Florida Vacation

I recently returned from a family vacation in Florida visiting my parents. Thought I would post some pics here.

The Family At Busch Gardens

At Aquatica in Orlando

Debbie and I in Venice

Keeping It In Fifth

Okay, the last picture needs some explanation. On the drive down, in Ohio, the car (a 1998 Toyota Rav4 with manual transmission) would no longer stay in fifth gear. We completed the journey never going above fourth and moderating our speed a bit to keep the engine from working too hard. In Venice, Florida, we planned on taking it into a transmission place. We decided on Aamco, figuring it was a chain, but upon doing some online research we simply found too many horror stories of people in similar situations having their car held hostage for weeks while it was being repaired. Obviously, this wasn't something we could afford to do.

We ended up calling the local Toyota dealership (Cramer Toyota) who were extremely helpful. They agreed that taking the car into a shop could become a serious mistake. After listening to us describe the situation, he felt we should be able to hold it in fifth. We ended up rigging the bungie in the picture above and not only successfully made our road trips to Tampa and Orlando, but all the way back to Peterborough, Ontario too.

The car is now at Peterborough Transmission (whom we've worked with before and trust). We'll see what the final damage report is soon.

Mike