Road Trip - April-May 2026 - #2 - The end of the first beginning
My view from the truck. The transmission guy checking the fluid.
Well, this (above) is the view of the end of the first beginning of our trip. We got all packed up and left around 6:30 am yesterday (Friday). We were happily listening to “The Rest is History” podcast, munching cookies and oranges, when we heard a beep. Never a good thing. The check engine light went on. Then, when the gear shifted, the truck kind of jumped and bumped. Then it began to heat up. Then it struggled to go, the RPMs ratcheting up while we barely moved. Randy took an exit that turned out to be Kirkland. He talked to someone at a gas station across the street from where we found space to park, and they directed us to a transmission shop a few minutes away. When we parked, he had turned off the truck, and when we started again, things seemed pretty much normal—no light, no bumping, etc. At the transmission shop, the guy said he couldn’t do anything for a week. We were only a few hours away from Lynden, so back we went.
The shop here, Lynden Service, took us in. After several hours, they said they needed to rebuild the transmission, which would take at least a week. So here we are. I am feeling rather sorry for myself, but trying to remember that it could be worse and that it’s not the end of the world. I’ll miss the Festival for sure. :( We are planning to drive straight to Tucson from here. Maybe we’ll go to Michigan after Utah. We’ll see.
At least for now, I plan to kind of hibernate for this week. I’m thinking we won’t do the things we usually do. I had already turned off my alarms to leave for church and other appointments. I think I’ll leave them off. One nice thing is I’ll be able to go to my Aunt Shirley’s funeral on Friday, which I had been sorry I would miss.
To comfort myself, I am visiting Middle Earth by reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I haven’t read them for several years because I’ve been in mourning over my beloved hardcover editions, which I read and re-read since I was a kid. Somehow, in the remodel of our San Jose house, I lost that set. I tried to buy the same set again, but I cannot find it, even on rare and out-of-print sites. The ones I see are too new. They have illustrations from the movies. I liked the movies, but I love the old illustrations from the editions I had, which seemed to be Second Editions, based on the copyright page. I purchased a nice leather-bound set with the “right” illustrations, but they are quite small. I couldn’t bring myself to read them until now, when the ache of my grief is less. (I know, grief about books is pretty weird.)
