The Rock & I

It’s Wednesday of Week One, three days into the big adventure, and I am sitting in the parking lot of a Syracuse body shop while Al and his guys send bolts into our damaged bays to keep them from falling off and killing the guy behind us on the road.

The day we got our bus back from the beauty shop in Kingston NY, John was triumphantly pulling up the dreaded hill to our soon-to-be-ex house when he suddenly stopped, jumped out of the bus and started a diatribe that sounded exactly like Darren McGavin’s “wock-a-wock” cursing streak in “A Christmas Story.”

An error of about 8 inches too far to the right had caused him to become hung up on a small boulder (an oxymoron like “giant shrimp”). In pulling off the rock, the entire side of the bus was damaged to the tune of about $12,000, and almost all the bay doors were at the point of falling off.

We continued on to Pennsylvania and spent a nice two days with Joe and Joan McQuillan at their lovely home on Lake Wallenpaupak, then took off this morning for Syracuse. It’s 95 degrees here, and those bolts are taking forever. I just want to jump in a body of water and get cool. We do have air conditioning, but it uses up a lot of gas. At $5.25 a gallon.

The good news is, John has come around to thinking a northern jaunt would be preferable to his original plan to head south. We’re looking at Canadian maps, thank you jesus.

Our mechanic just retired to his office with a migraine, poor guy, so we may be here a wee bit longer. Or overnight.

Which could be a good thing, because there’s a mall nearby and we have to replace John’s $300 sunglasses that got sat on yesterday.

Did I mention that we went into the McQ’s hot tub last night in the pitch black of the evening, and I exited onto a non-existing step and fell flat on my derriere? The mishaps are a source of hilarity at this point.

We’re finally off as I write this, the mechanic having sent his second in command to finish us up. We’re headed to a campground, but may end up in the WalMart parking lot because we have no reservations. We’re also out of water, which is not a problem for drinking, but a big one for the rest-room situation. Anybody know of a swanky hotel in the area with a big pool and a giant martini?

Betty