We grabbed some breakfast in the hotel lobby and then called a cab to take us to the gas station. We got there after 8am, so I was surprised to see that the bay doors were still closed and the parking lot was still empty. I went inside to ask when the shop was going to open and the man working there said "Never." He told me that the shop closed over a year ago. Great. Luckily, he had a nearby shop that he recommended, and the path to get there went right through the same residential neighborhood we went through yesterday to get here.
I had gotten a little better at two-footed driving, so I made it to the other auto-repair shop with no problems. It was called Zaegler Auto Service and their parking lot was FULL of cars. I walked inside the office and there were about 15 service tickets all spread out on the counter. I panicked a bit when I saw that, and the lady at the front desk confirmed my fears that they were in fact really busy today, and had been all week. I asked her if she could get to the car today and she said she wasn't sure. But then the owner walked by and overheard our conversation and told us he could get it done today. Yay! She scrawled down a few things on a sheet of paper and took my phone number and that was it. Now I just had to wait.
We were surprised to find that the whole repair shop was full of cats. There were cats in every room of the front office area and even cats in the service bay. They were obviously all pets and someone was a serious cat-lover! The girls thought that it was pretty cool and they took advantage of the chance to cuddle with some of the kitties before we called a cab and headed back to the hotel.
I told the girl at the front counter what was going on when we got back, and I asked her if we could have a late checkout time so we could relax in the hotel room until the car was done. She said she could only give us until noon. Bummer. We went ahead and used the room as long as we could, coming out at 3 minutes til noon. Now we had no choice but to sit around in the lobby and wait. I knew this wouldn't last too long before we drove someone crazy, but we had nowhere else to go.
C and K went outside and within a few minutes they both had animals in their hands.
A tried to amuse herself on the hotel computer, but was having a hard time figuring out how to get to her favorite Minecraft server. After about 30 minutes, I knew we had to get out of there before the lady kicked us out. C and K had already loosed a lizard in the hotel lobby (luckily the front desk lady didn't notice), and then had torn the corner of the room apart trying to catch it. Yep, it was definitely time to go.
A had seen a commercial for Cici's pizza on TV shortly before we left our room and wanted to try it. It's a really long buffet of pizza, pasta, and salad, and is another restaurant that they advertise about back home, even though there isn't one anywhere near where we live. I don't even think there's one in California at all. The nearest Cici's to us right now was 2 miles away, and I thought it'd be a good way to burn off some energy and look around for more critters while we walked. And if you are thinking I was crazy for thinking it would be a good idea to walk 2 miles at 1pm in the heat of South Carolina... you'd be right. What in the world was I thinking?!?
We had to stop at a gas station to buy a drink about half way there, but somehow we eventually made it, although I'm sure it took us at least 1 1/2 hours to get there with all the stopping and resting we did. We did eventually make it there and we had our fill of the $5 pizza buffet, even though I was the only one who really tried the pizza flavors (the macaroni and cheese pizza was pretty good :)
We really didn't have anywhere else to go now, and I didn't think it was worth it to take a cab anywhere. Going back to the hotel wasn't a good idea, but going and sitting at the auto repair shop wasn't any better, so we just stayed at Cici's and sat and sat and sat. The kids were happy to veg-out in front of the TV after all that walking, while I sat and worried if the repair shop had maybe written down my phone number wrong and wondered if I should just call them instead. I decided I would call them if I hadn't heard from them by 4pm, just to be safe.
At about 3:30, I got a phone call. I was never so excited to hear my cell phone ring and see a phone number I didn't recognize! In his thick accent, the owner told me that my car was finished and what the total cost would be. Even though I would have paid whatever it took to get my car back up and running again, I did think about how different it was from the repair shops back home where you sign for an estimate and then they call and get verbal approval before any work is done. Even the paperwork I got looked like it was from yesteryear. I was very glad to be 'back in time' where you don't have to get approval for car work because the workers aren't trying to take advantage of you. They just fix your car fairly and honestly, and then you pay.
It turned out to be just a dirty throttle body - a nice, simple fix!
We called a cab to pick us up from Cici's. We had to call a different cab than the one we used earlier (he gave us his card and we had been calling the same driver) because we knew he was busy transporting schoolkids right now. He had told us that he was contracted with the schools to transport kids home from school. Kids who left abusive homes or whose families had become homeless were encouraged to finish out the semester at the same school they started to minimize distruption and to keep from upsetting them further. Because there was no public bus system and because the school buses didn't travel far enough to go to where their families were, the taxis would take them where they needed to go. I thought that was pretty cool. It still seems strange to me that a city of this size can function with virtually no bus services. The cab driver said that even those who do try to take the bus are inconvenienced by its convoluted and infrequent routes. What should be a 15-20 minute drive downtown can sometimes take up to 2 hours by city bus.
Our new cab driver came to get us and take us to the repair shop for the last time. I must have thanked them at least a dozen times, and I have never been so glad to sit down in my car and drive than I was today. Because we had left all of our stuff in the hotel meeting room when we walked to lunch, we had to go back to the hotel to pick it all up before we could get back on the road again. By the time we hit the freeway, it was a little after 4pm, and we had a 7-hour drive to Orlando. Mike's plane was landing at 6pm, so there was no way we'd make it there in time for that, but at least we'd be there tonight!
We drove straight through, stopping only for fuel and for a quick dinner at the very southern edge of Georgia (noticing that even the sunset is peach in Georgia ;) The whole time we were driving south in Florida, there was a thunderstorm in front of us. I absolutely love lightning and I'd been hoping we'd see some on this trip, so I was so excited to finally be able to enjoy some. We had seen a little bit in Virginia, but this was the real deal! Some of the flashes were even red and orange, which was really cool to see.
We finally made it to the hotel around 11:30pm and then unloaded pretty much the entire car into the hotel room. We were all pretty tired (in fact, C and K had fallen asleep before we reached the hotel), so we just relaxed for a few minutes and then went to sleep.
Miles Driven: about 460 (yay!)
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