Quote from Fernando on Nov 13th, 2016, 5:09pm:He parks the SUV where it was parked with space to accommodate the trailer. He then tells Hondo, “Enjoy the cake.”
“Eh?” Hondo replies.
“Those boxes. Enjoy the cake. The middle one is yours. One on the left is mine and the last on the right is Jeanette’s. We all adopted girls, so, no matter how much we feel about what we seen, they are our girls. So hide that sour puss face and enjoy the cake. I need a time out myself.” Fernando says to him.
Hondo nods at Fernando before he steps out the SUV and walks over to the table Fernando had set up.
Girls, Val, Fernando says it’s time to open the middle box.” Hondo says.
He opens the body finding a small three layer cake inside with white icing with blue bunting and pink florets, with “Happy Pairing Hondo/Valentine and Tonya/Zoe.” Hondo looks at it before letting out a sigh.
“Something wrong?” Val asks.
“Nothing’s wrong. It’s too good to eat.” Hondo says.
“Happy Pairing?” Val asks as she and the girls look at it.
“Well, they were not born to us but they were paired to us through adoption.” Hondo guess is correct.
“This is really... nice...” Tonya says as she looks down at the cake.
“There’s juice and tea to drink as well.” Fernando says as he walks to the table. He puts his arm around Macey and takes her the box on the left and opens it. Like the cake for Hondo and his girls, it was a three layer cake inside with white icing with blue bunting and pink florets, with “Happy Pairing Fernando and Macey.” He tells them, “I do not know what flavors they are in but I asked for a non-strawberry filling. Anybody knows where Jeanette and Penny are?”
“Haven’t seen them all day.” Val points out.
“Well, that’s their cake.” Fernando points to the unopened box, “I was hoping they would be here but they are not. So, we can start without them, Happy Pairing day everybody!”
"We're here." Jeanette, in a pioneer dress, approaches with Penny. "In addition to oversleeping, we have been busy getting everything reorganized and straightening the place up." Jeanette goes to the cake box and opens it. "Thank you, Fernando. This is a lot of cake for such a small party." Jeanette steps aside, allowing Penny to see. Jeanette continues. "I'll just have a small piece with tea."
Quote from Fernando on Nov 13th, 2016, 5:09pm:Fernando walks over to the front of Karl’s SUV and opens the hood. Nothing exciting in there, just a basic V8 engine. Fernando pulls out the dip stick and look at its oil. It was black but still translucent and smelled like oil should. Taking his handkerchief, he wipes down dipstick clean and puts it back into the engine and pulls it out. The level of oil was a bit on the low side but not below its ‘need oil’ mark.’
“This should be fine for the next couple hundred miles.” Fernando says.
Hondo comes out from the driver’s seat, “According to the gauges, it has a 1/2 tank of gas. And battery’s full.”
“Alright. Turn it on. Give it a minute to warm up and then turn on all the lights.” Fernando says.
Hondo does as he says, turning on the lights once the engine idles down. Fernando goes about and inspects all the lights that are turned on. They seem to be bright but looks can be deceiving. Hondo steps out of the SUV and listens to the engine, not hearing anything out of the ordinary. Fernando reaches into the engine bay and grabs battery positive wire, pulling it off the battery. The engine seems to run rough and slow down but picks up speed as Fernando puts the battery cable back on the battery. He pulls it off again, and again the engine runs rough and slow. He then shorts the battery terminal against one of the engine’s frame, making it kick up and then shut off suddenly.
“Looks like a bad alternator.” Hondo says.
“Check the wiring and connections. Fernando says as he hands Hondo his leatherman tool. As Hondo checks the alternator connections, Fernando grabs onto each tire and pulls on them then and rocks to check of their bearing are going. Those seem to be fine. He then unclamps the C-Ball clamp the trailer is connected too and lists the trailer off the hitch, rolling it back a bit, setting down the trailer’s tongue leg down before heading back to Hondo. “Think she will last the trip.”
“Treat her right, and she will last a long time. There was crud on the alternator’s post so I cleaned it up, it should be running fine.” Hondo says.
A crow, that was watching, flies down and lands on the alternator. The alternator "tells" the Spirit what is wrong. The Spirit taps its beak on one side of the alternator, turns around and taps on the other side. As the Spirit is doing this sounds, like that of metal parts moving, are heard.
The Spirit walks around on the alternator a bit more and caws. "The alternator is mechanically sound."
Note: I will write more tomorrow.
Jeanette Isabelle
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After Chaos (Read 186742 times)
