Public Transit

Our car is kapootz. We are in the process of deciding how much we can afford to spend on another car (not much) and what kind of car we want to purchase. I hate it.

Meanwhile, Erik and I are using public transit. Erik rode the bus on his own on Thursday for the first time in his life. I was leaving to work on a group project and Erik was going to meet me at the mall later that evening because we had worship practice (I only observe at these things). I gave him all of his instructions.... It was simple really. Only one bus comes near our house. It comes about every 15 minutes. And it comes right at the end of our road. Easy as pie.

I have never seen Erik so nervous!

He kept asking me questions to ensure that he wouldn't make a mistake.
E - "How will I know I have to get off?"
A- " The bus stops right at the mall."
E - "How do I know when the bus will come?"
A - "The bus will be here at 3:52 and if you miss that one the next one will be here at 4:07."
E - "How much do does it cost?"
A -"It costs $2. I gave you $4 so we can go to the mall and then get to practice later (we had some shopping to do at Fabricland)."

The questions continued and I laughed as Erik sat in complete discomfort.

I was late getting to the mall because the bus in Glenmore is not as reliable as our good ol' number 8. Erik was waiting for me at chapters practically beaming from ear to ear because he made it to the mall all on his own. What a big boy.

That Stupid Car

The past week and a half has been crazy. I'll dedicate a couple different posts to different events so this doesn't get too lengthy.

Thursday night Erik and I left for Stanwood. We were actually going to Sedro Wooley to stay at Erik's brothers house for the night. As usual, I fell asleep pretty much as soon as we crossed the bridge leaving Kelowna. My little nap was interrupted about an hour and a half later when Erik said, "Hey Ash, I think you'd better wake up."

Uh oh.

Car troubles. Typical. We can't seem to go anywhere without something happening to our car. I used to pray that our car wouldn't break down on road trips. I now pray that when our car does break down, it won't cost too much to fix it.

We were through merrit and now sat sitting on the road because our car overheated. A kind tow-truck driver pulled over and asked if we needed help. We did. He hooked us up and we were towed to hope for free (thank you BCAA). The truck driver turned out to be the previous mayor of Hope and he knew some people that we knew from CBC which at least gave us something to talk about on the long drive to Hope.

Here Erik is trying to figure out what is wrong.

In Hope, we refilled our anti-freeze and then continued on our way. Within five minutes we overheated again. Thus began the long drive to Surrey. We would drive for five minutes and then stop for 5-10 minutes so our car could cool down... All the way to Surrey.

Waiting for the car to cool down.

In Surrey, my parents lent us their car so we could make it to Sedro Wooley that night. They were going to bring our car home to be fixed.

Fast forward a week.

Erik and I were back in Surrey only to find that the mechanic didn't in fact fix our car. He replaced some tubing and thought he had fixed the problem when he hadn't. So we had to bring our car back and had a new radiator put in. AND we found out that there is over $2000 in parts that need to be replaced in the next little while. And that just covers the cost of the parts.

We bought our car for $2000 and have now put over $2500 into it in the past 10 months. I don't feel like "investing" any more into it. Needless to say, Erik and I are in the market for a new car.

Car Troubles

Our car wouldn't start last night. We had it towed to the dealership today (thank you BCAA). It's going to cost upwards of $1000 to fix.

Shit.

Notice of Vehicle Impound

Our car broke down on New Year's Eve as we were returning from Stanwood, Washington. To make a long story short, the alternator died we were going to buy the part and Erik's brother was going to install it. We used the cops phone to call Erik's brother to come rescue us. We left the car on the side of the road because the guys assured me that we had a couple days until it was towed. That was before it snowed. We went back the next evening to install the alternator and our car was not there. No one could have stolen it because there is no way you could have started the thing. We spent the next day calling around trying to find out car. Then, after being charged an astronomical fee, we pushed our car out of the impound and came back later that evening to install the alternator before coming home.

Today, I received in the mail a "Notice of Vehicle Impound" informing us that we have 120 hours from the time of impoundment to redeem our car or else it will be declared abandoned and sold at an auction to the highest bidder.

Our car was impounded on January 1, 2009 at 8:30am and we received the letter at roughly 6:30pm on January 7, 2009... that's about 152 hours after impoundment meaning our car would have been auctioned off yesterday.

Thanks for informing us.