Murphy.

I picked up Melanie, my 5 day travelling companion at the St. John’s airport on Sunday July 2nd at about 1:30. We took a brief  tour in the Enterprise of downtown St. John’s, parked and had a great late lunch at the the Fifth Ticket restaurant. We were headed for Bellevue Beach when something went horribly wrong and lots of coolant steam poured out of the heater vents and hood. That’s pic #1. We were towed to a garage only 5 minutes away, closed of course on a holiday weekend. (CAA came to the rescue, I sgned up two days before leaving Coe Hill, likely saved me bucket loads on the tow!) Undeterred, Mel and I hung out in the garage parking lot eating food from a gas station and drinking lots of wine…. from Sunday evening until Tuesday morning! If you’re going to break down, I recommend an RV, it’s still fun! The overflow jug was broken, pic #2, and we needed a new fan belt, I epoxyed the jug and on went a new belt, away we went at about 1:00 pm. 10 kilometres up the highway it happened again, towed back to the garage by their own truck, the heater core blown. Likely the cause of the first smoke show. Pic #3, getting used to this highway, I Photoshopped out the rain…..kidding. While sitting in the garage parking lot under repair, the air pump pulley seizes and burns a different belt off, smoke show #3. We bypassed the heater core, don’t need one of those in summer right? You do in Newfoundland, 7 degrees overnight, damp and a high of 11 during the day, cold breeze blowing through the front of the van like an open window, Mel has a comforter on her legs, I have a fleece wraped around and we were both cold. Don’t need an air pump apparently so off we went finally, for good, at maybe 5:00 on Tuesday afternoon. When I find that Murphy person…….