So how's your Spring Break going?

It's been one of those weeks. I have thoughts, but they're not particularly coherent. It doesn't help that the Mud Season has arrived in all its glory. Our driveway is that interesting U.P. spring mix of mud and slush. Yesterday temps got up into the 40s, the sun was shining, and life seemed reasonably good. Today it's not as warm, it's gray outside, and there's a dusting of new snow. I was going to wander up to the Woman Cave to do some sewing, but am having a hard time working up the ambition to put on boots. 

My mood is not improved by the knowledge that the Original Plan for today was to pack. We were supposed to be heading south tomorrow, going down to Arkansas to visit the Younger Daughter and to scope out RV parks in the Hot Springs area just in case we decide we'd like to winter down there, but Life Interfered. Before we left we were going to gift our currently car-less Older Daughter with our old F150, which we refer to as Silver. The vehicle spent the winter buried in snow but started with no issues last week. It did take some shovel work and a tow with our plow truck to drag Silver out of the snowbank but we weren't worried about any mechanical issues. After all, it ran when we parked it. 

Famous last words. I got tasked with steering while the S.O. towed. I noticed the brake pedal felt soft. You know, soft as when I stepped on it the pedal sank gracefully and swiftly to the floorboards with zero resistance. "Sort of like stepping on a plum." This was not good. The S.O. did some checking. Turned out one of the ancient brakelines had rusted through. Why is a mystery -- the truck is barely 22 years old. Why would anything on it be rusted? Okay, slight delay in truck delivery. Had to make a run to the parts store for a new line and fittings, but it's mechanically a simple fix. The work gets done, everything seems good, the S.O. takes the truck for a test drive. 

He figures that's when he blew out an other brake line, the flexible rubber one. It's not as common a part as the metal brake lines. We checked online to see if Auto Zone had the line in stock at the closest store. Nope. We would have had to drive to Rhinelander, Wisconsin. This morning he called the local parts store in Baraga. They claim they'll have it by this afternoon. I'm not holding my breath. Once he gets the part, then he gets to do the installation . . . and we get to wait a bit to find out what will go wrong after that. 

I shouldn't complain. I'm not the one who gets to crawl under a truck that's parked outdoors on melting snow and try to loosen and tighten fittings in just barely above freezing temperatures.   

 

 

Rest in peace, C. W. McCall. Ever since hearing the song I've wanted to go over Wolf Creek Pass.