Travelogue

Boat makes it to Jimmy'sWe hit the road early – not much else to do in an Econo Lodge in Breezewood, PA, and started the 6-hour drive to my brother’s house in New Albany, Ohio. He had arranged a place for us to park our 45-feet of stress just across from his house in an area where they were constructing new homes.

Things were going along pretty smoothly until about ½ hour away from Jimmy’s, when we began hearing a rattling sound coming from the boat trailer. Herb stopped and saw that the crack on the fender had extended to the point where he was concerned it would fall off. We tried calling a couple of boat trailer places to see if they had a replacement fender, but no luck. Instead we stopped at a Home Depot and Herb bought some clamps to keep it in place.

After leaving Home Depot, we began hearing a new sound - scraping noise coming from the driver side front tire, which seemed to correspond with the rotation of the wheel.

Herb said he felt like he was playing Whack-a-Mole, and the moles were winning.

Rusty loose dust shield - Problem solvedHe had no idea what the new problem was, nor how long it would take to repair, so we told my brother we might be moving in for awhile.

As with our day at the Jersey shore, we decided to just enjoy the evening with my brother and his family, and not worry about the problem until the morning – it seemed like we were doing a lot of that lately.

Bright and early the next morning, Herb took the tire off the Suburban and saw that a piece of the very rusty, disc brake dust shield had broken off and was rattling around causing the noise. Since the broken off piece wasn’t essential to the braking system, Herb just removed it. When I saw how rusty things looked behind the wheel, I seriously questioned our wisdom in driving this thing across the country. However, at this point, there wasn’t much of a choice.

Since we were able to whack our second mole relatively quickly, we had the rest of the day to enjoy. My brother brought us to the lovely Inniswood Botanical Garden and Nature Preserve in nearby Westerville, Ohio, where we spent a few peaceful hours strolling through the woodlands and various gardens.

Charlie in actionBefore leaving the next morning we accompanied Jim on his morning constitutional with Charlie. Walking Charlie was quite a unique experience. He was so interested in sniffing everything along the way that he actually walked sideways, sort of like a crab, while my brother dragged him along. I had never seen anything like it. He also liked to mark his turf frequently with a little poop - I think there were about 3 of these "markings" on this walk alone. When we asked Jim if Charlie had been trained at all, he said “No, that would take away his personality.” Ok good. At least he hadn’t been ripped off by a dog trainer.

Time to hit the road. I am always sad leaving my brother's house. He and his wife are such great hosts that a visit with them is always a treat. The good food and laughter definitely lifted our spirits.

Description

I70 to my brother Jimmy's house in New Albany, Ohio