After yesterday’s excitement, today’s fun was collecting Katie for school and then making a quick run to the car hire place on Capital so that I could have a vehicle whilst Nicholas continued on to work at Leith Toyota.

When they say that hiring a car is far more expensive than it has been in the past, they’re not joking. There’s hardly any inventory and what’s there will cost an arm and a leg at best!

Sadly, my panoramic physique won’t fit in a Honda Fit or a Toyota Prius (eww!) so we’re already in the more expensive ballpark. To give you an idea, a Tahoe goes for about $1,200 per week which is why I was a bit skeptical when the lady was offering the Tahoe for the much lower rate I had reserved. That is until she realised that scanning that key fob changed the numbers she was looking at dramatically.

Thus…behold…DARTH EQUINOX!

Compared to the Traverse, the Equinox feels like I’m wedged into the cockpit of a F-14 Tomcat. It’s not unpleasant but it’s definitely not as spacious as I’m used to. But all in all, I have to say the Equinox is a nice drive which we discovered as I headed back to Clayton to do a trip with Julia and Alexander to his appointment at Duke in Durham.

Luckily, we scored a spot in the nice lot tucked behind the entrance and his appointment went well. There were also some moments of levity when I noticed the sign on the wall listing the specialties who were in clinic that day and rather impertinently noticing the colour for Urology and suggesting it wasn’t an accident. I know that gentleman sitting right next to it at the registration desk was chuckling the rest of the day each time he looked over in that direction! I’m such a stinker… 🙂

Meanwhile, after yesterday’s scary tow truck driver escapades…I’d been nervous as hell wondering if the Traverse had made it to Hendrick Chevrolet in Cary safely. I’m already in worst-case scenario land and just having these feelings that he’d start the engine there as he did when she was being hooked up and seeing visions of mushroom clouds emanating from under the bonnet. A voice mail that was not returned and a text message that hadn’t been answered didn’t exactly help relieve that state of mind.

Thank goodness Julia and the service advisor were patient and understanding about my paranoia when I stopped by on the way back from Durham to touch base. As we pulled into their car park and after a bit of searching, she was sitting in the back safe and sound and eventually I’d be able to verify the parts I’d sent along for potential use during the repairs were still in the box in the boot.

I really don’t want to be *THAT CUSTOMER* but after going through hell the day before, I just needed to see she was where she needed to be and that all was as well as I could make it.

After promising the service advisor I’d leave him alone to do their diagnosis, it was off to Clayton with a couple of stops for refreshments before bundling Katie off to her lacrosse training after school.

Whilst she was on the field, I took advantage of the fact that a NC tags office was nearby to renew Alexander’s handicap placards. Spending a hour in a queue that moves at a glacial pace is just such a joy but at least the people near by had a decent sense of humour.

The DMV door had a red coloured message saying there was no parking in the loading dock area.

Of course that brought to mind the intro scene in “Airplane” where the PA is dueling over which zone is for loading and unloading passengers and where parking is forbidden. I couldn’t help but suggest that DMV could have had some fun doing a variation on this with that message and enjoying the confused looks of the people in the queue waiting outside. 🙂

Mind you, their humour disappeared when one of the ladies inside made it clear that the sign requiring wearing masks was not merely a suggestion and she bounced them from the queue until they could find a suitable mask.

At least the placards were renewed after a bit of a scare where she wanted Alex to sign the paper even though he’s only 16 and will likely never drive a car on the public highways (he’s scary enough in a go kart!).

Much success! 🙂

Late in the evening, I finally got the diagnosis on yesterday’s engine failure and was really fearing for the worst thinking it’s new engine time.

It turns out that it was a plastic fitting that had split due to age and the coolant hose broke loose in the back of the engine and that was what was spraying all over the place which would explain the overheat warning being the first one that went before the cascading failures. The oil in the engine was apparently fine and free of metal indicating the cylinders and pistons are probably OK but we’re going to go ahead and do an oil change she was due for anyway to get that out of the way.

And whilst we’re there, the box of parts contained a new starter motor and four engine mounting blocks that my neighbour and I were going to do one afternoon but we may as well let our friends with a much better garage mend those.

Now I can breathe much easier…crisis averted.

Until next time, that is! 🙂