Escape from FAR Manor! 2011.1

Vacation has begun, says I, typing this in a hotel room somewhere in Indiana. (Jim, Andi, sorry I didn't arrange to meet, but it's for the best, as you'll soon see.)

Mrs. Fetched has been “griping” for some time about how we need (i.e. she wants) a minivan. I won’t argue that it would be a big help, what with two toddlers (Mason and Skylar) in the manor — you can stick two car seats in the middle buckets and have room for two more in the back — but like the Good Book says, “all things work together for Mrs. Fetched’s conveniece… or they’d better.” I think it’s in the Book of Hezekiah.

Now Mrs. Fetched is a tenured faculty member of the school of DO SOMETHING NOW (whether it actually solves the problem), and I soon saw the old pattern. I made a couple attempts to slip a little reality past her armor, but soon gave up and said que sera, sera. So her mom got in on that act, and in a mad rush bought a 1998 Grand Caravan on Thursday. Just in time to take it to Michigan! It had a cracked windshield, but the dealer said they’d send someone out to replace it by Friday afternoon.

So I got home from work on Friday, to find the windshield wasn’t replaced. I’m shocked, SHOCKED!!! not Since it’s on the passenger side, we all figured it wouldn’t be an issue. (Besides, the less Mrs. Fetched sees while I’m driving, the happier we all are.) So we spent much of Friday night packing. Saturday morning was chicken house duty for the girlies, while I watched Mason and took care of a couple agenda items (like printing out the new insurance card and loading luggage). I have to admit, you can stick a LOT more in a van than even a four-door Civic. We could have taken a bunch more if we’d removed the back seat, but we brought all we wanted. With the A/C more than overcoming the 95°F day outside, we got on our way around 3pm.

We soon ran into rain, and the first glitch with the van: the intermittent wipers “crash.” That is, they’ll work fine for a while, then twitch and stop. Flicking to off or always-on cleared the problem, so I lived with it. Then, around the time we crossed into Kentucky, the A/C stopped working. Mrs. Fetched, who had done pretty well up to now, suddenly got grouchy. Fortunately, it was getting dark and cooling off a little, and Daughter Dearest said the A/C in back still worked. Maybe it’s another crash issue.

As night dragged on, Mrs. Fetched’s questions about where we would stop for the night got ever more pointed. Why she didn’t just shut up and sleep is beyond me, but she mentioned a Comfort Inn and I agreed to stop there. Then when I went past an exit, she went “What do you think you’re doing?” in that tone of voice that makes me happy neither of us go around armed.

“Going to the Comfort Inn like you said.”

“I don’t care that it’s a Comfort Inn!” Well, that’s Mrs. Fetched: the Princess of Precision.

We ended up at a Best Western across the street, because I couldn’t get anyone at the Comfort Inn. Looks like the hotels are pretty well packed for a race in Indy today (which I didn’t know about or I might have stayed in Louisville).

It’s always fun to take a new used vehicle on a 2000-mile shakedown cruise…