This is just one of many stories of a particular adventure I had, and one that I have thought of many times over the years. I?ve been on a lot of road trips, mostly in the US. I have always come across friendly folk, and this is a particularly heart-warming experience that I wanted to share with y?all tonight.
My ex-husband and were travelling to Jupiter, FL from New Brunswick. We were driving an old ?66 Mercedes down I-95 that belonged to our new employers. The trip was supposed to last a week. We were on our way to start a new life in the Bahamas, via West Palm Beach.
The car had been overheating. We had been driving non-stop from the New Brunswick border, taking turns at the wheel. So we took a break just before NYC, in Stamford CT, and had the rad checked. It was leaking. As it was not our car, and we didn?t have a lot of cash, we decided to try to make it to FL without paying for costly repairs. We filled a bunch of large pop bottles with water, and steeled ourselves to drive through NYC, praying to the Goddess we would not break down in the tunnel! We left Stamford in the early evening, hoping that traffic would not be too heavy.
As luck would have it, we barely made it! Just before we got to the rest stop entering New Jersey, on the other side of NYC, steam started coming out of the hood. So we pulled into the rest stop, had a meal, and settled down to sleep in the car, and figure out what we were going to do the next morning.
We decided to find a radiator/transmission shop ASAP. This was on a Monday. The first place we came to in the morning was Robbinsville, NJ. Pulling into the rad shop, I remember feeling very discouraged and wondering what the heck was gonna take place, how much was this gonna cost. Well, the shop was owned and operated by a lovely woman named ?Terry? and her husband. He worked on the car all afternoon, but couldn?t figure what might be wrong. He replaced the temperature guage and flushed the rad, then took it for a test drive. Still not fixed.
We had to stay the night. Terry recommended a cheap, but clean motel down the road, as she knew we didn?t have a lot of money. To make a long story short, we were there for the whole week. Mr. Terri (can?t remember his name) spent several days trying to get us fixed up, working most of the time on our vehicle and only completing other jobs that were urgent. Finally, he recored the rad, and put some sealant in it (we couldn?t wait to order the parts, nor could we afford them!), and told us that should hold us till we got to FL; just keep water on hand to top it up, and don?t push it too hard.
That was on Friday afternoon. We decided it was best to get back on the road, and drive all night, since we had lost a lot of time. It was time to pay the bill! I was secretly dreading the cost. Terry told us that all they would charge us for was the cost of the new temp guage. They would not listen to any arguments on this, there was no way they were charging us for any labour!!! So, I paid the bill, gave her a big hug, and when I hugged Mr. Terry, I slipped a $50 into his breast pocket and told him to take Terry out to dinner on us.
We went to the diner across the street (which looked exactly like the one in the movie Diner) to have a meal before we started back on the road. As we were eating our supper, one of the workers from the garage came over to get coffee. We said goodbye to her, and told her how much we had enjoyed meeting them all, and how their kindness meant so much to us.
NOW HERE?S THE KICKER!!!
When we went to pay the bill, the diner?s owner said, "It was taken care of by Mr. & Mrs. Terry across the street". They had taken our little gift, and bought our dinner with it!!!
THAT?S WHAT I CALL HOSPITALITY!
All in all, we spent about 6 weeks on the road (yeah, the story gets a little twisted after we arrived in Florida; the new boss turned out to be a drug dealer, and we ended up stranded in Jupiter, dropped at the greyhound station ? but I digress, I?ll shut up for now and save it for another time ? suffice it to say, southern hospitality was the next we experienced).
There really are a lot of good folks. Does anyone else have a good road trip story?
talesin