Lap of Luxury: fancy hotels, expensive restaurants, and a $1,000 upgrade to our wheels

turns out there's nothing in Van Horn but a Holiday Inn and a McDonalds. Actually, there were two mechanics, but one was visiting his family down south and the other one was getting ready to party. as it happens, tonight was the years biggest event in this town - High School Graduation, and there was a record 35 graduates! so the towns mechanic wasnt going to be able to help us

but luckily i ran into Robbie, the welder who agreed to tow us back into El Paso, he was a nice guy; mexican with a cowboy accent and a collection of funny hats.

we made a deal and we were off - backtracking 108 miles to meet up with Rick, the old hunchback mechanic of El Paso. he and all his friends have some disability or another, directly related to their interest in fast cars when they were young

he had quite a shop, and altho i wasnt happy to give him $1,000 to rebuild the bottom end, i did feel like i was in good hands and, well, what choice did we have.

with the car dropped off at the shop, we hiked up the road a mile or so to blow more good travelling money on another hotel and a delicious meal at the Macaroni Grill, where we began to reevaluate our trip on their paper table clothes - time wont be an issue, but we'll have to be very frugal to get to Maine and back now. if all goes well, Rick will have us back on the road tomorrow...cross your fingers