Arrived at Salt Fork

  I am at the Trail Fest at Salt Fork State Park, Ohio, and all is well. Bill and Bob are in the Lyme Lounge (Bill's camper), Diane has the aqua tent, and I'm the orange one. Arrived in time to get it up before the rain started. Not serious rain... it would be nice if it stayed that way.

I did miss dinner, but they saved me a container. So, I got to eat about a half hour ago. Bill checked me in, but I signed up for the wrong hike, so I hope they let me change that. It doesn't return until 4 pm and I have something else I have to do in the afternoon.

Working backwards on the day... the closer I got the more iffy the weather looked. Here's a storm cloud coming in over the hills we are camping in. The car got a brief but nice bath.

The bulk of the day was spent dealing with this. The picture is after I threw the ruined tire back in the car. So you can see I did not exaggerate about shredded. The wheel was OK. Thank goodness for that.

I will not expound on the day. Bill and Diane got to listen to me rant on the phone quite a bit. Bill made the mistake of calling me at the apex of my irritation. It was not one of Joan's better attitude days. However, I have 4 new matching tires of the right size which are hopefully a step or two above crap (jury is still out on that). And I was able to make it to the Trail Fest yet today. Finally left Toledo area at 3:30 pm.

I have not missed an annual Conference, Celebration, Trail Fest or whatever other name it has gone by since 1995, and I wasn't going to miss this year's because of a stupid tire problem.

And now I am going to stop and go to bed.

See At Mariannes's

I Have a Car!

  Leona doesn't look any different on the outside. And she's still muddy. But, she is back in my own driveway after 2 1/2 weeks.

However, she's had a heart transplant. Two valves were bad. See that crack on the edge. Not good. The compression is supposed to be between 160-200 psi per cylinder. My best one was about 145, and the worst was 42. Well, I said it was missing on one cylinder. Got that right.

Here's the old ticker, and various veins and arteries, now headed for the scrap yard.

It took forever to get some of the parts. Even Subaru had trouble coughing up everything. But finally, it was all reassembled. I know only a moderate amount about engines. Enough to be dangerous, right? But my reaction was "shiny."

And a couple of days ago, it was finally back in the car.

Don't even ask what this cost. The answer is less than a different car, but I am really broke. Well, it runs nice. And I got it just in time for an adventure this weekend.

It's somewhat astounding to me that something with so many delicate and moving parts works when they put it all back together.

In other news: I worked for 5 hours on the book and did a few odds and ends.

See The Day I Brought Leona Home