I meant the litany of previous “car issues” as a joke. But obviously, my car read them, thought I was insulting it, and decided to get back at me. First there was the stuttering around 40 mph after a good acceleration. (Who doesn’t love a good acceleration, I ask you?) Then it was the refusing to shift out of first gear without a break in park for a moment. Then it was the false hope that, after some fuel injector cleaner, a new something-or-other valve and a new O-ring on the dipstick, everything would be fine for the time being. Then it was the cruel realization that first gear was apparently as far as it would go without extensive prompting, followed by a series of stalls and an unwillingness to idle. *Sigh* All this happened between Sunday afternoon and lunch time today, after which I turned over the keys to Mitch and said, “I’m afraid to drive it to work, please let me have your car!” We’ve worked out the budget and think we can afford to buy a new car…not that we have any choice in the matter…so we’re going out looking after work today. The poor, poor Probe.
Other than watching the Probe’s death throes, my weekend was wonderful. Adrienne came up and we took her biking at Big M, an old alpine ski resort halfway between Cadillac and Manistee. Mitch and I had never been there, either, and I’ll probably never go back! It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done…even the 400 m dash I ran in middle school can’t compare to this beast. Five and a half miles of hills! Now, I know I say the trails in Cadillac are hilly, but those hills are not nearly as long as these ones! And it seems like the uphills most certainly outnumber the downhills. Good think we’re planning to bike with Dad and Bobby at Island Lake this weekend…I need to get my self-confidence back on something relatively easy!
We followed up our mountain bike adventure with a trip to the beach in Manistee, which I must say is gorgeous. The price for the beautiful beach, the warm sun, the calm water, the soft sand and the refreshing breeze was a rather painful sunburn, but the discomfort is worth it when I look back on how good it felt to just lay there.
On another note, I finally made some progress on my scrapbook and am feeling motivated to move even farther along once I get some more pages. I’m up to the Fourth of July canoeing trip we took last year, woo-hoo! And speaking of pictures, if you have not looked at our West Virginia climbing pictures, you should do so. You will be amazed at some of this stuff if you’ve never seen anyone climb outdoors. There are also some rather entertaining shots on there…go to http://photos.yahoo.com/skibunny11282 to satisfy your curiosity. By the way, why does “curious” have a “u” but “curiosity” does not? Ah, the wonderful mysteries of the English language!
1 comment:
Perhaps one chose to go the wrong way around the Big M if they found more uphills than down. From a logical math teacher view, when doing a loop, can there really be a discrepancy between the number of ups and downs? Anyways, Grant and I went skiing and biking there and found it quite enjoyable. After looking at a trail map online neither of us can rememeber which trails we decided to go on. We also did the segemnt of the North Country Trail that runs through the Big M. If I were you, I would try it again before walking away from such a Michigan "mountain biking" treasure.
In other advice, Grant says Don's Auto Clinic (towards Lake City off of M-55) is a good place to look for cars. Grant's parents have had success with several (3) used cars there.
We hope moving week/weekend goes well.
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