Stupid Car

Hello

Thanks for the comments everyone. Rest assured that I have not forgotten about this blog thing, but rather that I have not left the confines of Mom's homecooked meals and the otherwise free room and board yet, so have little to write about.

The reason resides in a lesson on underbody washes for your car. I recommend that you get an underbody wash whenever you can, as it will prevent two-week delays in your cross-country trip plans. See, a few Fridays ago some a--hole pulled out in front of me I was traveling at 55mph (the legal speed limit, Uncle Geoff :) ) here in Rosemount. I only had a 100 feet or so to brake, and during that time my front left suspension buckled, leaving me with a badly misaligned suspension and a driving wheel that drove straight only when cocked 25 degrees off center.

At the time I thought I had just messed up the suspension in my furious trail of burnt rubber, but the family mechanic (Murgic's) later told me that the front left suspension-frame-interface-thing had in fact broken. In retrospect I am probably fortunate it held together at all and I didn't end up ass over teakettle in the ditch-but I prefer to not dwell on that and credit Saturn with building a Damn Fine Car. Anyways, long story short I am getting a new front left suspension-frame-interface-thing installed by Mr. Murgic which will make the car safe to drive again.

Silver lining of course is that I am happy it decided to fail here in Rosemount and not at the top of some mountain pass out in Montana. But still, that guy who pulled out in front of me was a real A--hole. What does this have to do with underbody washes? Well, Mr. Murgic told me in his off-the-cuff manner that underbody washes would have helped remove much of the salt and muck build up that probably contributed to the rusting of the front left-suspension-frame-interface-thing that failed. So, spend the few extra dollars at the carwash, folks.

I am hopeful that all will be well with my car early next week, at which point I will be leaving for the trip posthaste. One nice item that arrived while I'm still home is my diploma, modeled nicely with my Penn State cap and the Franket:


My thesis copies are still being held by the Penn State Copy Central people, who were supposed to mail the copies weeks ago. Well, at least it's online.

A bit of a preview of my first few days:
Day 1-3:
New Ulm Brewing Company, New Ulm MN www.newulm.com
SPAM Museum!, Austin MN www.spam.com
Pipestone National Monument, Pipestone MN http://www.nps.gov/pipe
Wind Cave National Park SD, www.nps.gov/wica
Jewel Care National Park SD, www.nps.gov/jeca
Wall Drug, Wall, SD www.walldrug.com
Mt Rushmore SD, www.nps.gov/moru (ok, so I said I wouldn't go here earlier, but meh)
Crazy Horse monument SD, www.crazyhorsememorial.org
The Corn Palace, Mitchell SD www.cornpalace.com
Deadwood, SD. www.deadwoood.org

I am not sure when or in what exact order I'll visit these locations, and the list is not complete, but it is a good starting point. I am not sure how long it will take to see these sites either, so I plan to evaluate my timing and such once I have a better understanding of this trip.

Well, that's all for now. Hopefully my next post will be from some Starbucks near Sioux Falls SD where I plan to spend my first night camping. I leave you with two pictures of the snapping turtle I spotted in the parents' backyard a few days ago. Weighed around 30 lbs, I'd think.