Day 56 - Williamsburg to Madison Virginia

Today was one of continuous rain, not that we cared a whole lot about the weather since our intention was to drive all day and not stop for any particular points of interest. Now and again, as we headed northwest out of Williamsburg, we saw the odd Civil War battlefield site or historic byway, but none that we felt like touring in the monsoon type precipitaton we were experiencing. We just kept driving, well, except for when we pulled up in the yard of a closed plantation farm to have lunch.

About mid afternoon we found ourselves inside the Ford Motor Company garage in Madison, Virgina. Nothing was wrong with the rig. It's just that we've been stopping at Ford dealership garages ever since we arrived in Florida a couple of weeks ago. Each time we see one, in every town we happen to be traveling through, I pull over and walk into the service department. And each time the service manager tells me that there's no way that they could possibly work us into their schedule "today." Since I was looking for not only "today," but more or less right that minute, I always nodded and walked back to the RV.

Today I finally decided that I would have to stop at an auto parts store and buy the appropriate oil filter so that I wouldn't need a Ford dealer for parts, but could stop anywhere that I saw a semi-empty auto fix-it shop capable of changing oil. Then, even if they didn't have the appropriate filter, they could still do the job with my filter.

The reason that this project is getting more important is because we've now put 7,000 miles on the rig and I'd truly like to get the oil changed before we head west. It's probably not critical, but it IS important. I could, of course, do the job myself in about fifteen minutes, but it's getting rid of the old oil that would stymie me. I didn't want to be put in the position of illegally disposing of motor oil. The EPA would probably shadow me the rest of my life.

So it was fortuitous that shortly after I bought the filter I came upon a two-bay auto fix-it shop with one lone car on the lift in the left-hand bay, and the other bay totally empty. Only a light drizzle was falling so I thought, hey, anybody can whip off a filter, drain the old oil, put in the new oil, and be done in fifteen minutes. Even if they had to do it outside, they would have been done long before they got wet.

We pulled up in front of the shop and I got out. One of the two employees inside caught sight of me and sauntered over to see what in the world I could be wanting. He was a round-faced, friendly-looking blond kid about twenty-five years old. He said, "How can I help you?" and looked at me expectantly.

"Hi," I said. "Do you suppose you'd have time to change the oil in this rig?"

The blond kid immediately went to shaking his head. "No way," he said. "I can't lift something this big off the ground."

"Don't need to lift it," I said. "I carry a couple of drive-up blocks. We could put the truck on the blocks and that would lift it six or seven inches off the ground. The filter is easy to get at then."

The blond kid hadn't stopped shaking his head. "Nope," he said, "just can't do it."

We were standing facing each other and I was looking into his pale blue eyes. For some reason I expected him to say, "well, you see it's raining and, well, I'm pretty lazy. And shucks, I really don't want to have to work that hard today, anyway."

I looked at him for another long moment, thinking maybe he'd suddenly come to his senses since he obviously didn't have much business at the shop, but no good. He just shrugged and said, "Sorry!"

"Okay," I said, and couldn't help but think if he were my employee, he and his pale blue eyes would be scanning the 'Help Wanted' ads right about now. I turned and got back in the rig, and soon after we were back on the rain-swept highway.

Fortunately, we hadn't driven very far and we stumbled over the Madison, Virginia Ford dealer where, much to my surprise, the service manager said he would squeeze us in, AND that he'd get someone on the job within the next fifteen or twenty minutes. True to his word, that's precisely what he did. Though I held my breath as they squeezed the RV into the garage with about an inch on each side of the mirrors to spare, they easily jacked up the front of the rig, changed the oil, checked the belts and the brakes, gave the rig a clean bill of health, and had us standing at the payment counter in less than a half hour. Total cost? Under $50.00.

Here's the funny part, when I asked the dealership oil change guy if he had any trouble, he said, "Nah! Just threw a jack under the front end and lifted it just a bit. Filter is easy to get to. It was no trouble at all."

I thought back to the good lookin' kid with the faded blue eyes at the half empty fix-it shop. I already knew his future. He's the type who thinks that luck will determine whether he's successful or not. But luck is virtually never involved when someone is successful. Success in this life depends on a person MAKING their own luck. The blue-eyed kid made a small part of his own luck today, and it wasn't good. He'll probably go right on making that sort of bad luck until some point in the future, maybe fifty years from now, when he'll sit telling his grandkids that he might have made it big in the business world if he'd only been lucky, and the nasty old rich people had treated him right. Yup, I can hear it now.

After getting the oil changed we sought out the nearest camp, which happened to be an X-KOA, now Good Sam establishment. Naturally, I couldn't find my Good Sam card (it had stuck to another card in my wallet and I didn't see it) and the woman wouldn't take the credit card that I was carrying. This necessitated going back to the rig to get another card and spending ten minutes looking for the Good Sam card which wasn't actually missing. Then, as the rain fell with renewed vigor, we sloshed our way to the top of the hill and found space #28, which I was assured was level. It wasn't. That meant I had to get out and slog around in the mud putting the rig on blocks. Fortunately, the rain let up while I got everything else connected and now I'm sitting in a nice warm coach taking it easy and talking to you.

Even though we didn't get to do anything exciting today, we were listening to a good Richard Patterson book on the CD called "Trial" which I think is well done. I don't usually like Patterson for his tendency to use the omniscient view point, but this book is told in the first person, which I always like better.

Outside our cab windows, the Virginia countryside, though pretty water logged, was beautiful as we motored along at our sedate pace of 55mph. Coming out of Williamsburg, we ignored Interstate 64 and set off on Route 30, then 33, and finally 17 as we moved toward Fredericksburg. Though we'd been to Fredericksburg recently, my plan was to skirt by the town and head on over to the Blue Ridge Parkway which runs up the Shenandoah Valley. All that came about perfectly, though we found ourselves on a slew of other small roads to get here to camp this evening. Still, the traffic was light and we were, at times, almost alone on some of our rural routes today.

And that's about it for now. Life may not always be controllable or predictable, but to paraphrase Louis Pasteur, "Fortune favors the prepared mind." Be prepared, and the rest is easy.

Keep on Traveling....like the people in the photos above.