Day Five - we're gonna laugh about this some day

One day, in a few years, we're going to laugh about day four. But not yet. It started out okay. We filled the tank and started on our way east through Nebaska. 8 miles later, we heard a thunk and then, a mile  later the truck began to shake like an unbalanced washer on the spin cycle. Then, it gave a giant shudder and simply stopped...in the eastbound lane of Interstate 80. Semis whizzed by us ...we got the truck to the side of the road and just sat there.  I found a towing company in the town we'd stayed in, but the phone number went to a place in Lincoln - about 120 miles away. The woman an who answered was nice - she found 2 places in Kearney, which was 30. miles away. We gave them a call, and he came out in about 45 minutes.

We were towed to a Chevy dealer, who estimated (after an hour or so, they were busy) that it would take about $5000 to fix it, and who knows how long. Well, that pickup is 11 years old, with 90000 miles on it - blue book is about $7000, so we're not going to spend $5k on it....we found a 2011 GMC with 43000 miles, in great shape, so we bought it. After a whole day spent in this endeavor, we got to a hotel at 4:30. Ridiculous  stuff followed....

When you buy a vehicle, they give you paper tags you put into your window until you have the plates. When you buy a vehicle out of state, they return your old license plates to you, and as soon as you receive the title (takes about 20 days) you put your old plates on the new truck....the paper tags are good for 30 days only. (That number is an important part of this story...) because we do not routinely carry the title to the car with us, we have to have it sent to us........our title is in our safe deposit box. No one but one of us can get in that box. We cannot give someone the power of attorney to get into the box, either. Yes, that's the rub. We are 1500 miles away from home, with no plans to go back for well over that 30 days. After many conversations with the bank, we figured it out (kinda). We filed a "Lost Title Application" , got it notarized and sent it to Olympia. They will send us the title, and we can then send it to Nebraska.  THEN they can send us the title to this truck and we can put the plates on. All this has to happen within the next 30 days, with holidays in the middle. Yeah, I dont think that's gonna happen, either.

Okay, after figuring this all out, we decided to go to dinner. So, we go downstairs, climb in the new-to-us truck, turn the key, and nothing. We walk the 4 blocks to the dealers (did I mention how cold it is here?) and the sales manager gives us a look and says what are you guys doing here??? We tell him the sad story and in minutes he's back with a key to a loaner for the evening and a charger. So he brings the truck back, they keep it in the shop for the night. All this means that we have to empty the truck of all the suitcases, boxes, etc that we just loaded INTO the truck.

This morning, after sleeping in, since we figure the truck won't be ready early, we get to the dealer.....service guy comes out, tells us the charging system is fine, after being on a charger the battery is fine ....it had sat too long on the lot without being driven, apparently. So, we load up the truck again with all the stuff and finally get to leave Kearney at 9:30  - in a much larger, roomier truck. On our way to Iowa.