THE LAKE GEORGE ODYSSEY
part two: Tuesday

We slept poorly and woke early. We got the kids out to camp and borrowed a car to drive out to the mechanic’s place. We told him who we were and what was up. He explained that he was booked until next Tuesday and he doesn’t deal with transmissions anyway. We asked him what we should do. He said the folks who worked on our transmission have to come and get it and supply us with a rental car. Unfortunately, it is racing season and he did not know if we would be able to rent a car at all. So we drove 20 miles to Ticonderoga, the nearest place with reliable cell phone service, and all the rental places we called up here require the car to be returned up here, which does us no good. Then we called the mechanic back home and told them what happened. They apologized up and down and said they’d arrange for a tow truck to drive up to Lake George from Long Island, with a loaner car on the back. We got a message that the truck was on its way and would be up at the mechanic’s sometime tonight. They’d drop off the loaner and bring the van back home and have it fixed by the beginning of next week. The amazing mechanic up here is so nice; he is not charging us any storage fees and has agreed to let the tow truck guy call him at home when he arrives this evening and he will go meet the truck at his shop to arrange the trade. He even offered us a ride into town with his wife if we needed it. This all, of course, took place over multiple hours, through multiple messages and return calls, which were made with Kat’s head leaning against a flagpole, in the blazing hot sun, in the only place on campus where Verizon cell phone service works.

If we’re lucky, we’ll wake up tomorrow, drive to the mechanic and pick up our shiny new rental car to use for the rest of the trip. And since things always go our way, I have full confidence.