Old Faithful, with over 200k miles, hauled hay with me a couple weeks ago. Out of the blue, on my way to Columbus for another MRI, something in the fuel system went bonkers.
Decisions, decisions. Spend a fortune having this big mama towed 40 miles to my mechanic's house, or try to limp there myself.
We limped on what my guess is a failing fuel sending unit. You see a lot of the countryside when you drive 15 mph. Two miles from destination, she stalled on a hill... a bad one with a blind curve... we were a sitting duck waiting for a Mack truck to come around the corner. No shoulder to speak of, unless you call a ravine a safe place to pull over. No choice but to unlock the wheel and coast in neutral all the way back down the hill in reverse.
I sat for a few minutes, at the base of the hill, and had a heart to heart with my baby girl; she has a lot of hard work miles under her belt, maybe this is a sign that she's come to the end. I know how she feels, in the past three months, I've spent almost every one of my days off in doctor's offices. The more they poke and prod, the more problems they find unrelated to what we were investigating in the first place. The veins in both my arms are blown from too many sticks and IVs. Sometimes I want to quit, but I don't know. So, I gave Boss a good pep talk, she fired up and we tiptoed up the hill at 2 mph, she rallied up to 10 mph when we turned down the road to the mechanic's house. Never give up, that's my girl!
The old green farm truck is also a beast, she looks like she's been beaten with a 2x4, but still she plugs along with over 300k miles.
She and I put in a lot of late nights around the farm.
The day after the F350 died, I took the F250 to an ultrasound appointment in Auburn, the day before Thanksgiving. Upon trying to leave the clinic, she wouldn't start. It sounded like the plunger in the starter wasn't engaging. This is how I ruin all my good city clothes: I crawled under her, beat on the starter to dislodge the plunger and finally got her going again. Do I drive straight to the mechanic's house and then not have a vehicle for a week? The mechanic checked on parts while I idled around in Auburn, neither one of my trucks could be ready before Wednesday. Because of the Thanksgiving week, staff was off on holidays, friends were off with family, I needed to figure this out on my own. I called every car rental place in a 50 mile radius, all cars rented out. Discouraged, I opted to drive to the mechanic's house and hope I didn't need to go anywhere for a week. Then I passed a Uhaul dealership...
With much finesse, I managed to convince them to let me leave my F250 and rent a van.
