Friday, 27 November 2015
Ashland, Oregon
Early to rise, Sir Thomas Leaf crawled out of bed and caught up on some writing while Lady Etain and Prince Cian lay asleep. Last day at the Cedarwood Inn, they would head off to see if the DMV was open (as Sir Thomas lost his driver’s license), do laundry, hit storage and finish packing up the merchant wagon for winter, check with his boss to see if there are any projects upcoming, get new tires, and then head off to Brookings to stay the night on the coast. Busy day with no time to lose. He went and got his free breakfast grub continental style, and after breakfast the other adventurers began to awake. After breakfast he swore that the little Prince would be anxious to go swimming in the pool – but he said “No” and showed signs of disinterest. They took a shower and began packing up the Explorer. They proceeded down Ashland street and swung around to the DMV to see if it was open … alas, no go, it was closed for Thanksgiving weekend – not until Monday. Then they turned down the street to see if Goodwill had some diapers. Alas, no. As Sir Thomas signaled to pull out of his parallel parking spot along the road he checked the mirrors and all clear – or so the delusion went. In the blind spot came a little car and he pulled right into the backseat passenger door … crunch, squeal, scrape. He hopped out to make sure the woman was ok, and luckily the adventurers were ok. He apologized and exchanged details. She thanked him for being polite, honest, and caring. After she left he began again to pull out and around, and lo’ behold a wobble was his reply to his action indeed. He carefully tried to do a u-turn and the truck was no cooperating. The only damage he could see on his car were scuff marks on the bumper. Luckily Les Schwab was on the corner, so he pulled in to get it checked out. The first guy checked the balance and rocked the car, looking around and said everything seemed fine. He took a second look underneath with Sir Thomas and they were greeted with a snapped tie rod. This car was going nowhere. They called around and the soonest they could get the part was noon the next day. So they unhooked the trailer, grabbed gear out of the car, and headed to a hotel down the road. They had to wait until rooms were ready, and were welcomed into a warm room. Sir Thomas headed down to the grocery store around the corner to get the weary travelers a bite to eat for lunch. After lunch they coordinated with Lady Phaedra for a lift to go get their other car sitting in a Medford RV storage lot. They had a great conversation about car-breakdown history and long trips. Luckily the van started up with no problem. After farewells, Sir Thomas went to Costco to check on tire prices and to get diapers / baby wipes and other sundries needed for their adventures. He swung by the car and trailer to grab the car seat, inventory, laundry, and gear to unload into the room. Lady Etain then ventured out to do laundry while Sir Thomas kid-sat. An hour later, the young Prince threw a fit for mamma so they walked down to the laundry to visit Mom, and grabbed dinner at Subway. A pit stop at the Albertsons made it apparent the young Prince has developed a new problem, every time he walks into a store he expects to find toy cars and Daddy buying him one. It was tough to break his heart that this would not continue, Mom and Dad stood strong not to buy him one so he wouldn’t continue developing this expectation, and of course it was responded to with a break-down fit of crying lasting through laundry retrieval and most of dinner. The Prince of Endurance finally calmed down, had dinner, and joined reality. Back to the hotel, the adventurers were exhausted, settling in to movies and a new Amazon studios series called “The Man in the High Castle” about the what-if scenario if America didn’t win World War II, depicting the west coast occupied by Japan and the East coast by Nazi Germany. Several episodes in, the series is now one of the adventurers series they will be looking forward to.