Salina Kansas
It’s five days after the turbo event, and we are still parked on blocks in front of the Auto House Towing & Car Repair garage. The world is going on around us, but we are stalled here, at the mercy of the gods.
First there was the weekend, during which only emergencies were attended to. We were triaged, but didn’t make it to emergency status. After all, we were still breathing and we had water and electricity. No matter that the high-end restaurant in Salina (Sal-eye-nah) was a tossup between McD’s and a Sonic. No matter that there was no movie theater, library, museum. There was a zoo and we could damn well go see some wildlife yah.
To be fair, we did discover a movie theater out of town at the obligatory mall, so life wasn’t as tough as I’m making it out to be. But we are down to our last can of clams, and unless I can Google a Walmart in the immediate area, dinner tonight may well be clam dip on rye bread.
We thought we’d get our part on Monday, but there were no turbos in the area, so it had to be Fedexed for Tuesday delivery. Then the part arrived, but the mechanic didn’t. Turns out that while we were bemoaning the fate of our home on wheels, this poor guy took a sharp stick in the eye, literally, and being a tough, homespun Kansas type, ignored it until it turned into a threat to his sight. So he had to see the doctor, who wasn’t available until Wednesday (talk about emergency service!) and might have to have an operation to save the eye, after which god knows how long, he could fix our bus.
Is there a second mechanic in this town? Apparently not. So we held a private prayer service inside the bus, making even Zeus get own on his knees with us, and petitioned God for his speedy recovery.
It must have worked, because he’s supposed to be back on the job tomorrow. Meanwhile the weather is amazing. Even when it gets up past 80, it’s fabulous because the wind blows constantly, and although my hair has assumed some very interesting positions as a result, it is wonderful to be outside and enjoying things like… the zoo. Yes we did go, and while we both got really sick from the deviled eggs we had for lunch (never, ever buy egg anything when you are at the zoo) we had a good time. We took ourselves to Abilene and visited the Eisenhower Museum and family home, which was very well done and incredibly interesting, especially Mamie’s jewelry – look, you research what you like and I’ll research what I like.
Later, we’ll go back to Abilene for dinner. There’s a restaurant there that is said to have the best fried chicken in Kansas. So what if it’s another 50-mile round trip. It’s either that or clam dip on rye. What would you do?
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