The Lost Realm

Easter weekend, my initial plans were to start off the weekend on Friday by traveling to visit my future in-laws, then to visit my mother in Apsley, and then back to Penetang to spend some time with my father’s family. Was excited looking forward to spending a relaxing weekend with the family

However, things stacked up against me on Friday and the weekend got off to a bad start. First I stopped by Timmy’s before hitting the road. The drive through was crazy busy, and it took about 20-30 minutes to get my coffee. Then when I finally hit the road, shortly outside of Barrie I hit a nasty snow storm. I shuffled my way along with the traffic through the snow storm and after a few miles was out in the clear, thinking I was now going to make up some time. Though lo’ and behold, that wasn’t to happen as not long after, I was suddenly jarred and my car would no longer switch gears (a thing I later learned to be called limp-home mode, basically the car got slammed into second gear). I pulled over and after putting the car in park, could no longer get it going. I called CAA and they towed me to Orillia, only to realize that it was Good Friday and nothing was open.

Standing outside of Midas, trying to figure out what I’m going to do, I thought I should call Jan and Rick and let them know that I was going to be late. Without hesitation, they offered to come pick me up, even volunteering to pack up dinner and come take me to my apartment until Midas opened and we could figure out whether my car could be fixed. That blew me away, they’re such great people.

2 hours later, I was headed back to Peterborough with them, and enjoyed a lovely evening and a great Ham dinner with them, we even watched my favorite movie “The Princess Bride”. The next morning, I got the call from Midas, and much to my chagrin I was informed that it was a Transmission problem. No quote, just that it wasn’t going to be simple or cheap. This really brought me down, not something that I was hoping to hear (was hoping it’d be something minor and that it’d be nice and cheap to fix). While I fretted and had the bank raise my credit limit so that I could afford to pay for whatever the service cost ends up being, Jan and Rick came to the rescue again. They told me that I was like a son to them and that they wanted to help me out, and volunteered to lend me the money to pay for the repair. Again I was blown away and awe struck by their caring, it really blew me over with their compassion, just seeing how much they cared and welcomed me into the family. They even lent me their car to go spend Saturday night with my mother and drove me back to Barrie today.

I only hope that the cost of the repair isn’t too bad, I’m hoping that it’ll be under $1500, but we’ll have to wait and see