It’s a Choice
March 19, 2024 – Day 4
Bayshore Ford Truck Center, New Castle, Delaware
I’ll bet that section heading got your attention, didn’t it? Heh, you’ll just have to read on.
We woke to a beautiful sunrise. The birds were singing, the squirrels were cavorting all over the Jeep.
(susan here: ACTUALLY, Snow White was dancing. And birds were singing. And they were all jockeying with each other to land on Snow as she sang to them.)
We had risen early so we didn’t have to scramble to make our 9:30AM oil change appointment. Susan had her coffee so all was right in Chez Cezanne. We were all buttoned up by 8:40 and off we left to go to ARS Fleet Services blissfully unaware of the change of direction that today would take.
ARS Fleet Services has two locations, we went to the wrong one. No big deal. The main one is for big trucks and buses. We wanted the RV Repair Center just around the corner. Maria checked us in and had us drive into the service bay. Driving the RV inside, that was a new one for us. It was a giant service center. Saying there were 30 in there for service isn’t an unreasonable number. It’s huge.
Oh, a side story. Paul has driven indoors before. We know. You’re asking, “Where!? Where!!?” Well, way back a million years ago he lived in Belmont MA, working in Cambridge. The commute was 4.5 miles long. But, since he got in late he had to park on the top floor of the parking garage. It was 0.5 miles to the top of the garage. So that meant that 10% of his commute was indoors!
She introduced us to the two techs, we went over what they were going to do. They told us that major engine work probably wouldn’t be possible. We chilled in the employee lounge for a while and Maria came in to have a chat with us. The news was less than ideal. The service work we wanted done was complete but that problem that needed attention required the “bigger guns” BUT! the nearby Ford dealership could probably take us in, and even better they had electric hookups if, god forbid, we had to spend the night there.
We had hoped to meet up with Paul’s brother, John. However, the day was in such shambles we didn’t know what to tell him. He had the great idea to come down and meet us for lunch and conveniently enough arrived right around the time our coach’s oil/lube job was done. They were definitely sending us over to the Ford dealership. We dropped the RV off and headed out for lunch at the Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant in Wilmington, DE. Notice that link, that’s a wikipedia page! The place is famous for its beers. We didn’t have any but the food was most excellent.
We sat around after dinner and watched the people stroll along the Christiana River.
It was 45 degrees out with gusts to 25mph making it feel like 39. Strolling along the walkway was out of the question. Paul googled around and found the Delaware Bayshore Byway. It runs along with the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway. These sounded familiar to us but we had an afternoon to kill so why not! It turns out that we had both done part of this drive, probably two years ago, but John had never seen it.
We found the quaint little town of Delaware City.
We continued down the road, crossing the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
Around this time we had our second phone contact with the Bayshore Ford, they had ordered some parts and we would need to be there bright and early in the morning. We could stay the night there and decided to do just that. And we’re glad we did since “bright and early” is actually 6AM! Thing is we’d have been heading into Wilmington with rush hour traffic. What was a half hour would certainly be much longer. So, here we are at the Christiana Truck Stop in New Castle, DE for the night.
So what’s up the title, It’s a Choice. We can just to be grumpy and miserable, or we can chose to not be. We’ll have good dinner tonight, continue our re-watching of Queen’s Gambit. Oh! What shenanigans will Beth Harmon get into tonight!?
After training with Benny in New York, Beth heads to Paris for her rematch with Borgov. But a wild night sends her into a self destructive spiral.
And yes, we’ll set our alarms for sparrow-fart. (susan here: The word sparrow-fart is brought to you by my friend Jay. I first learned that word from him. And I use it whenever I can because … it’s funny.)
Paul is planning on eating breakfast at the Christiana Truck Stop and Grill tomorrow. Susan is undecided. (susan here: Not going to have much choice as we will not be in the coach. Maybe for a few hours. Maybe for the whole day. And if we’re unlucky? We have another night in “Truck Stop Paradise”.)
PS, I’ve never taken a blog photo while writing the blog before! See, good things do happen.
Daily: 0
Driving Miles/Day: 208
Overall Miles/Day: 104