Wow what a Night

So last evening we went out to Cuivre River State Park so we could get away from the city lights and watch the Perseids meteor shower. The weatherman said it would be clear, so we packed up and left.

When we got there we setup camp, it was warm so we left the tent fly off as we would not need it. After setup we then popped out for dinner. Returning we played some games then headed into the tent to get some rest as the best time for viewing was at 3am.

Around 11:15pm, we woke to a lot of lighting way off in the distance, there was practically no pause between flashes. So much for a clear night, though it was still clear above us. We put the fly on the tent and watched the lighting for awhile.

Then it all rolled in. First we went from a calm breeze to literally gale force winds whipping the trees and deforming the tent like crazy. At that point we abandoned the tent and took shelter in the car, finally the rains came. Wow thats a lot of rain for a clear night ;-)

In the morning we broke camp, we managed to loose nothing. We popped down to the lake and took some pics of turkey vultures sunning.

Here's Narya, she kept us safe and dry last night.

The changing of the Cars

Well, it finally happened. Martha's car had a problem that was going to cost around $900 to fix. We decided that because it was 10 years old with 98 thousand miles on it, that money may be better served as a down payment.

Martha really liked the features of the Honda Fit, we had test driven it the weekend before her car started having problems. So yesterday, the salesperson, Blake at Ed Napleton, called us saying they had one just come in. So after work we shot down there to get it. He was a good salesman, easy to get along with.

We got there and the car had a dealer addon sticker in the window, but they had not had time to add all the items. There were a couple of things already on it, the Cargo Cover and wheel locks, so we OK'ed those. They really wanted to add the other things like floormats and pin striping, but we said no deal and the backed off.

The other point of contention was the trade-in value. When we got around to this, we were kind of frazzled, so when they tried to offer us less than we wanted, and would not budge, we asked for the keys back. Martha immediately left the building and I waited for the key. All the sudden they said they would match our request. Martha came back inside and it was a done deal.
There was a long wait to get to see the finance guy as they managed to
sell like a dozen cars within an hour of each other.



Here's the old car before we took it in.