(written on the 29th from notes taken previously)
Well, it was decision time this morning. I woke up relatively early, as per usual lately, and called my mom not too long after getting up to chat with her about my thoughts.
To go to Utah… or not to go.
That was the question. 🙃
I was leaning toward canceling the MRIs and just heading up North South Dakota and trying to discipline myself to do the physical therapy exercises, giving them at least a couple of months to see what kind of an effect they might have on my symptoms.
I had to pause our conversation with an urgent need to use the baño, but after resuming the conversation and chatting with my mom for a little bit, her perspective reinforced my own, so I decided to cancel my MRIs and head straight back to South Dakota.
Maybe 45 minutes north of Fort Collins, I saw a broken down Kia on the side of the freeway, so I pulled over to see what I could do to help. There was a lady, probably late 20s early 30s with a couple of kids in the backseat, and I chatted with her a little bit about what had happened.
I grabbed my scanner and scanned the vehicle, and then I had her try and start it, and it made an awful racket.
It was the 2.4 engine.
Supposedly, they had fixed the problems with those engines at least a few years before her 2020, but it had the same issue.
Blown engine.
😞
Please don’t buy Kias or Hyundais… or at least not any with the 2.4 engine.
I think she only had 88,000 miles on it, but because she bought the vehicle used, the 100,000 mile warranty doesn’t transfer to her, so she’s stuck holding the bag, so to speak.
Crappy.
I didn’t enjoy being the bearer of really bad news. 😕 The poor lady was on her way to… I think far north Wyoming or South Dakota to spend some time with some friends (who were traveling with her and showed up in another vehicle or two while I was looking at her car).
I tried to comfort her a bit, giving her a little side hug and suggesting that even though they were likely not going to honor the 100,000 mile warranty, that the worst they could do is tell her no if she tried to get the engine replaced under warranty.
I also encouraged her to just have the vehicle towed to the nearby dealer where she bought it from and continue on her trip. The issue with the car was going to be whatever it was going to be, and I felt like perhaps now even more than before, taking the time to relax a bit with friends would be good for her.
She fought back tears and thanked me for my efforts, and I left them with one of them calling AAA to have the vehicle towed. They asked if they could risk driving it, but for her to have any chance whatsoever of them covering the blown engine, they couldn’t risk driving it further, as the engine might throw a rod, leak all the oil out, and then they’d have no way to prove that they didn’t just drive it without oil.
Tough day for the lady.
From there, I drove to Cheyenne, hoping to get to church in time for the sacrament. Unfortunately, I missed the sacrament with the first congregation, so I decided to stick around to partake with the second.
That first congregation was probably the friendliest congregation I’ve ever been to in my entire life. I was sitting in the back, and several people came up to me to welcome me and find out who I was, including the bishop and the missionaries.
Wonderful people. Excellent examples. 😊
After sticking around and partaking of the sacrament with the second congregation, I decided to head toward Lusk. Normally, I would have gone up through Chadron in Nebraska, but there was a triplex up for sale in Lusk for a super cheap price.
I also went online and found a picture of the floor plan of the condo that my buddy’s dad used to own in Florida before he passed away. I’ve thought for a good while now that I would want to do a similar layout if I were to build a small home for myself.
There’s a little bit that I would improve with the layout, if I could figure out how, but at 321
Of course, Lusk is a town that is shrinking, so real estate prices aren’t likely to go up at all, and might possibly even go down 🙃, but it is a county seat, and a prison town, so unless they decide to relocate the county seat or change the location of the women’s prison, there will be plenty of jobs to keep people in the area.
Probably not a very large chance that I buy the place, but since I drive through Lusk every time I go to Casper, it’s a little more interesting to me than other places might be, and it is a place that would cash flow pretty much immediately.
If I did go for it, I would try to do it for almost nothing down, though, and just deal with the PMI.
I don’t like the thought of having my money tied up somewhere. 🙃
Currently, two of the three units are rented, and the largest unit would likely easily be rentable. The buyers were hoping to sell it before they had to get new renters.
I was basically just doing a drive-by, not contacting anyone or meeting up with anyone. I just wanted to see if this place was a straight-up junker or if it might be halfway decent, and by the looks of it, it’s actually halfway decent.
I think something like half of the people who live in Lusk rent.
Data points. Interesting. Don’t really know much more than that about it.
I stopped off at Cascade Falls on the way back, just cause. 😊
And from there, I headed back to the ranch. 😊
Zora greeted me happily, and I wandered around with Heather and Hans walking the horses up the road and back.
As I was walking back, I saw neighbor Darrin, so I walked over to say hello and chatted with him for a little bit as he showed me the updates on his house.
Good stuff. Good guy.
Had a lovely dinner and gospel conversation with Heather and Hans before falling over and crashing for the night.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 