<– Day 27 & Day 28 – Fri/Sat May 25th/26th: What is Happening? | Day 30 – Monday May 28th: Grilling in the Rain –>

Repalring the hall light.

Day 29: We spent much of the Sunday working on my cousin’s house near Richmond, Virginia. She bought it a year ago and has discovered it is a little more of a fixer-upper than she’d planned. The more time she’s spent there, the more she’s found odd things. She blames it on the previous family, calling it the Exley house. Why doesn’t something work right? That’s because it’s the Exley house.

Me explaining that there are two kinds of shower heads, Speakman heads and all others. She had a Speakman and didn’t realize how good it was (IMHO). In fact, it’s the biggest one I’ve seen, having 8 water jets.

I felt like we ran into the Exley curse when repairing her downstairs toilet. The toilet had a flap that wouldn’t seal. What should have been a 30 minute job, something I’ve fixed in other places, took multiple attempts over two days. I don’t have time to write up all the sordid details, but after the fifth time of removing the tank, I took everything apart and rebuilt it one more time. That finally did the trick.

The list of to-dos … we won’t finish them all, but we made a good dent.

Needing a break from the craziness, we went for a short walk at Marymont Park, then drove to Petersburg to eat some lunch and then see the Trapezium house, which is odd. Learn more in the video below.

On Monday, We’ll be heading for Huntington, WV; Tuesday will take us to Paris, Illinois; and Wednesday will bring us to St. Louis.

<– Day 27 & Day 28 – Fri/Sat May 25th/26th: What is Happening? | Day 30 – Monday May 28th: Grilling in the Rain –>

<– Day 26 – Thursday May 24th: Architecture & Organs | Day 29 – Sunday May 27th: The Exley House Curse –>

On Friday we drove from Philadelphia to Chester, Virginia.

Day 27 & 28: On Friday we drove from Philadelphia to Chester, Virginia. I made a major miscalculation with this decision, as half of Philadelphia decided to head to the beaches early for the Memorial Day Weekend, so the 5 hour drive I expected took 9 hours.

We saw a few interesting things, but mostly it was a long drive in traffic. The drive on the Chesapeake bridge-tunnel was pretty neat. And, I thought that would be the most interesting thing we’d see.

But, no, it wasn’t.

As we drove north on I-64 through Virginia, about where Yorktown is, I was going 70mph in a 60mph, just keeping up with traffic, when this car roared up in the lane to my right, traveling about 85-90. Then, two other cars pulled up behind them. Finally, a noisy (muffler leak?) early black Chevy Yukon(?) appeared to our right in the slow lane, passing us and running at about a 2 O’clock angle to us, several car lengths ahead of us.

Suddenly, the rear driver’s side wheel started smoking. Then bits of tire started shooting across the highway. I slowed, not knowing what would happen. Then the tire exploded (no way he didn’t hear and/or feel it), flying across the middle lane and into our lane. The Toyota truck ahead of us didn’t have a chance and ran over the tire roughly.

I’d slowed enough to dodge the tire, but I wasn’t so much watching the tire as I was the driver, because he wasn’t slowing down. He was still driving about 55mph without the tire, bits of tire still flying off his rear rim. And, he didn’t seem to care that the tire was gone.

The Toyota truck that had hit the tire moved from the fast lane to the middle lane to either (1) complain or (2) notify the driver that he was missing the tire. Apparently, the driver didn’t care, as he never slowed down.

Seeing my chance, with a wide-open fast lane, I floored the jeep and created a large amount of distance between me and the Yukon.

Ann suspected the guy may have stolen the Yukon and didn’t want to stop driving. I don’t know why he wouldn’t stop, but it was one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen.

So, we landed late in Chester at my cousin’s house. We spent Saturday helping her fix some things around the house. Other than that, we’ve been working on my cousin’s house in Virginia. That’s a nice change of pace.

<– Day 26 – Thursday May 24th: Architecture & Organs | Day 29 – Sunday May 27th: The Exley House Curse –>