It was a really bad day.
|
In the morning we took the bus
into the shop. We left it there and went for a walk (eventually we
ended up going to the Hallmark Visitor Center (Hallmark is the company
that makes postcards). As we went to have coffee in the nearby shopping
center the phone rang and David got the bad news. The fixing of the
valve would cost us about $1000 if they could machine the existing
valve to make it workable again. The work was going to take at least
until the end of the week (it was Wednesday) and we would have to stay in
the hotel in the meantime. At first we thought we would go for it. It
meant that we would not have any more money to travel but at least we
would have a working bus. But then after some consideration and walk
back into the car place we decided that we can not get the bus fixed.
The |
|
mechanic had told us that if the valves would need to be replaced it would take a really long time - apparently our bus had some rare square cylinder ports that were very expensive and hard to get because they were manufactured only for a couple of years. We went to the shop and told them we won´t get it fixed there. Instead we went across the street to see how much it would cost to rent a truck to tow it back to Washington. Well, it was a really bad day. They told us that it would take $2000 to rent the truck. Now it was really bad. We walked out of the place and just sat on the sidewalk, miserable. There was no way we could afford to rent the truck. At this point we decided to go and have some lunch to feel a bit better. After eating as David started to pay, it turned out that his debit card did not work any more. |
|
The card reader gave a message
that no account found. We paid with a credit card (something we really
wanted to avoid) and went to look for a bank. The ATM [pangaautomaat]
also said that no account found. Then we tried my card and it had the
same problem. All of the sudden we had no money (between the two of us
we had about $4). Well, we went to the shop to pick up the car and paid
with the credit card there. One of the mechanics had a great idea - we
could buy ourselves a really old and cheap truck (you can get one for
about $500) and tow the bus back. With this idea we drove back to the
hotel. It was a really bad day. |