I ended up working extra hours last week and coming in for 7hrs on Saturday so I didn’t have to work today and got to leave a day early.
• I got a good night’s rest and wasn’t falling asleep while driving (ask me about nodding off at the wheel sometime if you don’t know that story)
• None of those crazy people on the road hit me
• The one time my back end kicked out there was nobody next to me and I regained control immediately with my race car driving skills
• My car broke down on me right when it started snowing - this is when most of the crazy accidents ocurieron - so I wasn’t on the road for the worst of it
• The people at the car place stopped what they were doing to fix my car for me and were very nice and friendly
• The fixed it for less then they quoted me
• The receptionist saw my Iron Maiden patch and talked to me for an hour about Maiden, Godsmack, Rammstein, Kiss, etc - turns out she’s from Germany and has been living here for 15yrs
• I made it home quite safely even though I’m tired and was a little annoyed with the world

The ugly:

• That one guy I saw at the Subway I stopped at

Ok, so once again I have compared my life to a movie. Overall I’d say I have a lot to be thankful for just from today besides the rest of the year.