{"id":8132,"date":"2014-01-20T20:54:33","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T01:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.monocoque-metalworks.com\/main\/?p=8132"},"modified":"2015-02-18T12:43:36","modified_gmt":"2015-02-18T17:43:36","slug":"family-vacation-chuck-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monocoque-metalworks.com\/main\/2014\/01\/family-vacation-chuck-style\/","title":{"rendered":"Family Vacation \u2013 Chuck Style\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

I tend to get around quite a bit as it gets tougher all the time to find good E-Type parts and projects…<\/p>\n

Last fall, I traveled out to Cincinatti, OH and picked up the tail section of a Series 2 roadster, and stayed with my brother-in-law David who lives in Columbus.\u00a0 I promised myself that if I ever went out that way again, I’d plan it so that Janie and the kids could come and spend time with their cousins, and lo and behold, about a month later, I found something else I wanted in Ohio!<\/p>\n

Right before Christmas, I got ion touch with a gentleman near Toledo who had recently sold his E-Type roadster, and was still selling off some of the spares he had collected.\u00a0 One thing he had managed to round up was a stack of FIVE, excellent Series 1 wings!\u00a0 After a short negotiation, I agreed to his price, sent him a check for all 5, called David, and we planned a family vacation for the MLK holiday weekend.<\/p>\n

We drove out on Friday, and arrived around dinner, catching up and partying with the neighbors and tons of kids until the wee hours…<\/p>\n

The next morning, I got up a little more “tired” than usual, shall we say…, and headed north to meet “Fred” – that’s not his real name, but we’ll use that alias for this story…<\/p>\n

ABout 10 minutes from Fred’s house, I pulled into a McDonalds to use the rest room, and I did something really dumb that I haven’t done in a LONG time – I locked the keys in the car.\u00a0 Now – you have to realize that I’m totally out of my element – I’m in Janie’s Honda minivan instead of the truck, and her keys have this big leather key fob and a bunch of those supermarket club cards, and so I don’t typically put her keys in my pocket, I just hold them or stick them in the pocket of my jacket.\u00a0 Add to that the fact that I’m screwing around with my phone for directions, I have to pee SOOOOO bad, I already have my keys in my pocket so subliminally, I’m fine, and there you go, I’m locked out.<\/p>\n

This would have been no big deal if I had been in the truck – the latch on the sliding rear window broke about a decade ago, and I often just climb into the bed and crawl through if it’s locked and I don’t feel like going into the house to get my keys.\u00a0 So I CAN’T even get locked out of the truck, PLUS the truck has a hide-a-key stuck to the frame anyway…<\/p>\n

But that’s all irrelevant, and here I am in McDonald’s just 10 minutes from when I am supposed to be there, with no keys, no phone, no tools, no coat, and it’s 11 degrees out.\u00a0 So I called AAA from the McDonalds phone and just sat there and waited like any other poor dumb slob – when normally, I either don’t get myself into – or quickly get myself out of, these types of screw-ups…<\/p>\n

Finally, after an extra cup of coffee that I didn’t need, AAA came and helped me out – it was actually pretty ingenious.\u00a0 First, he jammed a wedge into the top of the door and shoved it out a bit, then he slid a deflated bladder into the rear edge and pumped that up with an air bulb like a blood pressure thing, and then he just stuck a long industrial version of a coat hanger in there, grabbed the keys, and yanked them right out the door and handed them to me.\u00a0 Pretty slick!<\/p>\n

When I got back into the car, I called Fred immediately and apologized.\u00a0 He said no worries, and that maybe that was a good omen that I would have a good day from here on out.\u00a0 Well, he was right – because the rest of the afternoon was a BLAST!<\/p>\n