What do you mean we leave in 3 days?

Can anyone tell me why it is that just when one is ready to set out on a relaxing venture like the BABE Rally that there is a convergence of things (not related to the BABE Rally) that have to be taken care of - NOW? All that I really would like to have to worry about at this point is getting my Elvis outfit dry-cleaned.

The weather has been wet and cold for about the last week. How are we supposed to get out there and buff up the finish on the Vegginator?

On Friday evening while we had a small monsoon blowing through the area, Richard & I took the Vegginator out for a drive to put it through its paces - so to speak.

We just had new tires put on a couple of days before and sitting in the passenger seat I noticed a vibration. Hmmm. Had Sal not tightened all of the lug nuts? Were the tires out of balance? Is this a reason to worry? Should we do anything about it? As it was cold, wet & dark we thought the best course of action was to do nothing and continue driving. Fortunately the vibration diminished, disappeared and hasn't returned. So far.

We bombed out Route 2 on the way to Route 128 and waited for the temperature gauge to head past the magical 80 degrees Celsius normal engine operating temperature that signified we could switch over to running on veggie oil instead of diesel. I checked the hoses running along the floor next to me for a rise in temperature. Tepid at best. We turned off the defroster and heater so more of the engine heat would flow back to warm up the tank in the trunk. It wasn't until we were near to crossing I-93 in Woburn that the temperature was close to the mark (and our patience was running a bit thin) and we threw the switches to start the flow of veg.

Wow! Those illuminated toggles were bright enough to play havoc with our night vision. (Especially since the windshield was now seriously fogged up.) The cool thing was that the Vegginator didn't skip a beat and continued plunging its way forward through the rain and wind. (Toward the car that Richard was tail-gating.) Except for one little hiccup of power loss which we worked out with a short run of diesel, the road test was an unqualified success.

I'm heading over to the dry-cleaners.