More on trip

Pictures will come later, camera is charging up.

I didn't do a whole lot "outside" during break....it was kind of dreary and rainy a lot of the time (I maintain that a cold rain is worse than snow, especially in a town set up to deal with snow [e.g. that has plows and salt trucks]). I did get a lot done on the Hagrid sweater, I finished the front and most of the first sleeve (up past the increases). I'm eager to finish this now so I suppose it will be my main project in the evenings for a while.

A lot of weird little stuff happened. I mentioned the ice storm. But before that, one night my mom and I had gone out to pick up some carryout food for dinner and it was just getting dark, and when she was pulling into the lot of the restaurant, she had to swerve to avoid a car that was coming out and taking up more than its share of the drive, and she went up and over (and up and over again; it was at a curve) the curb. It was a hard hit and at first I was afraid it would have damaged the axle or something. As we pulled into a space, the car began to shake and when I jumped out - it looked like the driver's side front tire was flat.

My mom ran in to call AAA but I knew that would be a long, long wait (the other car was non functional at the moment - more on that later - so there was no way my dad could come get us). Fortunately, as I was scrabbling around trying to remember where to put the jack so it would be most stable, a couple came along and they helped me change the tire (I ran in and told my mom so she could tell AAA to not send the tow truck). When we pulled the tire off, I remarked it didn't LOOK flat. And then I saw the rim. Yeah, the hit dented the rim.

I will add that it's no joke trying to change a tire in a poorly-lit parking lot after sundown. I'm not sure I would have managed without the people's help. I probably need to try it a couple times myself in my own drive so I know for sure I can do it if I'm ever in a case where I need to. USUALLY there is someone (usually a man) who knows how to who is willing to help, but if I got a flat out at a field site or something, not so much. 

The good news is the spare on that car is full-sized, so we could drive the car around until a new rim was acquired. (The other car had to be charged up. It has some weird fault in the electrical system that drains the battery if it's not run on a nearly daily basis, and no one's got time for that, I guess. They've had it looked at by several people and the conclusion is it's something wrong in the computer system, it's unlikely to be a bigger problem, and it would be multiple hundreds of dollars to even try to diagnose)

Anyway. We charged up the other car, and the next day called their go-to mechanic. (And if anyone needs a good repair shop in the Bloomington, IL area, I would recommend TCB Auto; they seem to always have done well by my parents). The guy who "does tires" was able to get a new rim and that was fixed. The next thing to attack was the stupid Ford with its stupid battery problem - the church minibus here had a similar issue and a mechanic told the minister that a kill switch to the battery could easily be installed and circumvent the problem. So we arranged for them to do that, once we had the other car back. (They hadn't suggested it before as "dealing with the kill switch is kind of a pain for the car driver" but it's less of a pain than having to start the car every day).

So I was apprehensive about my poor car sitting in Mineola - what if driving those couple of miles before I could safely get off had screwed up the rim? When I called the owner I asked about that and he said (a) "It takes a lot to mess up a rim" (I didn't tell him about my mom's incident) and (b) "I should be able to get one quickly if you need it." Luckily, I didn't.

Also, all of the car stuff surrounding the kill-switch happened during the power outage - the ice on the roads was gone by midday of the ice storm so it was safe to drive, but we learned that the electric door openers on the garage weren't hooked into the generator, but luckily I knew how to decouple the motor-drive and be able to open them manually - AND how to put it back after the power was back on. (I had to do that once myself when something went wrong with my garage-door motor).

We also tried to run out to the big mall in the afternoon of the ice-storm day - I needed a new pair of trainers and my mom wanted to get a pair of casual shoes. I remarked, before we left, "We should call to be sure they are open" (we didn't know the extent of power outages in town) but everyone else was all "They'll be open." As we approached, I noted there were few cars in the lot....and when we pulled up to the door, there was a big sign saying "No power, mall closed." Womp womp. (Who knew? I guess I would have thought a mall would have generators, but I guess not. I hope the hospital next door to them had generators....) Interestingly enough, down the street, the Barnes and Nobles had power, so at least I was able to buy the newest issues of the British knitting magazines I like to get.