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We'll start at this time of night with: Excellent, Good, Fair, Average, Poor, Miserable, DRBO. Select from the above.

Overall rating of the week: Excellent. But not without its moments ;-)

Go back a week.. I have a major percentage of our group camping stuff stored here, and I have a hitch on my Subaru to tow the trailer to haul the stuff. With that in mind, back up to the period we will call 'before last week'. If you remember back when Anoreth was talking about buying a Subaru I and several others mentioned the head gasket issue, and I mentioned that I was driving mine without a thermostat to keep it from overheating because my head gaskets were shot... Well, I had a Bambi choose to commit suicide by Subaru and run out from the side of the road and by positioning its self square center in my path, said Subaru provided the bambi with the culmination of its desire. And left a piece of its grille impaled in bambi's abdomen..

So, now I have a Subaru with shot head gaskets and an ugly smunched-in snout... I checked around for prices to do a head gasket fix on it and here in NY state, got some horrendous estimates that closely approached KBB price of the vehicle. Took a trip to Jersey and inquired of someone in that state as to a good person to talk to about it, got a recommendation, and went there for an estimate. Ball-park from him was on the order of a $G less than similar establishments in NY State (which made the difference in deciding to fix or just run it until it died w/o fixing it..) Was told the process would take three or four days. Next contacted my friendly neighborhood body shop for an estimate on the body work to un-smunch the front, and said that I was going to wait to do the body work until after head gasket job and my week at the Festival (reasoning that I could drive it ugly, but I didn't want to chance towing a trailer on a 500 mile round trip with a blown gasket) so I would get the insurance company involved after head gasket and after return from Creation. (Needed to get insurance dude involved so he could write his own estimate that will always be way less than the body shop says because they enjoy arguing with body shop persons in effort to save Insurance company $$$)

At least that was the plan. So I dropped the car off at the repair shop on the 17th of June (remember, was told 3-4 days for the job..) which would have gotten the vehicle finished Wed or Thur the 19th or 20th which would leave plenty of room to load/pack the trailer and be off on the projected day (Tue, Jun. 25) and shortly received a phone call from the shop saying 'problem - bambi smunched front in too much and they can't get a ratchet into the ares in front of engine to take the timing belt off, so they would need to remove the radiator and a/c condenser to allow them some wiggle room, and he was afraid removing those items, since they were bent by bambi, would get damaged during the removal process and not be usable after.

SO.. now I had to get the insurance dweeb to the repair shop to look at the car and give his estimate. Problem is that it then took until Wed late am for the insurance co.'s trained monkey to get to the shop and look the car over. Which left things a little tight but do-able as far as getting the car back in time to pull the trailer.

By Mon (Jun. 24) I was getting anxious so I stopped by the shop and was told that they just got the heads back from the head shop, they had all the parts, and would start putting it back together later that day. Car 'should' be done tomorrow ( Tuesday) which would still be ok because I've more often than not had a late departure and that would just result in me sleeping in the car when I arrived (after dark) at the campgrounds.

Then.. I got a phone call Tuesday that they had been given the wrong head gaskets by Subaru and thus car would not be done that day. OUCH..

Fortunately, plan B was already in implementation. Friend and fellow camp person who lived down on the Jersey shore was waiting to hear from me if my car was ready before he himself pulled out. His vehicle also had a hitch on it so if necessary he could make the long two hour detour to my spot in NY and take the trailer (and myself) to the middle of nowhere in PA state. As the time marched on and I hadn't heard from the shop, he decided to hear up my way because he would rather be close to me and get told his services weren't needed than to be half way to nowhere in PA and get a call that I needed to be rescued. Thus, the phone call that the car wouldn't be finished came about 20 minutes before he pulled in my drive.

So, we loaded the trailer and left for Creation from here.. Maybe coincidence that things worked out that way, but... coincidence is what we call it when God does stuff and chooses to remain anonymous.. ;-)

More later.