A Welcomed Addition

Whew! January flew by! I apologize for not blogging. We started the month out with a new vehicle! We purchased a 96 Toyota Camry off e-bay. It took about 3 weeks to ship and we had many obstacles. But finally we received a call one morning from the truck driver saying he was an hour from Missoula. Joe threw on his jacket and headed up to pick it up. (It takes us 45 minutes to get to Missoula from our house so it was perfect timing) It was a bitter cold day and Joe was dressed only to pick up the car and come home. He didn’t end up coming home until about 5pm! He was out in the freezing weather helping the delivery guy load and unload the truck.

I can’t do the story justice by typing. Joe’s version, actions and all, were too hilarious. I’m sure it was a huge liability for Joe to be helping the guy load and unload classic cars. He almost drove one right off the ramp! Put it this way, everything that could go wrong for this delivery driver did go wrong. Our car had to be picked up on Long Island so that was a feat in and of itself because of the load limits on various bridges. Then he got snowed in the next day in Chicago. By the time this driver got to Missoula he was happy to get rid of what he thought was our car. Don’t worry…he picked up the right car but loaded it onto the truck wrong. So instead of being the last on the ramp, it was the first! Hence…Joe had to help this poor guy load and unload cars. One of the cars had no gas, another had a broken clutch, plus the hydraulics on the actual truck were malfunctioning. I cannot believe that all the cars survived!

Unfortunately, Joe’s neck was out so it made his recovery time double. You should have seen the positions that Joe had to be in to drive some of these cars! Too funny! The shivering caused from lack of gloves, coat, hat, etc turned his neck muscles into one big knot! However, he returned home with a great car and having done his good deed for the day. I’m sure the transport driver would still be there today loading and unloading cars if Joe hadn’t stayed to help! Someday you’ll have to have Joe tell you the story.

The bank transaction went relatively smooth until we received our statement in January. Apparently on Christmas Eve E-bay had taken about $500 from our account! We usually use PayPal, but for this purchase, we obviously went directly through our bank. We knew the charges were fraudulent and spent the next couple of weeks filing reports with both ebay and our bank. Ebay had no record of the transaction..of course..because it never happened! Finally our claim was accepted and we were reimbursed the money! We saved a ton of money buying the Camry but I’m not sure it was worth the headache. We are so happy to have 2 vehicles again! It was pretty crazy trying to share the van. Our vehicles are definitely part of our family and the camry has been a welcomed addition!
love, allie
ps-This is a google image of our car. I tried to take pictures of our actual car but due to the snow, ice, and mud...it looked horrible. This pic is way better and looks the same as our car...minus the backdrop!