Adventures in the Stroudmobile

Our van.  It's a 1987 Ford F-350 15 passenger clubwagon.  The speedometer doesn't work.  There's a leak somewhere in the power steering so that doesn't work.  It's thinking of rusting through in some spots, there are more cracks in the windshield than I like to count, and it doesn't idle well.  Sometimes it cuts off when you come up to a stop sign.  This means we've gotten used to putting it in park while revving the engine to keep it going.  It's basically an adventure and an upper body workout just driving this thing!  But you know, it runs and the heat works pretty well.  With the onset of winter weather, however, it's become a little bit more of an adventure.  It snows in our van... like a measurable amount.  Ian has decided it's because some of the doors don't have rubber gaskets.  I'm still flummoxed how that much snow can get through a seemingly shut door even without rubber gaskets!  The biggest adventure, though, came the other day while I was driving to the post office.  Barrow is a windy place and it has really been howling lately.  Makes 20 degrees seem a lot colder!  I had turned on Eben Hopson St., one of the more major roads in Barrow, and was cruising by Tasigarook Lagoon when a gust of wind unhooked the hood of the van and flipped it up covering the entire windshield.  I let out an involuntary, low scream right before I tried to see out my passenger window how close to the edge of the road next to the lagoon I was.  Being so high up and the window a little dirty and so far away, I really couldn't tell.  So I just slowly came to a stop as best I could on a road of ice.  I discovered I don't know where the emergency lights are... probably need to know that with this thing! I checked my rear view window, put the van in park and got out and fixed the hood in the middle of the street, cars passing me on the right (apparently I wasn't as close to the side of the road as I hoped.)  The kind of funny thing is nobody honked or even seemed to act like this was anywhere out of the ordinary.  Only in Barrow.