Gas, sheepskins and the air show

I filled up the van last night. It was pretty empty, so I just closed my eyes and filled it up. Cross my heart, hope to die, this is where it clicked off, I did not inch gas in penny by penny, this is where it stopped all on its own:


Speaking of vans though, you know, you never really think about the height of your car when you drive a car because it doesn't matter. But when you drive a 9 foot 1 inch conversion van, it does matter. And makes me bonkers because so often there will be ample parking available ... in parking ramp that has a maximum height of 7 foot 10 inches. Or 8 feet 6 inches. Or anything less than 9 feet. In fact, 9 feet is the typical limit of most places that do have a height restriction such as parking ramps and drive-throughs. Most medical centers around here have parking ramps attached and so I typically have to drop Wheeler off, drive for 20 mins to find a street space 15 blocks away and try to parallel park our huge van on the left side of a one way street or something equally difficult.

But my biggest pet peeve is when you are not told that there is a height restriction until it is too late. Case in point: when I went to the airport to pick up our European guests, the only place to park on the airport grounds a shiny big new ramp. There are signs all along shunting you into it for 1/2 a mile beforehand. I kept looking though to see if what the height restriction was because I'd been there with my car before and knew it was relatively low. However, I kept following the signs to the parking and ultimately I was in position of no return. It was 2 lanes that were funneled off from the main road and there was no way to turn around if you, say, were in a vehicle that was too tall. I started to panic a bit and then I saw the bar hanging down with this sign "Height restriction: 9 feet". Great.

To make matters worse, my dad recently put on new shocks and so our 9 foot 1 inch van is even taller than usual because of that. But, I had no possible way to escape at that point, other than to drive the wrong way on a highway. I eased my way under hoping I'd make it ... and I made it. But I was steamed because what if I hadn't made it? There is nothing to warn you before it is too late to do anything about it. I was nervous when I drove into the actual ramp, but I had enough clearance there too.

Miss Swede, one of our European guests, and I spent 2 hours combing out the previously referenced peed-upon sheepskins. It takes a long, long, long time and alot of elbow grease to comb them. Left side is combed, right side not.


We went to the Langley Air Show a couple weekends back and it ROCKED. Offspring and I walked around, in, on every single plane and had a grand time. Wheeler, predictably, overheated and had to go to the emergency tent to cool down. Poor guy. I'm a plane junky, so I was in total heaven all day.