Another purpose was to store the 1954 Austin Healey Rob inherited from his parents. Now, for the past two years since Monster Garage has been under construction, the restored Austin Healey (see previous blogs for that adventure!) has been living at a friend's garage (thank you Gonnie!). But Gonnie's son and daughter-in-law recently bought a new truck....a new big truck, so in order to store it in their garage, they needed to move their stuff to Gonnie's garage, which mean the Austin Healey had to come home sooner than expected (we were planning to move the car later this summer anyway, once we had done the interior garage work).
So Rob spent most of his evenings these past three weeks at Gonnie's, trying to get the car in tip top shape to drive to Saskatoon. It had been leaking fluids, so he had to stop those. Then he had to charge the battery...numerous times...and then finally ended up buying a new one. Many, many test drives, as he learned the different gearing system and overdrive system. Driving out the old gas, and putting in new. Buying tie down straps because the new battery dropped out. You know, little things like that.
Well, the big move day was this past Friday. Rob took the day off from work, and I was taking the afternoon off, in case I had to drive down and meet him and rescue him. He was supposed to leave at 9:00 a.m. to beat the long weekend holiday rush on the highway. However, the night before he had inadvertently severed the battery cable (by draping the cable over the driveshaft--oops) and had to be towed back to Gonnie's garage. (the tow truck driver loved the car--took lots of pictures of it!) Thus Rob needed to be at Canadian Tire at 8:00 a.m. to get a new cable. Of course, they didn't have the part he wanted, so two other stops later, he had the cable and replaced it. All systems check. He texts me he's heading off. Then about 20 minutes later, he texts saying he's heading back...minor fuel leak issue. Probably good to take care of that before a fire starts. Gee, I owner if it's this much trouble launching the space shuttle!
Okay, all good now. So he finally leaves at 2:00. With tools, overalls, spare parts, etc--just in case there's a breakdown. He texts at stops along the way, and I'm trying to calculate if he's making good time. He clears the big hill in the Lumsden Valley. Whew. Stops for ice cream in Davidson. Clears the Blackstrap Hill. And finally he is heading down our back alley:
And pulling into Monster Garage:
Yay! Home safe and sound. Rob was just beaming and the car is more beautiful than I remember. He mentioned that every car passing him was doing a double take, and whenever he stopped, people would comment on the car. We put the tarp on the car and then turned around and headed to the lake near Regina, so we went back the way Rob just came. (my turn to drive in it come this weekend--can't wait). But as Rob was going up the steps, I noticed two big red marks on his leg. I thought they were reactions to a bug bite, but it turns out that the exhaust from the car is channelled down the middle of the seating area, so hot air was blowing on his leg the whole trip. One red mark turned into a giant burn blister that keeps growing daily. Ah, a memento from his first drive! I'll have to make him a fire-retardant leg cozy, sort of like an Evel Kneivel suit.
And so arrives our first tenant in Monster Garage. Nice to have it home!
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