A Tragic Comedy of Errors

As Tim, Jimmie, Keri and I drove down the road to Florida City, we noticed a noise.

“What is that grinding?” Tim asked. We all listened.

A few minutes later, I said, “I don’t know, but it’s getting worse.”

Frank's New Year's Hospital Bed

We drove the last 10 miles to our destination listening as a light thump became a grind.  We had problems.  We parked in Walmart and started googling the nearest Ford Dealer.  2 miles back up the road was Armstrong Ford.  It was here our Divine Comedy began.

Wednesday morning we drove into the dealership.  Jimmie had already diagnosed our problem: bad wheel bearings.  Edgar our mechanic confirmed it.  They ordered new hubs from Miami that morning and we figured we’d still make our Key West reservation that night.

After working all day inside in the waiting room, we found out the news.  The ordered hubs from Miami had come in.  And they were the WRONG size.   It would be another hour drive north to pick up a new set.  We wouldn’t be getting our hubs until Thursday morning.

Well it was a minor setback, we said.  We got a room at the Floridian next door and drank margaritas at Ruby Tuesday celebrating the fact that this hadn’t happened a day later in Key West.

Thursday morning we were up early and walked back to Armstrong.  The hubs had arrived and Edgar was incentived with a $50 tip to get us back on the road by 10 am.  He got the hubs out and stopped.  Our custom wheels had extra large lugs.  The hubs weren’t going to fit.  They needed to be custom machined to work.

Edgar then began the search for a machine shop that would customize these hubs on New Years Eve asap.  Just down the road we found the place.  The machining went well but they struggled getting the bolts out of the old hub to move to the new.  Edgar located new bolts and took them over and the machine shop went to work.

By 2 pm the hubs were ready.  With only an hour required to get them on, we would make our new goal of 3 pm to hit the road.  Edgar unwrapped the hubs….and groaned.

The machine shop had spent all afternoon putting the wrong bolts on.  Our wrecked bolts were now attached to the sparkling new hubs, and our new bolts were still in their bag.

Well when faced with adversity, it was time to be crafty.  We all pulled our things out of the van, rented a car and drove to Walmart.  We are now armed with $14 sleeping bags, a new tent and driving to Key West, with or without Frank.  We hope to get him Saturday or Monday…but until then the 4 of us will have a great New Year “roughing it” in the Keys.   It may rain but at 70 degrees we’ll survive.  See you all in 2010!