Sunday, JUNE 12, 2011
Dear sweet Molly is misbehaving!
Molly spent her second day on the back of the car hauling trailer today!
Bill and I spent our second day driving the Great Race rental car that the car hauler keeps on the trailer just for people like us who own cars misbehaving!
We started out very early this morning from Asheville, NC, heading for the Blue Ridge Parkway. Molly was running beautifully!! We got through our speedometer check with flying colors. THAT part is working very well now. I think we can finally count on the speedometer to carry us through to the end. Our first leg was fun, making all the right turns, checking off each detailed instruction and completing them with precision. Driver and Navigator were in sync and thinking we nailed that leg. Got to the first transit zone (rest area) for a 25 min. break and as all good navigators do, I wrote the second that we passed the first check point. The second hand was on 57. I wrote it on the inside of my hand and went around checking with some of the other navigators what their “number” was. Several had 59’s, one had “00” and some others were less than ours. So we thought we were “THERE”. Maybe not an ACE, but close. I mean, if we could get a 1 second on one of the legs two days ago WITHOUT a speedometer, surely we were doing better than that this morning.
Just so you don’t have to read to the end of this, we got our score this evening and that first leg was EARLY by 13 seconds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How could that be? We talked to others and they all did about the same, and couldn’t understand why their leg was bad as well. Maybe we should get rid of the speedometer, eh?
We started out after that rest break and the road got steeper and steeper but Molly was keeping cool and pulling the hills well. Then about 20 minutes into that leg, she started to snort and buck and stall and finally quit. We kept her going up the hill by inches, but she just wasn’t going to cooperate any further. So guess what?!? Call Tommy, the car hauling man, and tell him to come pick us up somewhere between instruction numbers 49 and 50. It took him about 45 minutes to get to us (he trails behind the last car out for the day, and stays on our course to pick up anyone or to help fix any car that is recalcitrant). Bill and I directed traffic around us during that time, with Molly half off the road. We got her loaded up, and Bill and I resigned ourselves to driving the rest of the day in air conditioned luxury! But we had to trail behind the car hauler the whole way because if someone else broke down, the driver and navigator needed to ride in the car with us. But no one broke down….just us. Though in the parking lot tonight, there are many who are working on their cars. One lost his brakes, but got it fixed enough to continue on course, just not with a good score…or good brakes!
So Bill, Jim and Phil are in the parking lot of some trucking facility next door to the hotel, where all the trailers and trucks are parked for the night, working under a street light hoping to find out what the problem is. Bill has had all day to work on it in his mind, talked with people tonight at supper and with a trip to the local auto parts store thinks it has something to do with the fuel system. He’ll explain it later…..I just know that they were going to make sure the auxiliary fuel pump is working; blow out lines; maybe put on a new pump???? Hey — I’m the navigator. I know how to gas up the car and turn it on to run on down the road. I leave the details to the four mechanics in the family!
Tomorrow is a new day. We still have smiles on our faces; we’re still thinking positively. It is what it is….and we’ll deal with each problem as it arises. We’re “COOL”……Molly might not be, but WE are, so far.
