We are at T minus one week before we head out on the Great Migration of 2022. Jake has been repairing and replacing parts of the camper tirelessly for the last several weeks. Sewer lines, roof leak, new storage and drawers, a new table… I have been working around the clock to get as much work-work done as possible to clear my to-do list. The closer we get, the more excited – and stressed – we get. Mostly excited, but our lists are a mile long and I’m pretty confident that we’ll forget something big. Or something will go wrong, break, or we’ll get sick…

Over the weekend Phineas’ electric bike stopped working. No warning. He rode to the park in our neighborhood, listened to music for a while on the swings, and then decided to head home. The power button did nothing; the screen didn’t even turn on. He called Jake for a pickup and no amount of troubleshooting could get that bike to start. It was Saturday and Monday was Memorial Day. We had to wait until Tuesday to reach Lectric Bikes to even open a support ticket. To put this in context, while not the end of the world, Phineas’ electric bike is his second most prized possession, behind only his magic cards. The freedom and independence that his bike provides is huge. If he’s bored, or anxious, or just wanting to explore, he can zoom away.

Looking at the calendar and realizing the short number of business days between then and our departure, I began to panic a little. I scoped out the (very few) new electric bikes I could get on Amazon that MAY be able to be delivered before we leave. The couple of bikes I would actually want to buy only sell directly from their website and have a 10-14 business day shipping window. I started calling them to see if I could arrange shipping to a FedEx holding location somewhere along our route. In short, I went down the rabbit hole. Jake was finally able to reach the company late on Tuesday and they have already shipped out a part that maybe, hopefully, will hopefully fix his current bike. Fingers crossed…

Update: we received the part and it fixed the problem. We have a working bike!