Unexpected Delay

March 2-4

Monday morning, we started our relaxed drive back to Ithaca. It was going to be a relatively short driving day and we would make it home with plenty of time to get food and go to bed. An hour into the drive, all the lights on the dash lit up. The car kept moving, but we pulled off the Ohio turnpike in search of a mechanic. We pulled into a garage in Milan, Ohio (that's MY-lun) and waited for the bad news. The mechanic was very nice about telling us that the problem appeared to be in the electric portion of the system and he couldn't touch that with his equipment. He didn't charge us for looking at the car, but he did direct us to the Toyota dealer closer to Cleveland.

Running amok at the garage

After the last start of the car, waiting for a tow

Benjamin, Oliver and Isla had been happily playing with the two children of the mechanic, who are also homeschooled, but we tore them away to load up in the car to drive the 20 miles to the Toyota dealer. Unfortunately, the car was done starting. We called a tow truck, but they could not carry all five of us in the truck. Back into the garage we trudged, ready to distract the mechanic's children from their studies once again. It was two hours before we had sorted out how to get our old car and all the family to the dealer. Chad went in the tow truck with the old car. The kids and I drove a car from the mechanic to a car rental in Sandusky and then came to the dealer with a rental car.

Toys at our friends' house outside Cleveland

The kids watched TV and Chad worked while the Toyota dealer tried to figure out what was wrong with our car. It soon became clear that we wouldn't be leaving with our car for at least a day or two. Luckily for us, we had more KBS friends living outside Cleveland. We called them and they graciously let us stay at their house and they fed us for two nights.

DNA exhibit at Cleveland Science Museum

We cancelled our Tuesday Ithaca engagements and spent the afternoon at the Cleveland Science museum. While we were there, Toyota called to tell us the repairs would probably be about $8000 for a car that we had decided was only worth $4000 and had 151,000 miles now. So...we now have the bigger Prius V that we had thought about buying 2-3 years from now. It was complicated and took a lot of maneuvering by both us, our bank, and the dealer, but we managed to get it purchased at about 10:00 PM on Tuesday night.

Signing for the new car at 10:00 PM

Wednesday morning, we finally had that relaxed drive to Ithaca from Cleveland, even stopping to buy cheese in a small New York town along the way. We got home in time for Chad and Benjamin to go to a Cub Scout meeting on Wednesday night.