#507 Tired. $400 Worth.

At noon today I headed out in search of new tires. By 4 pm I was tired, tired, and $400 poorer. The new tires are "rated" for 70,000 miles. I'll be happy if they last 50k.

When I asked if I could get 4 new tires and an alignment "right now", the dealer said yeah, no problem.

Problem.

They couldn't get the van onto the "alignment machine", whatever that is, because there was some kind of something or other that caught on the dropped floor of the van (the notorious mere 4 inches of clearance - I have the same problem with automatic carwashes). So he called their store in Kingston, and they didn't think they could do it either. I called around myself. A garage in Red Hook that is familiar with the van from other visits thought maybe they could, with some kind of ramp arrangement, so I've got an appointment for the 13th. As in Friday the 13th. A week and a half away.

So I told them to go ahead and put the new tires on, and I'll figure out the alignment later. The folks I ordered the van through will probably know where I can get it done for sure, they handle a lot of Braun conversions, but they're still on vacation.

Problem.

They couldn't get the van on a lift. They had to jack it up and do each side individually.

But I guess I wasn't the worst problem they had today. While I was waiting, a truck pulled in with the biggest travel trailer I've ever seen, one of those gazillion-wheeled jobbies. They had a flat tire on the trailer. I bet that was fun. I'll bet it wouldn't go on a lift, either.

Then I stopped at the post office and picked up a gift that had been waiting for me since last week. One of Jay's sisters has sent me the most gorgeous velour robe, royal purple (that seems to be my new color - everything's coming up purple), and it is exquisitely soft. I've never felt a robe so light and soft. I've never even felt a sweater so soft, not even silk or cashmere.

I got home at 4:30 and started clearing the remainder of the driveway. The snow was that solid packed stuff that makes nice igloo blocks, about 10 inches of it. I was so happy that the extension cord reached from the garage to the edge of the plowed section. There was no way I could have gotten the snowthrower over the plow piles to get it any closer.

It normally takes me 1 to 1.5 hours to clear the entire driveway. All I had to do this evening was half the flat part at the top, and it took me over an hour. The snow was so dense, I had to keep stopping to allow the auger to chew its way through. And this is a BIG machine.

(Something very strange - I just did a spellcheck, and although it highlighted several words, I opted to change nothing. Then, when I got out of spellcheck and read the entry again, I found that "snowthrower", in the second paragraph up from here, had been changed to "contrariety". Huh? It may be an accurate synonym, but how did spellchecker know that? (And how the heck did it get "contrariety" from "snowthrower", anyway?)) I don't understand....

Later update - the 10 inches of snow was an estimate. I just measured. It was 13 inches. For some reason, our street gets more snow than just below the hill on the highway. We are high, but not that high, so I don't know why. And before anyone yells at me, yes, I have had alignments before - at least two, possibly three on this van, I just don't remember where.