Lucky Lucky Thanks Boss

    I believe in the Chinese Horoscopes. There, I said it. I don't think they are a hundred percent accurate or anything, nor do I feel it prudent to base any life decisions on them, but I find the coincidences too uncanny to completely disgregard. Take for instance, the fact that I am a dog on the Chinese Horoscope. I love dogs (I know, who doesn't but, I was CRAZY about them even as a toddler and I manipulated my parents into getting me one FINALLY by "praying" for it and telling them I was, OFTEN. (My mother was a teacher in the Catholic School Board so I'm pretty pretty pretty sure that that was the tactic that sealed the deal. PS My sister will very likely insist I aknowledge her proprietary rights but I honestly do not recall her mentioning any praying at that time) Anyway, I digress. I grew up and became a dog trainer, built an "all dogs all the time" business in NYC and eventually became a Canine Health Consultant.  I currently have 3 black labs. I hear them. Enough said.
     Even as I'm blogging on the road on our Toronto-California trip, I just alerted my driver (er, uh...husband) to a high pitched sound he could not hear. Here's a pic of me sticking my head out the window like a dog. :-)

                                                                 okay, that's enough!

     My husband is a dragon. I wasn't familiar with any until I met him, but they are lucky. I have always had to work very hard for everything (or at least I've perceived it that way) I can count my blessings all day long and have been mega-fortunate but there's a subtle difference. Just believe me, he's lucky and now it seems I'm pretty lucky too. YAY.
      So on our big trip, we booked a Rally at the Airstream factory and booked our trailer in right after it to have a bike rack put on. We knew there would be seminars at the Rally on maintenance and all but we didn't know they might save our lives. At the seminars we learned to adjust the brakes and that we need to repack the bearings so we had Airstream do that. We needed it and had we not done it, there would have been trouble on the road before Cali. They also found a bald tire where a bad wheel alignment needed doing too.
     The week before our trip we took our tow vehicle in for an oil change and fortunately (luckily?) our mechanic found 2 ball joints needed replacing and a worn rear universal (or whatever it was called, breaking it means you end up in a field and if pulling a trailer behind you, perhaps hanging upside down with your legs akimbo.)
 As if that wasn't lucky enough, we found out later that those ball joints are a recall so they may even be reimbursable. Now, seemingly UNfortunatley our air conditioner broke again and it couldn't be fixed without losing two and a half days travel time so we pressed onward in 90 degree heat with the windows open on the Interstate hoping to make it until Monday morning and Boulder, Colorado where we have friends we could visit while it got fixed.
   We went through a lot of horrible places to break down but when we stopped in Lawerence, Kansas to gas up, we had to go way off the highway to find a station and don'tcha know? ..... the truck wouldn't start until we fixed the air conditioner (also to be reimbursed by the guy in Key Largo that replaced it at Christmas!) and while there they found our alternator had gone and our clutch fan was worn to the point of figuratively hanging by a thread. We would have overheated and needed towing out of the mountins later for sure. (And I'll tell you why that wouldn't have necessarily been a bad thing in a minute!)
     So, Oh My God, people! We found a nationwide auto repair within 3 minutes of the gas station we were at and a Beeeeeyootiful little campground 6 minutes away. The crusty young towtruckdriver thought better of turning down my request to drop the truck at the mechanics' and the trailer at the campground and we settled in to Happy Hour at Kansas City Jellystone Park and a day of R and R, poolside, in the grassy dog run, bike riding and preparing for the next leg of the journey.

THEN on the way out, I spied these beauties and we met their owner/rescuers Jon and Carol of The Bombshell Girls!

   













While dragging up to 10,000 feet above sea level, our tranny started to slip. Internally I was cursing everyone!..... including Andy Thompson who assured us my little Jeep liberty 3.7 was totally fine to tow 25 feet of Safari SS, the guy who argued with him at the seminar at Alumapalooza about needing a big 2500 pick up macho, macho, testosterone blowhard AND my own Bestie who had squeezed the words "get a Ford 150" quickly but boldly into a Skype call I'd had with her from Lawerence, Kansas when the alternator went.

     So there we are at the side of the road eating lunch in the Airstream, (I'm thinking the truck will cool down and things will be better enough, to at least get to the next exit and Rick is moping as he silently calculates the price of a new transmission and/or tow vehicle) when a knock comes at the door. (IIIIIIIIIII KNOW!! We are literally here>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>)
 I opened the door to see the keeeeeeyutest towtruckdriver EVER (and I used to have an 88 Ford Bronco 11, I've met THRONGS of tow truckers.)
     Making the proverbial Knight on a White Steed look like yesterday's chopped liver, the handsome, rugged, larger than life, puffy-lipped, darker-than-coal-eyed, McDreamBoat had parked his gigantic (pant, pant) flatbed with tow balls, I mean, ball, in front of us. He gazed longingly....cough cough...he asked if I, um,er,uh, if WE, were okay. (Sorry, girls and gays, I couldn't get a photo. I thought of it, but I just couldn't compose myself in time.)  He also swooped on in behind us once we got parked at the Jeep dealership at the summit to make sure we knew he still had our backs. Jeep confirmed that the tranny fluid just needed to cool down (and so did I) :-)
     Come evening we finished the Eisenhower Pass, the second highest in North America apparently, crawled over hill and dale through Vail without incident and ended up camped out in a beautiful desert truck stop in Utah that night. At our next gas stop, an astute young man at the adjoining tire center noticed one of the tires we hadn't replaced at the beginning of the journey was splitting and so we replaced the remaining two old tires. The first leg of our trip from Toronto-California has been a long and expensive drive but many lessons have been learned and many prayers of gratitude sent upward, "lucky lucky, THANKS BOSS!!!

                                       Here are the boys in the desert. The sticks were SO crunchy!

                       "Thank you for the camping, Mama, I LOVE IT!!!! Where are we goin' now?!?!?!"