hurry up! and wait!

Just a little update on our trek to the snowy North...
After shopping and cleaning and doing laundry and making hotel reservations and checking off lists and saying our goodbyes we are officially marooned, at least temporarily.

Last night we changed the fuse for the cigarette lighter outlet that powers the all-important DVD player; we went to move the car and it won't come out of park. We researched it and tried everything short of calling a witch doctor, then finally called a tow truck. The person who answered at VW Roadside Assistance was very cordial but didn't seem to be actually listening to much of what I said ("OK, ma'am, is there anything else I can help you with? ...Wait, what kind of car did you say you had?" "A Passat Wagon." "Oh, heh-heh, guess I should've written that down before, huh?" "Yeah.") Anyway, the tow truck comes and because the car can't shift into neutral to drag it up the ramp, we can't get it towed. It requires a special truck or something. So I'm waiting again for a different tow truck right now. (Hopefully the driver will be wearing a belt buckle like the one pictured above.)

But it gets better. dh goes out to start his car to run an errand and it won't start. AND broken car #1 is parked all crazy in the driveway, blocking any access to broken car #2 so we can't jumpstart it. I'm beginning to think that we're not meant to travel today, unless it's by Razor scooter.