Meet Ritz Carlton:
"The Ritz", as we affectionately call it, has been through some shit. It got its name because we have used it as a 5-star hotel several times. The first time was New Year's 2013/2014 when we hiked Mt. Liberty. We somehow squeezed ourselves and all of our gear into a cozy -20 degree nights sleep in the car. The things when you do when you don't have much disposable income, am I right? Somehow we made it work and decided it was a good idea to do again. We both had weird schedules at the time (oh, retail), and we would often get up north really late and start early the next morning. It wasn't really worth it to pay for a motel.
Our series of unfortunate events with the Ritz started about a year and a half ago when we slept at the base of Mt. Monroe and Mt. Washington's Cog Railway in -50, yes negative 5-0, degree weather. It was so cold that the anti-freeze froze and cracked the radiator. Woops. Luckily Adam is a handy-enough-man that he replaced it on his own.
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| Preparing for a -50 degree night |
Damnit.
Adam knows things about cars and assured me that it could either be an easy, cheap fix like a hose, or a difficult, bankrupting fix like a leak from the engine block... but we couldn't see where the leak was coming from. We filled it up with water and made it the ~20 miles to town, but we could see and smell coolant when we parked. We made it to the one auto parts store in town a half hour before the closed and got a quick-fix sealer to hopefully plug the leak. It seemed to work, but I had a stressful drive home that was thankfully without incident.
A few days passed and the light came on again. I used the second half of the bottle and all seemed well. I got it up to our mechanic in NH and Adam reminded me to have them check out one of our bearings. The cooling system was pressure-tested and everything held (yay! Cheap fix worked!) and it turned out we didn't need a new bearing, just two new tires. I was told that we "dodged a bullet" by only having to get new tires. Hoorah!
The night of my birthday I was driving home from a lovely dinner with my family when I pulled into our lot and the coolant light came on again. "NNNNOOooooooooooo!" I parked it, got out, and saw coolant not just leaking but STREAMING out of the car... popped the hood to smell burning coolant and smoke. I was confused, frustrated, and borderline hysterical because I was supposed to drive to Maine in 2 days to see Adam for his birthday. If I didn't go then we wouldn't see each other until August (July is too busy for me to make a trip up there). I kept it together until I called my mom and then the dam that had been holding back the stress and loneliness of this transition of Adam being away burst.
"Mom, the coolant is leaking again"
"Did you make it home okay??"
"Yes..... but..... NOW I DON'T THINK I CAN GO TO MAINEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
"Oh no... oh gosh... okay don't cry on your birthday it's your birthday it's okay we will figure this out"
It was true, I didn't have the time or resources to get it fixed before I was supposed to leave, but my parents came through with the best joint birthday gift they could have and paid for a rental car for two days so I could go up to Maine. I've been proud to be an independent adult for a while, but I couldn't afford it and it was a generous gift that we are both so grateful for. So, now here we are again. The poor Ritz is in the shop in my neighborhood, which unfortunately means it will be more expensive than taking it up to NH. The verdict was a cracked water pump and bad fan belt. Thankfully this shop was recommended by a friend and it seems like their prices are reasonably average/low. The work is being done today, and I'm waiting for a call and them to tell me "just kidding, it was triple what we quoted you". Keep your fingers crossed, everyone........
