The Camry Hits The Road?!

Well. What a past couple of days we've had!!! I think there's nothing original on the Colonel any more. We've replaced just about every bit and piece of that thing and still, he's a PIA!!! We ended up replacing all the brakes (of course! Safety first!), all the fluids, cleaned out the carborator, fixed the timing, blah blah blah blah blah. Sunday we had the left rear axle seize up so Dan fixed that. We worked hard until some pretty late hours last night putting in all our cushions, curtains, food, etc, and woke up this morning to finish up and hit the road. We did some running around all morning and it was running perfectly! So, off we went! Or so we thought...


(Some of the new upholstery, oooohhhh!)

(I'm so happy to be leaving! Silly me!)

(Dan getting settled in for a long drive. Hm.)

We broke down in Etobicoke, right near our old condo. We stayed there for a bit, the engine cooled off and took a break, and we drove back to our mechanic. He gave it a peek and a tweak, pronounced us good to go, and we took a few spins around the block, no problem. He suggested we might have an electrical short in some piece I'm going to call the flux capacitor because it's late and I have NO idea what it's actually called.



(This is our mechanic Rob who's happy we're getting out of his hair. Little did he know...)

So we drove up to Canadian Tire, grabbed the part just in case, and hit the road YET again. Things were going swimmingly! We popped up the 427, got onto the 401, and just as Dan was getting the hang of it all, we stalled. Brilliant. So now we're sitting on the shoulder of the 401 trying to figure out what to do! Dan worked very hard and changed the flux capacitor (thank goodness we have access to the engine from inside the RV!!!), but to no avail, she would not go. We ended up calling CAA and got a tow back to the mechanic's with our tail(pipe) between our legs.

It's a sad day for the Colonel. So tomorrow goes like this: We're going to talk to the mechanic again in the morning, after he curses us for bringing the Colonel back of course, and if the problem seems to be more complex than we previously imagined, we'll pack up the good old Camry and hit the road. The money we'll save on gas we can splurge on the odd hotel ;) I've told Dan I'm fine to camp for a couple days at a time but if he thinks I'm going to live for 2 weeks in a tent he's got the wrong girl! LOL! If the Colonel can be saved, I mean REALLY saved, then I suppose at this point, what's another day?! It's disappointing, but we've got a plan B at least, and at the end of the day, we're on vacation and spending time together. Dan says he wants to do something he's never done before, and I pointed out I had never been broken down in an RV on the side of the 401 before. I'm helpful like that. So no matter what in the world we end up doing, we'll still have fun, and who knows, it could turn out far better than our original plan!

I'll keep you updated! Send happy thoughts to the Colonel!