kickaha | Adventure on the roadway

ginkgo and I went up to Waltham, MA this weekend for an old friend's wedding reception/picnic - it was a blast, and it was great to see said friend, new hubby, and many of their friends. Picnic was Sat @ 4, so we left NY around 11, figuring that gave us some time to play along the way if we found anything interesting to do.

The trip was *very* uneventful, up until we came to the I-84/I-90 interchange and tollbooth plaza, where there was a heck of a backup already in progress. Some &*(%$@ twit cut off

ginkgo, and she had to hammer the brakes to keep from having the idiot take out her front right fender. Luckily, the person behind us was watching, and we came to a safe stop, which wasn't too surprising, since it was stop and go.

It was that last bit that was the problem.

The fucktard (now in front of us) went on, and... we didn't. "Honey, you need to go." "Uh, I am." Fuck.

A quick shutting off of AC, fans, radio, etc, ensued, as the honking started.

ginkgo got the car in park, hazards on, key off, lights off, brake on, and... while it would turn over, it wouldn't engage. Fuck^2.

A few more tries, and we realized we were hosed. We were in the far left lane, on a bridge, with a guardrail right next to us. No place to pull over, even if we could. We're now blocking the left lane of an interstate in the middle of a backup, at an interstate junction, and people are flipping us off, honking, slamming on the gas while they miss us by a couple of inches on purpose... generally being jackasses.

So of course I get out of the car.

We were pointed vaguely downhill, sort of, as we were near the apex of the curve and bridge, so I figured that if I could push us past the bridge, we could pull off the left side into the weeds. Surprisingly, it worked. But yeah, I pushed the car in my sandals by my lonesome, got it past the guardrail, and

ginkgo eased it over into the weeds. Hoorah! (Ogg manly. Ook.) I start checking fuses, coil wire, plug wires... anything I can think of. Nada. Meanwhile, AAA is called. (I <3 AAA. Rally I do.) It turns over, but won't, like, go. ('94 Honda Accord, fuel injection, 'flooding' crosses my mind, but that seems a little... wrong.)

Someone called the Highway Patrol in the meantime, and the guy was quite nice. Except he said that he needed us on the *other* side of the &*(%##@ interstate. (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? We were off the roadway, in a safe place, and he wants us to go *across* the interstate?? Ooooookay, Occifer, whatever you say, sir.)

Officer Friendly walks out into the interstate, stops the *entire thing* (oh yeah, we were feeling the love now) gets in his squad car and pushes us with his cattle catcher across the entire interstate. Nice. Not a scratch on the rear bumper, either. The guy is good.

So we sit there on the side of the road, in the lovely heat and direct sunshine, for about another 15-20 minutes before the wrecker shows up to winch us up on the flatbed, and take us to the garage.

On Saturday afternoon of Labor Day Weekend. In BFE.

I figure we're stuck there until Tuesday.

Turns out that the garage is open, and the mechanic 'might still be there'. Lucky for us, he was - along with several other breakdowns. Also lucky for us, AAA provides the first 3 miles of towing free, and this was *2* miles from where we broke down, if you can believe it. I chat with Randy the mechanic for a minute, and tell him the symptoms, he says "Probably the distributor cap - they have a bad habit of going on those cars." "Do you have a replacement?" "Maybe." Hmm. Okay, maybe we won't be here until Tue, but we may be here until the parts store is open, which may be... Tuesday. Urk.

We go in and take care of the towing paperwork and beautiful *lack* of charge, while the mechanic is fiddling with some other poor schmuck's car. He's ready for us, we go over, pop the hood, and he notes the oil leaking from the O-ring around the distributor cap. "That might be it - let's see if we have spark..." He pulls a plug wire from the cap, and tells me to give it a crank.

The damned thing starts right up.

The mechanic just grins and says "I love it when that happens. No, wait, I don't, because I have no idea what happened. Nevermind." I like this guy.

He tells me to take it for a spin up the road and back a couple of times. "It's uphill - if it dies, it's downhill back." I like this guy more.

The car has no issues. I get to the top, turn it off, and it restarts immediately. Three times.

After talking it over with Randy a bit more, he says to chalk it up to an anomaly, and get the O-ring checked when we get back home, but otherwise, give it a shot.

Oh, and no charge. I really like this guy.

So 90 minutes, and $0 later, we're back on the road. We decided to forego the interstate for the last 60 miles, and take a back highway instead... and saw some beautiful little towns along the way. We got to the party a little late, but we had a good story to tell.

We had planned to drive back that night, but our host and hostess insisted we crash at their place in case the car conked out again, it'd be daylight. Couldn't really argue with that, so after a good night's sleep, a good breakfast, and lots of coffee, we headed back Sunday morning... to a cat that wanted to know where the hell we'd been, and dammit, where was her food??

Ah, home.

Adventure on the roadway

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