My car is now in many pieces. I’d forgotten just how much of a pain removing the timing belt in order to replace the water pump is. The bearing is definitely bad in the old one. I’ve gotten the old water pump removed, but that’s it. The o-ring that came with my new water pump for the thermostat housing is the wrong one. So I’m going to hope that I can get one at the Mazda dealership without waiting for them to order it. I want my car back as soon as possible.

But if they don’t have it, it won’t be a big deal. There’s many cars here, and Joanna and I have decided to stay here until next Monday so that we can look after her grandmother. Her parents are leaving for the weekend and need us to watch her. We’re not really in any hurry. We’ll now leave Monday at the earliest.

We’re still discussing possible route options. We’re thinking about Atlanta on Monday night, Young Harris, GA on Tuesday night, Knoxville on Wednesday night… then Memphis, and Norman, and down to Dallas, then Austin, Big Bend and then probably the Grand Canyon and Moab more or less on the way to California….

Wow. That sounds like a plan. Scary almost. I’m sure it will all fall apart, but I think I’m going to try to give people some warning before I show up looking for a place to sleep this time.

I’m still getting used to being married. So far it’s nice. I went to bed later than Joanna did last night and inadvertently woke her up since she’s a light sleeper and I’m not exactly graceful. She wasn’t very happy, and complained she was cold because she’d left the window open for me, but I wasn’t in bed to keep her warm… Must learn to get better about things like this.

The Brenners went to church while Joanna and I slept in then went to Nathan’s to borrow a torque wrench and the auto parts store in preparation for working on my car. Chinese food awaited us when we got back. Yummy. Since I still don’t understand the Brenner habit of ignoring meals after lunch on Sunday, it was fortunate that there was lots of leftover Chinese for dinner…. And now I’m hungry again. I really should start observing a more hobbitish meal schedule. Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Elevenses, Tea, Dinner, Supper… In any case, Chinese restaurants should not attempt curry dishes.

On the way back from the auto parts store, driving the Camaro, I passed a cop while exceeding the speed limit. Since I wasn’t in my car, I didn’t have my radar detector. Fortunately, he didn’t seem interested in me. Perhaps this is Karmic adjustment for the ticket I recently got in Gulf Shores for “Following to close” [sic]. See, a radar detector doesn’t really help you avoid tickets for things like “following to close.” Apparently, in Gulf Shores, one is supposed to maintain a car length’s distance for each 10mph behind a car even while accelerating to pass. I’m not sure how one could ever safely overtake a car by starting 4 car lengths behind. And is it a car length for each 10mph of my speed or the car I’m overtaking? Apparently, there wasn’t a check box on the Alabama Uniform Traffic Ticket for “Driving a Red Convertible.”

Paying the ticket was an incredibly frustrating experience. I called the court to find out what I needed to do to pay the ticket. I was hoping I could pay it over the phone with a credit card like you can with most places these days. Nope, in Gulf Shores you can either pay cash in person or send them a money order. No personal checks.

I asked them for their address so that I might pay the ticket. First I was given a P.O. Box, then finally “1905 1st Street,” along with a zip code. I figured that would be sufficient data for me to plug into Street Atlas and have it tell me where to go. I should have felt sufficiently warned when I noticed that the addresses in street atlas seemed to stop around 500 in Street Atlas. I figured I’d just keep driving though.

We never found it. Finally, we called and asked for directions. It turns out that they weren’t on 1st street at all. “Clubhouse Drive” or something, ten minutes away from 1st street.

When we finally arrived, the building sign said, “City Hall,” and listed all sorts of offices but said nothing about the court. I inquired inside and they told me to go down a hall, turn, go down another hall and up the stairs. I did so and found a little bitty office with two people inside, a young woman and a middle aged fat guy. The woman asked what I needed. After examining my ticket, she turned to the guy and asked him if she should just write a receipt for my money even though she didn’t yet have the cop’s copy of the ticket. The guy said no, that I couldn’t pay the ticket until he had a copy of it. After some discussion, he absolutely refused to take the money and said that if I kept arguing with him, he would refuse to accept payment of the ticket and would require me to go to court. The fact that if I mailed the ticket he would get it the money before he had a copy of the ticket didn’t seem to make any sense to him. I ended up driving across the street to the post office, standing in line, buying a money order, an envelope, and postage to send it certified mail. I don’t see why they couldn’t at least make the highway robbery an easy, pleasant experience.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m going to go find more Chinese.