Eventful Weekend
A little over a week ago, a long-time, good family friend was killed. The funeral was held last Friday in a small town about an hour away from Lynchburg, VA. Becky and I left at 5:15am on Friday and made the trip there along with my parents and one of my sisters. Becky and I were in our car, and the rest were in Mom & Dad’s.
Shortly after we left, we began to hear a noise at the right front wheel. It was all too familiar. Another wheel bearing was failing. In hindsight, I should have turned around and headed back home, but we already had a few hours invested in the trip by the time it became obvious there was a real problem. So we finished the trip to Virginia so we could attend the funeral and visit with the family.
Once we arrived, we still had some time before we needed to be at the funeral home, so I began to make some calls. I couldn’t find a garage that could get me in that day, and I was having trouble locating a new bearing for them to install in the first place.
Once at the funeral home, one of the family members said he should be able to help me out. He knew guys that worked at parts stores and had connections with garages. The only bad news was that nothing could be done on Friday. His mother graciously allowed Becky and I to stay at her house overnight until I could get to Lynchburg to have everything taken care of.
He connected me with his good friend at Auto Zone who got me the part at a great price. When I went to pick it up, he made several phone calls to garages he knew and trusted. He succeeded in getting me into a garage that could do the repair right away, which allowed Becky and I to make it home at around 8pm on Saturday.
So after two full days and one night, about 15 hours on the road and one car repair, we were home and resting peacefully. We were happy to be able to go to Virginia and attend the funeral and support the family, but I’m not sure there has been another time we were so happy to be home!
