Charlottesville, Virginia!

We arrived in Charolottesville on Monday, October 7, and spent a week visiting with Jocelyn, Tom, Ronan, Aenea, and Pepper. We had a great time but we had some snafus along the way.

We had to drop some mail at the post office so we went there before going on in to the kids' house. Took our stuff in, got it mailed and went back out to the car and it wouldn't start. It tried, but would just not turn over. So we called our road service, then called Jocelyn. Jocelyn got there before the tow truck driver and had everyone with her. So they kept us cool and collected in their car while we waited. It didn't take long and the tow truck driver sent us on our way and towed the car to the Ford dealer.

Jocelyn took us around to car rental agencies and every one of them wanted $65-$110 a day for car rental. So for 3-4 days it could cost several hundred dollars because, of course, they didn't have any of the "cheaper" ones available. The kids have two cars, but the Crown Vic they don't drive because

they said it needed tires. We decided to cut our losses and take the Crown Vic and put tires on it so that it would serve our purpose and be back in service for the kids. A win-win.

While we were there and I was visiting with the kids, Terry finished the job of hanging the storm door on the front of the house that Jocelyn had started. She is not afraid to tackle anything and she did a great job hanging the door, but needed help with the hardware. Terry was able to get that job done for them.

We had some chilly weather while we were there, so Terry and I didn't do any outside activities with the kids, but they enjoyed coming out to the campground a couple times and we had a fire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Fun times with the kids for sure. We spent some time at the farm where the kids have a "share." We help pick fruit and pet the farm dogs.

We got our car back in the middle of the week. It was the fuel pump and a fuel modulator. Expensive stuff, but thankfully, they got the job done right apparently because she's run fine every since. It was amusing to a couple of the service writers because they were talking about how they never see any Ford Flex's come in on the hook. . . everything else, but never the Flex. Then they looked up and  saw ours come in under tow. LOL Oh well. She couldn't have broken down at a more opportune time and I am grateful for that. We weren't out in the middle of no where. . . we were where family was just a phone call away.

Our time with the family was soon over and we left on Monday, the 14th of October and headed south to Florida. We took our usual route down 321 through South Carolina, staying off I-95 for this part of the journey. It was an uneventful trip and we arrived in Melbourne, Florida on the 17th.

Till next time. . .

Dale