We spent Saturday morning with our friends in Conifer. The kids played together, the adults talked, and everyone had a good time. Eventually we had to go, so we loaded up, bracing ourselves for a hot hour on our way down to Aurora. Our goal was to get to our house, drop off the things we no longer needed, drop me and the kids off at our friend’s where we were staying, and then Lover would take the van over to the shop so they could figure out what was wrong.
Everything seems to be in order at our house, which was a relief. You never know when you rent out the house to strangers! Things looked neat and in order. We dropped off a bunch of stuff at the house that we haven’t used in the last six weeks, or don’t plan to use in the second half of our trip. What a relief! Then Lover dropped us off and headed over to the shop. He was back very quickly with the news that our air conditioning compressor was broken – number 3,874 on the “Things in the Van that Don’t Work” list. It was going to cost $1,000 to fix, and we quickly decided that was too much money to sink into a van that already had three wheels in the grave. So – van shopping! An unexpected addition to our weekend, but what a blessing to be in Denver, where things are familiar, we have residency, and our friend Sandy constantly offering to help out with the kids! We found a decent van in Brighton, and the kids stayed to play in the pool at Sandy’s while Lover and I gritted our teeth and drove up to Brighton in the scorching heat. I put ice in our water bottles and an ice pack on my back – and, yeah, it was still hot. 🙂 We looked at the van, but the back end was damaged from an accident, and it needed some other work. We decided to pass.
We headed back down to Aurora and enjoyed a nice dinner with Sandy. It was great catching up, and we also responded to a few more ads. We put the kids to bed and once again left them with Sandy, and then headed out to check out two other vans. The first one was at the top of our budget, and super fly. It had all the bells and whistles, and so fancy we were a little nervous that it would immediately be ruined by our clan. Then we drove another ten minutes to check out another that was much cheaper. I had a weird feeling about it though, and told Lover that something seemed off. The guy gave us the run around, and once we actually connected with him, immediately sized us up and insulted us. What? So weird. His partner calmed him down and he apologized, and we took the van (with them in the back) for a test drive. Sadly (or maybe not so sadly?) the van had some mechanical issues that he hadn’t disclosed, and it just wasn’t going to work for us. I can’t help feeling like we dodged a bullet there.
We headed back to Sandy’s, chatted with her for a while and then headed to bed. It was a very full day!