Clutch This...

It's been a busy and short week for me...we're heading up north again tomorrow so I wanted to ensure I got in one last blog before we left (or maybe two!).

This past weekend was supposed to be a restful and relaxing one at the cottage - pick up a few things we need for this weekend, have a visit with my parents and grandparents, watch some baseball, play some bocce and just take it all in. Well, we did all of the things above but also had a quite eventful and entertaining Friday night.

Our cottage is about 3 hours from Toronto and 1.5 hours from Waterloo (where both of my parents and grandparents live). A we were just on the outskirts of Waterloo heading toward Wallenstein; aka "Horse and buggy country" the clutch on Calvin died. Dave was pretty impressed that it had lasted us 136K as they usually go earlier than that. Well, needless to say we were stranded on the shoulder as horses passed by waiting for the tow truck to take us back to Waterloo. It would have been easy if any of my family weren't already at the cottage or if I had keys to one of their places but I didn't bring them with me... After an hour the car was towed to my old mechanic, my parents drove back the 1.5 hours to pick us up and we left our keys in the mail slot saying we would pick up the car Sunday night. Saturday afternoon rolls around without a call, so we call the mechanic and he says "on any given day, especially with this type of car I could find a clutch but nowhere in KW has one right now..." So needless to say we needed to get back to Toronto for Monday, neither of us could take the day off and stick around.

Calvin wasn't ready until Tuesday afternoon so my parents drove him back home and picked up their own. Okay, so this isn't such an exciting story but there were a few highlights:

1) Two young guys stopped by at different times to see if we were okay. The second came right up to the car and talked to us for several minutes...a very awkward conversation...hmm, maybe decent for my Friday funny.
2) Why would it take so long to get a clutch? 2002 was the first year they used a new clutch in Cavaliers...I guess they are a hot commodity!
3) It's fun trying to figure out how you will get where you need to be when you are three hours away in a town that doesn't really have too much to offer and family who offer ideas before thinking them through.
4) Eventhough we knew the car was in the garage we stopped by on our way home Sunday night. Dave had his tools in the trunk and I had my baseball stuff. A cleaner was inside so we tapped on the window and asked if he could grab our stuff...of course that is probably completely against the rules and he was hesitant but he took our keys and grabbed what we needed. You gotta love a man that will bend the rules to help out those in need.

$1,800 dollars and a slightly rabbit hopping clutch later all is well again and Calvin is home.