What is that WHITE STUFF and why is it on our RENTAL car?

After arriving in Indiana, this past Saturday we went out in the morning and were greeted to this light coating on our car.  Not that it is surprising at this time of the year, but after having spent a very warm month in Florida it was a rude awakening.

And the rental car, well that is a long story.  It seems Gary lost track of when the Boone family Christmas would be held.  He was thinking Sunday even though he had been told it would be on Saturday.  In his defense, it was all discussed during Andy’s wedding and that may have been a time when he was thinking about quite a few other things.  So instead of three driving days of about 400 miles each, the trip north had to be changed to one of 400 the first day and 800 the second (our first day was already locked in and couldn’t be changed).  And from the very beginning the noise from the rear end of the car seemed a little louder than usual, but we wrote that off to the fact that the cheaper set of tires had been rotated to the back just before we left.  But when the hum kept becoming a little louder, it seemed there might be another explanation.  For awhile, an exhaust system leak seemed like a potential answer, but that wasn’t it either.  In Kentucky, the hum became a bit more like a roar, but you couldn’t hear it at low speeds, only at road speed.   We risked it for awhile and finally made the decision that if we could get to Indianapolis we would drop the car at a dealership and proceed on in a rental car.  We were able to get that far and carry out that plan, transferring almost everything with us from car to car, including the cat, who proceeded to escape into the parking lot for awhile during the process.  A day of driving that started with us getting up at 5:30 AM finally arrived with us arriving at our motel at 11:30 PM.

The car was repaired on Saturday.  It was a rear wheel bearing going bad.  And after our gathering, we returned back to Indianapolis and picked it up and turned in the rental car.