brake time.

Since my parents were coming down here anyway to help me move my stuff, they decided to hang out for a few days and do some sight seeing. This was nice because I got to spend a few more days with my parents, plus I got to see some stuff that I don't know that I would do otherwise.

On Friday, we went to the Belle Meade Plantation, which is where the famous horse Bonnie Scotland was raised. We got to tour the house, which was really cool to see, and the "outer houses" which included the mausoleum, the servant's quarters, the dairy, and the original log cabin that the family started the plantation from. I don't like to sit around and read about history, but I love to go out and experience it, so even though it was humid as all get out, I had a really nice time.

Also, there was a winery and a wine tasting, and I bought a bottle of blackberry wine.

After the plantation, we went to dinner at the Cracker Barrel. I drove all of us over, because even though it was right in the parking lot, it was raining pretty hard at that point and none of us really wanted to be wet. Dinner was good, and we walked around a little to see what kind of fun things were in the store. After all of that, it had stopped raining so my parents decided to walk back to their hotel, and I was getting in my car to come back home so that I could continue to put my stuff away. HOWEVER, I started my car and when I pressed the brake to put the car into gear, the brake pedal went all the way to the floor, and I heard a pop. I knew that this was a bad sign, so I threw it back into park and looked around for my parents, but they were out of sight already.

I made the (probably stupid) choice to put it back into reverse and drive as slowly as I could over to my parents' hotel room because I wasn't sure what exactly the problem was, only that my brakes were not right. I got back to their room and knocked on their door, but no one answered. I surmised that I had beat them back over, and walked around the opposite way that I had driven in to find them, which I did. I told them what happened, and after checking a few things, the brake fluid was noticeably spouting out of the brake line in the back, and it became evident that the brake line had split.

After a few phone calls, a tow truck was on its way to come and take my car away. I wasn't really upset about any of it, because I knew that things could have been a heck of a lot worse. I had spent the previous two days driving a loaded car through the mountains, and some portions of the trip were through torrential downpours. Had my brakes decided to give out during any of that, I would have definitely smashed my car up, and likely been severely injured or even killed. Even if they had failed just driving around Nashville, it still could have done some damage. I was just thankful that I wasn't hurt and that I was able to get things taken care of.

One day and 472 dollars later, I got my car back. It had a lot of other issues with the brakes that either were fixed or need to be addressed soon, and it was recommended that I replace the front axle. I will attend to these things once I have a job and have income coming in. For now, though, I am glad to be alive and have my car back mostly working.