Troubles Come In Threes

For the 4th of July, I went back to my parents in Michigan for a much needed break from work and weekend to relax. That mission was accomplished [Thanks for having me!], but the car rides there and back were anything but relaxing. The drive itself wasn't so bad. The hours fly by pretty quickly when you're working through a backlog of Tigers games at 1.5x speed. I've finally caught back up to reality just in time for the All-Star Break, thanks for asking.

1) The drive to Michigan was truly pretty uneventful: normal holiday traffic in Chicago, nighttime road construction in Battle Creek, and oh yeah, my power steering and A/C went out with about 70 miles to go. No biggie. I took it down to trusty old Dick Scott Dodge (where I bought my first car - miss you, Medea!) with my dad the next morning. A mere $700+ later and I had a new serpentine belt and belt tensioner (which had locked up, throwing the belt).

2) After getting back from the shop, we intended to head down to the Detroit Zoo with my brother, his wife, and their son for the pre-nap portion of the day. When we hit the driveway to shuffle car seats and other kid gear, we found that the left rear tire on their car (fresh off a long road trip from New Jersey) was going flat. Jacking it up and removing the tire revealed a 2-inch piece of jagged metal embedded deep into it. Nothing that a side trek to various tire shops in town can't fix, but by the time all of that was said and done the zoo had to be postponed indefinitely.

The rest of my stay in Michigan was delightfully uneventful. As the saying goes though, things come in threes. Knowing this, I took it upon myself to spare my brother the pain of another car problem.

3) I knew I was tempting fate when I drove my 2003 Neon with 110,000 miles on it for this trip, but it was the only way I could listen to unlimited baseball (for technical reasons that will remain unnamed). Sure enough, on the return trip my engine started to overheat... on the Indiana Toll Road... near Gary. Let me tell you that if you're ever overheating on the freeway, you don't want it to be on a toll road. There are fewer exits, when there is an exit it rarely has anything worthwhile nearby, and you have to reaccelerate (bad for a hot engine) after every toll booth. After babying the car for a few miles at lowish speeds (don't worry, the hazards were running), I had to pull over and let the engine cool for a few minutes on the narrow shoulder of an elevated stretch of highway. Did I mention that Zelda was with me? Dogs love it when you stop for no reason and let everyone blow by you at 60+ mph.

I was eventually able to limp back on to the road and made it to the next exit where, being the naive traveler that I am, stopped at the first gas station I saw to ask for help. I knew it wasn't an actual service station, but there's still an old-fashioned responsibility for folks at gas stations to know about nearby businesses. Or not. The guy behind the glass looked at me like I was crazy, said he didn't know anything, and sent me on my way. Luckily, two fellow patrons knew where I could go, pointing me to a radiator shop down the street. They filled me back up with coolant, checked for leaks, and sent me on my way once they were sure I was back to running like a top. Incidentally, if you ever break down in NW Indiana I highly recommend Chevo's Radiator in Hammond. They took care of me and were nice to Zelda to boot.

Since troubles only come in threes, I made it home safe and sound after that without a problem. Not only that, I was so inspired that I decided to reopen the Tower. Keep on the lookout for semi-regular updates about whatever interests me in the near future.