Cars-Who Needs Them!

My deep desire to be able to bike everywhere we need to go was brought to the forefront this week. After having the van professionally detailed to prep it for e-bay pictures and selling, Stephen & the kids head out to the zoo in the Saturn to meet up with Matt Holmes & family. Stephen calls about 10 minutes later saying the car was dead, and he thinks the alternator went out on it! My first reaction is-what the *!@# is an alternator and how much is this going to cost??!! So after learning how to replace the alternator, removing the alternator, 3 trips to O'reilly's, 1 incorrect alternator installed, 1 correct alternator installed, 1 serpentine belt replaced, lots of oily clothes to wash, and 1 hurt hand from screwing too hard (hee hee) & sheering a bolt-- I KNOW WHAT AN ALTERNATOR IS!! To top it all off, we drive (Saturn & van, because the van is OFF LIMITS for the kids and dogs) out to McKinney Falls State Park to play and take pictures of the van. When we are ready to leave, the car doesn't start. It doesn't even pretend to want to start. So, we think the battery is dead. Much to my chagrin, we all (2 adults, 2 kids, 2 dogs-mud and all!) piled into the nice, clean, expensively detailed van. We go to the closest auto parts store, and the lady precedes to tell us that our battery is fully charged-uh oh! So, back out to the park, and by now we are all STARVING. When we put the battery back in the car and try to start it-----IT RUNS!! We are so thankful and so tired that we celebrate with a $12 dinner at Taquerias Arandas. AAAhhhh!

I'll close the story with pictures from our 3rd hail storm this year.

All the white stuff is hail!