Crisis Averted

As you may have gathered from the extended silence, we have been away for a while.  The day after school let out, we left for Idaho to celebrate my mother's birthday.  All my siblings and their families came, we had a great time and a lot of fun.  The trip deserves its own post.

This is about what DIDN'T happen.  You see, we flew home Wednesday with the intention of turning right around and going camping with friends over the 4th of July weekend.  Thursday, we got the trailer out of storage, de-winterized, bought groceries, and did laundry.  Friday morning, we packed the food and linens.  John took our truck out to get the oil changed, I stayed home with the kids and was about to get clothes packed.

John called.  The Suburban had lost all brakes.  After I stopped hyperventilating, he went on to explain that after the oil change, he'd gotten in to start it in the parking lot, and the brake pedal went clear to the floor.  And he got out and saw that the truck had discharged all of its brake fluid in a puddle in the parking lot.

Um.  That's not right.  He limped it slowly to a Chevy dealer that was just down the road (thank goodness!), and after a few nasty carefully chosen words ("can you get me the number of a towing company so I can take my truck to a mechanic who cares?), got them to actually take a look at it that day.  Turns out, one of the brake lines had rusted out, and the rest were in the process.  Changing one probably would break another, etc.  No, it was too big a job to fix by this afternoon or even the next morning.

We didn't go camping this weekend.

We also didn't cause a massive pile-up or any fatalities by losing our brakes on the road while towing the trailer.  Of course, that meant we didn't make the evening news.

Strangely, I'm ok with that.