I woke up this morning to the phone ringing. Dominica actually beat me to the phone. It was Danielle calling to get some car info. Their 1996 Buick Regal GS that they have been driving – they just bought it to get them through the month – completely died this weekend after returning home from our house several days ago. First the transmission started to go and then the breaks ended up failing altogether. It made for quite the adventure.
So yesterday Art and Danielle went and returned the car to the dealer and went to Enterprise Rent-A-Car and got a Mazda 6. They have rented a Mazda 6 before when they drove to Florida a few years ago but this is a new style and is apparently less comfortable. They need a car for the next month so they have to do something. The rental is like $1,500 every two weeks which is a pretty tough monthly car payment to make (you can buy a bit of a car for $3,000 that only has to last a month!)
The Ralstons have to drive to Florida tonight, down to the Miami area. A really serious hike indeed. So instead of renting the car for the next few weeks or a month they are driving down to our place on the way to Florida and picking up the Mazda Protege5 and using it instead which will save a fortune. They were originally going to leave for Florida pretty late today so they are now leaving as early as they can, which is still pretty late, to drive down to our place.
I spent the day working as usual. Pretty busy as always. The last few months have been really busy and there just is not any chance for me to relax.
This evening, Dominica and I decided that we needed a break and coffee and since it was so hot today, ninety-two degrees, we decided that iced coffee and ice cream would work for us. We drove out to Mohegan Lake and went on a search for the Cold Stone Creamery there.
We never ended up finding the Cold Stone Creamery and finally reached them by phone just minutes after they had closed to discover that they were actually located inside of the movie theatre so there was no way that we were ever going to find them on our own. What an obtuse location.
Instead we went to the combo Dunkin Donuts / Baskin Robbins in Mohegan Lake and got ice cream cones and gigantic iced coffees. Big coffee so that we can stay up late.
I worked until a little after one in the morning when Art, Danielle and Michael arrived after having driven for several hours from Mt. Morris. Our house is not exactly on the way towards Florida. In fact it is almost completely not on the way to Florida. It takes five and a half hours to get to our house and it only shaves about half an hour off of the trip to Florida. So not completely out of the way but just about.
We visited for maybe forty-five minutes and then we transferred all of the stuff from the Mazda 6 to the PR5. Then Art and I drove down to Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Mohegan Lake and dropped off the 6 and the keys. We filled up the car, checked the tires and got back to the house pretty quickly.
They were back on the road at approximately three or three thirty. Their plan is to drive on as far as they can before being too tired to continue. Their hope is to possibly reach Georgia before stopping. What a long drive. I am so glad that I am not doing that drive.
I worked for another half an hour to an hour after they left getting all of my late night work wrapped up. Then it was off to bed.