Charlottesville Virginia

While Charlottesville was not meant to be our destination it seems like fate brought us here, and dropped us off against our will. Everything was going really well, I found a fellow to help drive, for free, and we were on our way just waving and blowing the horn at the folks that drive by with a wave, honk or smile. Lots of those folks now days. More and more we have people alongside of us taking the cell phone photos of the RV and waving. That is a great feeling as we know we are making headway in getting Ron's name out to the public. Everywhere we stop people come by and seem to just be drawn to our door. We have given away over 1000 bumper stickers on this trip alone and most have been placed on cars, trailers, gas pumps as we watch. At one traffic light we had a man banging on the drivers door wanting a bumper sticker, he had jumped out of his car and ran up to our RV while the light was red. Now that is a guy that wants a sticker.

The RV was running fine until we started up a hill and had no power, hardly crawled up that hill so I called ahead to a transmission place, AAMCO, at the closest town Charlottesville and made a plea for quick inspection. He agreed to clear out a space for the RV and we headed there asap. The AAMCO technician did a test drive and informed us it was not the transmission ( whewwwwwwwww) but a problem with the gas. He sold us two cans of Dry Gas and two cans of STP fuel additive and sent us on our way saying we would be fine. Twelve (12) miles later the transmission just burned up... quit and that was that. We got the RV to the side of the interstate and called back to the AAMCO place being as nice as I possibly could.. He agreed to clear a space for us and do the repairs as soon as we could get it to him. Nine ((9) hours later we finally got a tow truck out. AAA ( I have the RV towing policy) could not find a truck, finally said that they couldn't find my policy even though I have the card with the number etc... AARP ( I also have their RV towing service) after 3 hours finally told us to find our own tow truck and they would reimburse me up to $250. We did find a tow service ourselves and finally got towed to the tune of $430.00 back to the AAMCO Center. Of course they were closed so the driver just dumped us at their front door. The next morning there was a definate problem, no one could get into their drive way because we were blocking it. When told I would have to pay for another tow truck to move us you can imagine my hackles rising.. We finally came to an agreement that they move the RV to where they needed it to be as they were the ones that said it was in good shape and sent us down the road.

They put us in back of the place and removed the transmission. The thing was toast. burned toast... Yet it was perfect the day before????? The owner even told me I would be wasting money to have it serviced? He was not very smart to say the least. I have been very very patient and sweet which is not my nature but then he does have my transmission apart on the floor of his shop and I can't just drive away so being nice is to my advantage at this time.

I have had several discussions with the owner who this morning ( Monday) just told me it would be at least noon tomorrow before he got the thing installed... but low and behold after our last discussion about an hour ago they are installing it right now. A lot of swearing and grunting going on under the RV but it is getting put in there. Looks as if they want to get us out of here as fast as they can especially since I told him the News Paper would be out to take some photos and do a story on us and it would depend on what goes on with the transmission and bill how my take on his shop would be to the local paper. He was taken aback when he started getting calls from all over the country on Friday and Sat wanting to know the status of our situation. He noted as he handed me a stack of sticky notes with numbers on them that he didn't realize we had so many friends.

One great friend, Bill Steigmyer of South Dakota called and sent him $1,000.00 to get the work started.. Thank you from the bottom of my heart Bill. you have been a Godsend and wonderful friend from the very first time we met. People from all over have sent in funds for us to pay for this and I am totally thankful. It took only 2 days to raise the money which really touched me deeply and I issued a statement to all the groups to stop sending money we had enough to make the payment with. This was no small undertaking as the bill was estimated to be between $3,200 and $4,300 . It so happens that the owner after thinking it over gave us a estimated bill for the $3,200. Now lets hope he sticks with that.

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT.

With very little to do other than run up a cell phone bill which will be huge I am sure since everyone is calling I did manage to make about a thousand buttons, get a little done on the website and just sit and stew about missing the Walk about with Ron in NH. Even Buddy was bored.

The wonderful thing is the people in this area. The meetup groups have rallied and come by to say hello, bringing food and support and some smiles and friendly help. Jack Faw a wonderful patriot here came by and took Ray with him for a sign wave in the mall. Now this man really stands out as a Ron Paul supporter. He and I traded some material, he has some wonderful cards and flyers that I didn't have and I had some he didn't have plus I gave him a button Ron had signed which he really appreciated. I love people like this, so down to earth and dedicated.

We tried to remember to take everyones photo but as usual I got to running my mouth and forgot until they were gone. We will be going to a Meet Up meeting tonight with Don and his group and hopefully to the Raceway County fair and set up so we can sell some of these t shirts, buttons, balloons, bracelets and stuff to finance more travel. Everyone keep your fingers crossed that the transmission was the total problem. Don has found a mechanic to check out the motor before we leave the area and make sure we can get home in one piece. I would hate to put out another call for emergency help. I know you all get tired of hearing it.

Below are some of the friends and supporters who visited us this last day or so.

Hopefully we will be back on the road shortly and able to continue to promote Dr. Paul to our fullest ability. This has been a very very stressful couple of days and I certainly do not like just sitting around doing nothing while the world marches on. I am thankful that this is a RV and we didnt have to spend the money on motel rooms, food etc during this time. We have had to conserve on water as we can only carry so much but we didn't have to run the generator as the Owner of the shop made a outlett available to us to use for our power. This was a good thing and I appreciate it but am still really mad in fact hopping mad that he didn't do as we asked and service this transmission in the first place, all of this could have been avoided. Once this thing is fixed and running good again you can bet he will get an earful.

Thank you all for your support.

For those of you that have a problem seeing the photos go to the website:

www.grannywarriors.com/virginia.htm

Again thank you all for your support in this effort.

(home) 828-683-2009 (cell) 409-673-4891