Just because you make it to the ranch and back without blowing out a tire on the rocky gravel\u00a0roads, or skidding off the icy highway\u00a0into the side of a snow-covered mountain, doesn’t mean you have escaped disaster.<\/p>\n
We were home from the ranch for two days\u00a0when, on Tuesday evening, something curious happened. \u00a0We were all just going about our business as usual; Paul and Geneva had returned from church, where they assist clients for a couple of hours once a week at St. Vincent de Paul. \u00a0Hubby\u00a0and I were getting ready for prayer time (something we do together every night, and have since before we were married) when we heard a ruckus out in the house. \u00a0Jeff, whose room is on the front side of the house (where the garage used to be) and adjacent to the driveway, was the first to alert the household that the car alarm on the van had started going off. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! \u00a0So up Paul got and went outside to see if he could turn it off. \u00a0There didn’t appear to be any reason it should have gone off, as no one had touched my key fob with the alarm button, and there was no indication anything had happened to the vehicle. \u00a0He unlocked the door, the beeping stopped, and that was that, we thought.\u00a0 Until 2a.m. when it happened again. \u00a0This time, Paul went out and unhooked the battery.<\/p>\n
Next morning, I was tasked with calling the dealership, describing the weird problem,\u00a0and hoping we could get an appointment. \u00a0They had an opening at 10:30, so I got the battery re-attached, and Laurent followed me across town to Camelback Toyota so she could drive me back. \u00a0It was kind of fun as Megan rode along with me, and I always enjoy her company. \u00a0We talked about a possible job opportunity that has come up for her for the summer, venues in which she would enjoy performing (she’s got a coffee-house kind vocal style) and I don’t know what all else…<\/p>\n
Anyway, I pull into the service bay, and Carl comes walking up and smirks, “Well, it’s not beeping NOW!” \u00a0He looked a little perplexed and cautioned me that they might have a hard time\u00a0diagnosing\u00a0it if they couldn’t replicate the problem. \u00a0In my head I was saying, “Uh, I don’t care how hard it is, dude, you’re the Toyota experts. This is why I’m paying you the big bucks!” \u00a0Anyway, I signed that I would happily pay $98 for a diagnosis (to go toward parts) and off we drove back home again.<\/p>\n
It was noonish when he called back to say that they had, in fact, located what they thought was the source of the problem. I had noted, prior to our ranch trip,\u00a0that the “door ajar” light was on from time to time. \u00a0Well,\u00a0by the end of the trip it was on all the time, even though all the doors were securely fastened. \u00a0They determined that the rear latch mechanism and related sensors were broken, (hence the door-ajar light) and needed to be replaced. \u00a0The fanTASTIC punchline to the event was that the fix\u00a0would cost us a smidge over $500.<\/p>\n
Thus, once again, we find a ranch trip\u00a0biting us in the pocket book. \u00a0It’s probably true that\u00a0the mechanism was already on the way to needing to be replaced; however, I’m certain all the rumbling and bumping along those back roads hastened its demise.<\/p>\n
Sigh.<\/p>\n
You may be asking, “Is it worth all the car trouble you’ve had over the years and continue to have and will continue to have as long as you\u00a0own the ranch?”<\/p>\n
What an absolutely silly and ridiculous question. \u00a0We’d do it all again.<\/p>\n
And again and again and again! \u00a0Are you kidding me? All the memories we’ve made there are beyond priceless — yes, including<\/em> <\/strong>the crazy car adventures. Fixing cars is just money. \u00a0Yeah, sometimes it makes things tight, but the answer is yes: totally worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just because you make it to the ranch and back without blowing out a tire on the rocky gravel\u00a0roads, or skidding off the icy highway\u00a0into the side of a snow-covered mountain, doesn’t mean you have escaped disaster. We were home from the ranch for two days\u00a0when, on Tuesday evening, something curious happened. \u00a0We were all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[173,243,3,598],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-car-repairs","category-cars","category-family","category-netties-world","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10584"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10591,"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10584\/revisions\/10591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}