Luck o' the Irish?
We had a gig lined up for St. Paddy's Day, at the Dark Horse Irish Pub (formerly Griffin Tavern) in Flint Hill. We'd promoted it pretty heavily, had gotten song suggestions to add to our repertoire, and were expecting a good crowd. It was going to be fun!
Unfortunately, Betty the band minivan had developed a new rattle, and I didn't trust her to make the 2-hour drive, so I dropped her off at the neighborhood mechanic on Thursday. It seemed the chances were slim to none that we'd have her back in time on Friday, so we were prepared to squeeze everything into my Honda Fit instead. But as luck would have it, the mechanic called me a few hours before we had to leave and said she was good to go after having an ignition coil replaced.
We packed up the van and headed out on Friday afternoon. The rattle was gone, but after about a half hour, the engine started overheating, somewhere along Route 522 in Louisa County. Yikes. We pulled over and checked the coolant reservoir. There was plenty of coolant in there so that was not the issue.
We drove on a little farther, and she started overheating pretty quickly. From the parking lot of a funeral parlor, I called Enterprise, hoping to get a rental ASAP. It took at least 15-20 minutes of precious travel time to find out we were too far outside of their "we'll pick you up" radius. No go. Crap.
We drove on some more, keeping an eye on the temperature gauge to make sure it didn't get too hot. It was dicey. We stopped at a place that fixes up antique cars. They said they couldn't help us, but that we might be able to rent a U-haul a bit farther up the road in the town of Mineral.
We made it to the little grocery store that doubled as a U-haul rental place. Luckily, they had one cargo van available. I rented it despite the fact that the cost would likely put us in the red on this gig, because it was important to me to fulfill our commitment to the pub as best as we could. Between the various stops and the slowness of the rental process and the need to transfer all our gear from one van to another, at this point we knew we were going to be an hour late starting the show. While Dacey drove, I called the pub to let them know the situation.
So we rolled up to the pub a few minutes before 6 pm, which was when we were actually supposed to start playing. By the time we had loaded everything in and set up, it was about quarter to 7. But the crowd was welcoming, forgiving, and enthusiastic. We started off with "Galway Girl", and sang it again later in the night on request. We peppered our sets with some other Irish/-ish tunes and got the crowd to sing along on "Wild Rover", "Tell Me Ma", and "Whiskey in the Jar". There was some dancing, and lots of positive feedback. Great fun!
Tips were generous, and turned out to be enough to cover the van rental and then some. Thank you Dark Horse patrons!! On top of that, our new friend L. provided a spacious, well-appointed suite for us to stay the night, along with coffee and muffins in the morning. Thank you so much for the hospitality, L.!
Saturday, after chatting with L. and meeting her exuberant dogs, followed by a little walk on a local rail-trail, we drove back to Mineral to return the U-haul. We were thinking about trying to limp back to Richmond with multiple breaks to let the engine cool, but managed to find a mechanic (Grant's Garage) who would look at our vehicle that afternoon. He did NOT recommend driving it all the way back to Richmond, but said he could fix it the next morning (yes, a Sunday, bless him).
There weren't many lodging options in the area, but we managed to book a room at the Boxley Place Inn (a pretty fancy B & B) in Louisa for the night. The mechanic's son drove us there so the van could stay on their lot and be ready to get worked on first thing the next morning. Our room at the Boxley was great, with one exception: we had to share a hall bathroom with other guests. A little awkward, but okay.
Louisa is a sleepy, sleepy town, but there was a good restaurant, Obrigado, within a short walking distance of the inn, and we had an excellent dinner and bottle of wine there. At this point the financial hole was so deep we might as well keep digging.
We got a call from Grant the mechanic a little before noon today, saying the van was ready. His son came to pick us up. After paying the bill and chatting a bit with Grant, we were back on the road, smooth sailing.
On the way home we spontaneously made a short detour to Grayhaven Winery for a tasting. The folks pouring the wine were quite entertaining, and the cheese board was delicious. It was a good way to end a wacky weekend.
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