Sitting in my van in a friends gravel driveway somewhere in Seattle, exhausted, soaked to the bone, and still wearing my rain jacket because the steady drip from the ceiling has evolved into a steady pour. I’ll fix that on a sunny day, I tell myself. I’d spent an entire month working on my engine in a shop in an industrial area of Salem, Oregon, only to be left stranded in Tofino barely a week later. I'm now sitting surrounded by soggy clothes, parts, tools, and mud, trying to swap in a new motor because my latest freshly tuned engine shit the bed.
I try to keep my grease covered hands off the clean stuff but it’s too late. Cursing the forecast which predicts a week of solid rain, I’m painfully reminded that winter in Seattle is either below freezing and not raining or just above freezing and raining. Yesterday I worked in the cold so I could beat the rain, but I was too slow, and have spent all morning laying in puddles of mud as a result.
I cross my fingers and hope the engine I just installed will fire up when that oil filter comes. The oil filter comes but it doesn’t start, of course. I think I’ll just walk to 7-11 and get a coffee and donut and worry about this later...