I took a trip to Elgin -- outside of Chicago - this past weekend and just 
returned yesterday evening.  The van started bucking a little about 70 
miles out, and I told my wife not to worry.  After a while it stopped.  I 
never did figure that one out and it never did it again.  When I got to 
Elgin, I started hearing the brake noises that my wife had described to 
me that I had never heard.  They were pretty awful, so instead of 
chancing it, I brought it in.  They replace the rear pads, turned the 
drums :-( and replaced leaking cylinders.  $182.  I thought that was ok 
considering I didn't really have much of a choice.  I'm not happy because 
the emergency brake is now REAL loose and it looks like they never 
touched the adjusting nut on the equalizer bar (can't remember what 
that's called)  Would anyone know what might cause that if nothing else 
changed?  I also think they didn't bleed it adequately, but, what the 
heck -- something for me to do, right?

Other factoids, it was about 370 miles each way and we averaged 24 mpg.  
[GNATT context] On the return trip, we attempted to take the river route back
from Dubuqe up -- hoping to stop into the Linear bike shop.  We found
something fun -- a ferry! :-) Unfortunately, it was closed for the season :-(
Fortunately for GNATT, it's opening tomorrow and will be open for the summer.
:-) It's just an idea, but I thought it would be fun to get all the buses
that end up there to take the ferry across the Mississippi.  It's not a very
big boat, but it looked like it would take 6-9 vehicles.  I talked to the
pilot, and he said it was about a 15 minute ride and cost $6 per vehicle. 

Well, it's nice to be back.  

--
Gerry
Gerald Skerbitz <gsker@med.umn.edu> U of MN Med School Admin 6-5379