Okay, my car stuff is all up to date. My experience with the Maryland State Police was less than ideal. First, I was waiting out there for a long time, so I finally called back. Sure enough, the first dispatcher I had spoke with was rushed and hadn’t taken information she was supposed to - like my phone number. The second dispatcher confirmed that someone had gone out looking for me but hadn’t driven down I-270 far enough, so they had turned back. When he finally got there, he was able to yank the part off the car (turns out it is called the “lower air deflector”) and he also asked to see my license. He brought it back to his vehicle and ran it - this was before he messed with my car, so I assume it’s standard procedure - and when he came back to me he asked if that was my car. I told him no, it’s my spouse’s, and he asked to see the registration. I pulled it out and he said “whose car did you say this was?” I said “well, my partner’s.” He got it after that, and said “oh, like your girlfriend’s, your wife’s.” He pointed to the address on the registration and said “you live here?” (He had already handed me back my license.) I said I did, and he thanked me and I was on my way again.

I drove straight to Saturn in Fairfax, where I was told they couldn’t do anything for me today. I thought I was going to have to take tomorrow off to get it fixed, but it turned out we could borrow my in-laws’ car so that was okay. But the guy at Saturn was utterly useless - he was totally non-committal when I asked about whether or not I needed to get this fixed right away. So I was planning to drop it back off tonight, but thanks to comments and e-mails from missakins, kg4yef, and others I was able to determine that this really isn’t particularly vital. I called Saturn and got to speak to the other guy in the service department, who confirmed that it wasn’t really necessary to fix that part at this time of year. It pulls air up into the radiator to help keep the engine temperature down, so I will need to get it fixed by next summer, but he said the chances of anything happening now are slim. Whew!

I took the car to Jiffy Lube for its regular service (this was on my schedule for today all along), and I asked the guy about the air deflector. He said it was basically just a piece of plastic and not essential at all. So I’m feeling much better…at least I don’t have to get this fixed tomorrow. I asked the Jiffy Lube guy if I would be okay on road trips between now and when I get the air deflector fixed, and he said that as long as I wasn’t planning to drive over 200mph (!) I would be fine.

Could my life suck any more right now? I just had a very nice breakfast with tikva and I was on my way to meet up for lunch when suddenly the car started dragging something on the ground. Turns out to have been the front flap thing. I bumped the curb when I was parking in Rockville and I guess that made it come of. Now my lunch plans are fucked and I am waiting at the side of the road on I-270S for the Maryland State Police to send motorist assistance. I’m cold because it’s breezy here on the interstate and I didn’t bring a jacket because obviously I wasn’t expecting to be out here. I hope they come soon. I am really disappointed about missing lunch and about having to pay to get the flap fixed. But first I have to get it the rest of the way off so I can drive to the Saturn place in Fairfax. This totally sucks.

Pamukkale

We went to Aphrodesius in the morning with about two-thirds of the group. On the way we encountered traffic police in the middle of the road pulling everyone over - there were two or three other vehicles on the shoulder. Apparently a bus this size is equipped with a speed recorder that keeps track of how fast you’ve gone at points throughout your trip, so they can give you a speeding ticket for three hours ago even though they weren’t there. Our speed recorder took a long time to print its report, and when it finished they decided it wasn’t working properly, so they were going to give us a ticket. Our driver offered them a bribe instead, which they accepted - this is apparently the way things normally work. The entire purpose of the stop was to collect the bribe - they’ll pull you over for no reason, and find some reason to give you a ticket. You’re expected to bribe them, but it’s okay if you don’t - they’ll just give you the ticket. So he paid them (we don’t know how much) and we got back on the road to Aphrodesius. It was pretty much the same as all the other ruins we’ve seen, with the exception of the stadium. It was used for races and is at least twice the size of the 25,000-seat theater at Ephesus. The other unique thing about the Aphrodisius site is that it also contains the gravesite of Professor Kenan T. Erim, who led the entire excavation and renovation process from the 1960s until his death in 1990. He’s probably the only person buried on an archeological site anywhere in the world - it’s really unusual, I’ve never heard of that kind of thing before. Lunch was a lot of fun. There was enteratainment provided by a guitarist (it wasn’t really a guitar, but I don’t know what local instrument it is) and a beautifully colored parrot named Tango. The parrot sang and danced, and collected the tips - he stood on the edge of a tall drum, and if you handed him a bill folded in half (unfolded he couldn’t wield it, and folded more than once it was too big for his beak) he’d drop it into the drum, sometimes waving it about before getting it in. I got to hold him for several minutes, and he bounced up and down on my finger. We also ate with farm animals - the table was right next to the wall and I was on the end, but two kids (goats, not people) and a lamb managed to cram themselves between the table and the wall and fell asleep on top of each other. I was playing with the bird while my girlfriend was paying the bill so I don’t know if lunch was reasonably priced, but the food was good and I had a lot of fun. my girlfriend agreed this was probably the best place we’ve been for lunch the whole trip. We only had half an hour at the hotel before leaving again for the calcium deposits of Pamukkale. There wasn’t much to see; we took off our shoes and walked on the calcium a bit. All the walking by tourists isn’t good for the deposits, so they block off most of it and try to apply rules to the rest - but nobody pays any attention, and the area’s not supervised. I wrote some more postcards back at the hotel, and after dinner we went to the pool again. I needed to wash my hair, so we planned to take a shower - but it turned out that the knob you pull up to switch to shower was stuck, so I ended up taking a bath instead.