Day 18 - Altadena, CA

Today, I first called the shop where Angry Bird landed on Saturday to see if they were fitting it in.  They didn't know it was waiting for them, so it was no surprise that the receptionist didn't know anything about it.  The mechanic would call me back.

It took several missed calls and false starts to even find out that they were scared of AB (Angry Bird).  The word "modified" seemed to trigger fear and trembling within the shop.  But, lead mechanic had been in contact with three other shops and while two had refused service, he was hopeful that the third shop would help me out.

After no call back, I finally started looking locally.  The truck was currently a 1 hour drive away, and thus it was not an ideal location, even if they were able to look at it.  I located one shop only a few blocks away that was hopeful, but again, their mechanic had the last say.

Simultaneously, I determined that I needed to find a shop that was not intimidated by modified vehicles.  In car language, that would be a hot rod shop.  Since Danielle from home (boards horses at our place) asked how it was going, I put her superior online sleuthing abilities to the task.

It wasn't long before she found several in this area!  Mike was heading to Home Depot to get more block laying materials (yeah, it is now my day job) so I rode with him to check the place out.  It was called Car Cave.

Aside from their greeter, who introduced himself as Charles Manson, and looked the part, we knew they wouldn't be intimidated by anything.  But I wasn't looking for a place that might be more accustomed to servicing the Hollywood stars!  This was their "garage"

Well, they didn't have room anyway, as they were full of work for the next few months.  These weren't repair jobs.  These were Projects!!

However, Walt, the owner, said they knew of someone who might help us out.  In fact it was the garage that repaired his wife's car as she wouldn't let him work on it!  He and his mechanic, Cory, personally took us over to A & A Tire & Auto Repair about 8 blocks away.  Now this was more my kind of place!

Walt introduced me to the manager there, who was eager to help Walt out with my destitute situation.    Apparently Walt sends him a significant amount of business, and Walt was cashing in some of those chips to help me!  This smaller shop did not have room to receive my truck, so Walt generously offered to allow it to land at Car Cave and together they would figure out how to get it over to A&A.

While the manager essentially gave me the nod, he still wanted me to call the lead A&A mechanic (who wasn't in at the time) to let him know what was coming his way.  But the mechanic was not intimidated and already knew things about the T-bird engine that told me I had been led to the right place!  Just like in Joplin

Interesting to note that A&A is on the original Route 66!  It is all tying together.  AB should land up here about 9 am tomorrow, after which I will know what the next leg of my journey looks like.  In the meantime, I will be laying block with Mike before the heat of the day makes it impossible to work with mortar!  Then the rest of the day we will drink beer to recover.