When we last spoke, dear reader, Sarah and I were about to make our way up to Philadelphia, with sights set on Brooklyn and beyond. The past week has taken us from a leap of faith in Philly, to wild chance encounter in Brooklyn (Greenpoint!), to family in West Hartford CT, to ... a total breakdown in Glens Falls New York...! Story below...
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We were #blessed to stay in the home of Bil Bond, the male Martha Stewart. Unbelievable!
A quick break to visit family and meet the newest Herrs! Hi Eva and Oliver!
Breakdowntown
So, a couple hours away from my cousin's house in West Hartford, I start smelling something weird (maybe it's someone else's poor vehicle).. and then feeling something weird (man the roads here are extra bad).. and then Sarah notices too... so we pull over and look around the truck. Nothing seems out of order, until Sarah spots smoke coming from the rear driver's side wheels. Ugh. Okay.
The closest exit is about as close as it could possibly be, so we slowwwly drive to the closest gas station, and then slowwwly towards the closest recommended service center (which turn out to just be an Advance Auto in a mall, not exactly a helpful garage.) As we enter the mall parking lot, the sounds and shaking get rapidly worse, and I realize I can't accelerate, and THEN I see the wheel in the rearview mirror (not usually possible) and slam on the brakes, which do not do a whole lot. Fortunately we have JUST made it out of the main parking lot traffic.
Sarah jumps out to take a look, and I go to follow her after putting it in park and turning off the engine, and putting the emergency brake on just in case - all with additional alarming noises. But when I take my foot off the brake, the truck doesn't stop. It keeps gently inching forward. OKAY.
Eventually it just.. isn't rolling anymore, and we commence insurance calls and begging at Advance Auto (totally unhelpful) and fielding the curious inquiries of the many people doing their errands at this mall. About 5 hours later, a tow truck finally brought us to a nearby heavy truck repair shop and... there we were.
And here we are, in Glens Falls, NY. We're both fine, the truck is... yet to be diagnosed (the shop doesn't open till Monday morning), and our bikes are coming in extremely handy. We spent our first night sleeping in the truck last night, and plan to do it again tonight. Everyone who ever asked "Do you sleep in that thing?" - yes.
It looks like we won't make it to Montreal like we hoped, but we're only about 2.5 hours from Burlington... worst case scenario, maybe the truck stays in Glens Falls for a while while we get ourselves to Burlington somehow??
STAY TUNED! And if you or someone you know lives near Glens Falls, please get in touch. Maybe this is an unexpected Girls! Mural in the making....! (Also I mean we could really use a place to stay, the truck is really pretty good but a shower would be heavenly.)
PS: While this has all been going on, I got to do an interview with Vermont Public Radio! The resulting response to my call for images of women to paint in Burlington has been wonderful - over 40 emails and messages in the last two days! Thank you to everyone who submitted your pictures and stories - it's humbling to hear about all these wonderful people. I can't wait to get to Burlington (hopefully as scheduled??) to start meeting ya'll in person!
<-- this is a super-zoomed-out screenshot to try and show you what my inbox looks like right now hehe <3