Bad blogger, Kate! Bad blogger!!

It's true - I have been remiss in keeping you updated as the car progresses, but I will do my best to update this nightly as we are on the rally!  Well, as long as the hotels we're staying in have free wireless.  I honestly have no idea whatsoever to expect from the hotels along the route.  I just hope they're not like the motel we had to stop at on our way back from Canada... the one with Griffins overlooking our beds... 

My apologies if you have been keeping up with Ben on Facebook.  A lot of this information is plundered from there, if for no other reason than that it contains a lot of car-speak, and... well... it's a convenient source of the information necessary to update on the progress of the car!

First of all, it's looking like the "Firelark" logo on the hood is a no-go.  We were going to enlist the help of our friend and neighbor, Jeff, to do the artwork (he's a lot handier with a paint brush than I am), but we seem to have run out of time.  What?  Either of us do something at the last minute?  Never........  anyway...  the firelark, sadly, is a no-go, but we do have vinyl decals coming our way!  We will emblazon our chariot (Charlot?  I wish, Matt.  Ben said we needed a manlier name than that.  As of now, the car is yet unnamed, but since I just said "manlier", maybe we can name it after my great-grandfather and call it "Manley".  Yes, my great-grandfather was named Manley Bates.  He had a twin sister named Mabel.  Manley and Mabel.  This little tidbit of Kate's history brought to you by her short attention span and her love of telling stories about her family.  Let's get back to the car.).  Wow, I left that sentence a while ago... we will emblazon our chariot with our team number (05 this year - Ben graciously left the number 01 to Krikor), driver names and flags of their country of origin (We went with all American flags.  Though less of a nod to familial histories, our team is called "Spirit of '76"...), the baberally.com logo, and, of course, our team name!  Ben has also fashioned some awesome cushions for the MOAB (Mother of All Baskets) that will be ratchet-strapped to the roof of the car, and we will be collecting stickers left and right, to make the decoration of the Buick an ongoing process.

To date, Ben has fixed/done the following: 

Replaced the broken leaf spring 
Installed air shocks in the back
Replaced the front brake pads (see, Mom?  It's safe!)
Changed out the dry-rotted tires for some new-to-us tires on some pretty killer wheels.  If you look at them the right way (read: if your eyes are as bad as mine), it looks like they have stars in the center!
Made an exhaust system where once there was just a rusted-off pipe
Replaced the front shocks

Replaced the front sway bar bushings

Fixed (replaced) busted hoses
Fixed the cracked winshield wiper fluid reservoir
Performed two oil changes (long story)

The car is currently up at Luke's buddy Kevin's shop, getting inspected as we speak!!  Ben made sure to double-check everything he was doing with the Pennsylvania inspection regulations, so we should be good to go!

For the record, we both still want this:

A lot.