Had a rough start to our day. We got up early and took our time packing. We took a load to the car. Something felt wrong when we got to the car and it took me a few minutes to realize what. Someone had broken the passenger side front window and broke into the car. There was glass all over the front seat and floor.
Everything inside the car was upside down and tossed around. As far as we can tell now, they took the coins that were in the car, two rolls of quarters, and Jim’s camera case that held three of his all time favorite cameras that he has had for a long time. That one hurts.
Judy quickly got on the phone and found a glass repair guy that could come to the car and replace the window. Thomas brought down a vacuum, broom, dust pan, brush and trash bags. Jim, Thomas and I started picking up glass. It took us about an hour to remove most of the glass. I’m sure we will be finding pieces of it for a long time.
The repair guy showed up about two hours later and very efficiently replaced the window. He charged $300 which felt fair, especially since he came to us. The repair guy had a powerful vacuum and sucked up the rest of the glass.
It was a tough morning, especially after Jim discovered his cameras were missing. The worst part of that is two of them hold more sentimental value than monetary value. The guy will get some cash for one of the cameras and will probably throw the other two away. One of them Jim has had since 1967 and the other one since 1969. One was the first decent camera Jim ever owned. Hard to replace that!
If this had to happen, I’m grateful it happened in a big city with this type of service. It would have been more of a pain if it had happened in a smaller city somewhere else along the way. Judy and Thomas were a huge help. The window repair guy said this happens over 100 times a day in Washington, DC.
I felt so violated afterwards. It took me a bit to fully understand what had happened. This type of thing is so foreign to me.
We finally got on the road around 11:45. We had to skip going to Monticello as planned as we had a timed entry pass at 12:45 and couldn’t make it by then.
Traffic was very heavy all the way to Abingdon, Virginia which is where we are for the night. We saw one crash shortly after it happened and there were lots of road construction slow downs and too many people on the road. Stressful driving to say the least. It took us almost two hours longer than expected to get here due to the heavy traffic.
The highlight of the day was having dinner with a college classmate of Jims. She was a delightful person and we had a fun dinner with her.
Tomorrow morning we drive to Jim’s brothers house and will stay with them for three nights. His family is hosting a lunch for us tomorrow. Hopefully we will have a smoother morning tomorrow than todays was.
It feels good to be tucked into our hotel room for the night. We are both emotionally and physically worn out tonight. We will sleep in a bit tomorrow morning and not rush too much. We have a little over a two hour drive tomorrow. Hoping traffic won’t be so heavy.
Grateful for Judy and Thomas’s help today. Grateful the window was repaired so quickly. And Grateful for another day of safe travels.