Buffalo to Seattle: Day Five

A funny thing happened when I walked out of my hotel room this morning. There was the H1, just where I had parked it the night before. So far so good. But what was this huge… black… puddle? It looked suspiciously like a quart or two of motor oil. Ugh. So I checked the dipstick, and there was no oil on it whatsoever. Double ugh. And, upon closer inspection, a good deal of the left side of the car was covered in a thin film of oil. Damn.

But you know what’s amazing? By sheer dumb luck, there is a Chevy dealership and service department across the street from the hotel I stayed at. The H1 has a GM diesel motor, so that’s the perfect place to take it. I walked over and explained my sad story. They were super helpful and a couple of their guys used their truck to tow the thing over to their service area.

Then it was just one of those “waiting to hear” days; I didn’t want to do anything crazy like getting on a train, in case it was something minor and easily fixed. So I spent the day walking around town. There’s not a lot to report. There are a *lot* of Ukrainians here, there’s a Walmart, the train station is pretty (and it has turrets), and there’s an attractive Orthodox church (presumably to serve the large Ukranian population). Other than that there’s a park and… some stores. No movie theater (it’s not that big of a town), and it’s too early for any winter sports.

In mid-afternoon, the service guys found the problem: a cracked oil cooler. I’ll learn tomorrow whether it can be bypassed with a hose (the H1 doesn’t really need an oil cooler for basic mild-weather highway duty). The alternative is having a replacement part shipped in next day, which means it would probably get here Wednesday. I am really, really hoping that’s not necessary. Dauphin is a fine town and all, but it’s not a three day destination. The dealer did give me a loaner car, and there’s a national park about 20 miles away. So that’s the plan for tomorrow.

Ordinarily this kind of thing would be a real bummer. But seeing as how it happened in the first town of reasonable size that I’ve stopped in, it feels almost like good luck. Having a Chevy service department right across the street, when I’ve spend the past four days hundreds of miles from the closest one? It’s enough to make an expensive and frustrating day feel like a blessing.