When I found out of my dad's passing, we loaded up our Jaguar XJ and began our road trip to Wisconsin. We were going to fly, but last minute plane tickets for three people and an infant was astronomical. The air suspension in the Jaguar started acting up once we were in Kansas in 20 degree weather. Our desert car just can't handle the cold. We had to stop our trip early in Iowa because the suspension to the car was completely jacked up. It was awful and I didn't think we'd make it to my dad's funeral in time. We were three hours from my hometown. My best friend loaded up her SUV with her two kid's and drove out to Iowa to pick the four of us up. At this point, we had been up since 5am the previous day. We were all exhausted.
We didn't get much time to stay in town because we had to get back to Iowa and drop the car off at a dealership on Saturday afternoon. My dad's funeral was on Friday. My dad's Lincoln LS was at the dealership getting routine work done, so we went to pay for the work and take it to Iowa. We got back to Iowa Saturday afternoon and had the Jaguar dropped off to look at. We didn't find anything out until Monday because the dealership was closed on Sunday. When we found out the dealership (Ford) was too afraid to work on the Jaguar, we loaded up the Lincoln and started our trip back to Las Vegas. We just didn't have the time to sit around in Iowa to look for another place to work on the car. We were already behind schedule because we had planned to drive back to Las Vegas on Sunday morning had there been no suspension issues.
Honestly, the dealership just didn't know what exactly was wrong with the car and didn't want to guess which parts to order if they weren't going to be the right ones. If that makes sense. So Heath ordered the suspension kit to put standard suspension in the Jaguar instead of air suspension. The dealership said they got the parts today, so once the car is done, Heath will fly out to Iowa in a couple of weeks to pick it up and drive it back to Las Vegas.
At this point, flying back last minute would have been cheaper. Living in the desert, you get spoiled by your well-behaved cars that can handle regular temperatures and not cold, frigid air. While Heath's Jaguar was sitting in Iowa, he's been driving my old Jaguar everywhere and I've been using my dad's Lincoln.
We planned on purchasing the Lincoln from my mom and selling my Jaguar once we got the other one back from Iowa. However, my mom told me this morning that she was just going to give me the Lincoln since my sister wanted my dad's pickup truck. It was really weird as I've never had a car given to me. My mom said she wanted my sister & I to have something to hold onto the memory of our dad. No one ever drove that Lincoln much anyway. My dad was a truck driver and wasn't home most of the time to use it and my mom was afraid to drive it in the winter because it's RWD. So whenever I was back visiting my parent's, my dad always let me take the LS. He always said it was "my car" anyway. He said it got driven a lot whenever I was in town, which was never really that often. It's a 2004 Lincoln LS Sport with 51,000 miles on it. So yeah, rarely driven. Now it can retire in the desert climate and be driven every day.
Life is still hectic. It's hard losing a parent. Especially as suddenly as I lost my dad. It was totally unexpected and not something I was ready to deal with. I'll probably use this blog to vent and get things off my chest whenever I need to. It is my blog after all.
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