On the Road Again (Not)

Well, when I didn't get a blog entry written before we left on our trip, I figured that was it for a week, anyway. I didn't expect to have internet access, because we were to be camping for the first four nights and riding roller coasters at Cedar Point. That was the plan.

On Saturday morning, we hit the highway from Boston, bound for Ohio and relatives and Cedar Point and a book signing (July 4, 3 – 6 p.m., Kalihari Resort, Sandusky, Ohio). I'd gone to great pains to get the car and ancient camping trailer in shape, and it was all paying off. The trailer lights worked, the young nephew and niece had arrived to swell our numbers to 6, and we got off only a few hours late. The weather was mild, temperate, we took it easy, and we made it over the transmission-killing 7-mile hill on the Mass Turnpike. It was all going well. Until we got to Rochester, NY.

That's where we exited the NY Thruway, headed for a campground and a detour to Niagara Falls in the morning. Unfortunately, the exit road from the Thruway had a big fissure which we hit—BAM! I gulped, and then the roar came. Suddenly our car sounded like a Mack truck with a bad muffler. Something had broken in the exhaust system. On a Saturday evening.

We limped along until we found a Pep Boys auto repair center, which had just closed. But the sign said it would open Sunday morning, so we rumbled on a little further, found a hotel, and hunkered down for the night. This morning, I got the news: a broken exhaust crossover pipe, and no replacement available on Sunday. And so, instead of setting up camp at Cedar Point tonight, we're holed up at a Holiday Inn in Rochester, praying that the part can be found tomorrow morning. We're on a very tight schedule, planned to the day, so every day we lose at this end is gone from the trip. If you don't hear from me in the next few days, that probably will mean we got back on our way. So everyone—I hope you don't hear from me in a few days!

Stay tuned!

"All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath." —F. Scott Fitzgerald