Glad to be back....23:45 May 29 2009
Times Read: 617
Never thought I would say that but it is true... I know I am back a week early... I have actually been trying to get home since Monday!
(Oh I was trying to get to a bunch national parks in Utah (The Arches, Canyonlands, Coral Reef NP, Zion NP and a couple others), the Mojave desert in California, a couple other places in California, then Organ Pipe National Monument in Arizona, and then Carlsbad, New Mexico to do some caving....)
Day 1 - Driving merrily on I-80. Car breaks down 1 time, but starts up again, no biggie... Drive about 640 miles west to Kearny, Nebraska (We always stop there on the first day... They have a really good steak buffet called U.S.A. Steak Buffet. We never went there on a Friday, but man, did they have tons of food. Course I only get the Mac & Cheese and steak fries oh and a salad... They had steak, chicken, ribs, shrimp, clam strips, pork tenderloin, and a million other things, but thats the main meal stuff I believe they had tacos and a million vegetables and potatoes too)
Day 2 - Continues driving, check out the wolf sanctuary where I get to pet the wolves, so I know where it will be on Day 3. Car breaks down and check engine light comes on... Stop at an Auto Zone. Stupid me, turns off ignition goes into the store and gets someone to do the testing (it's free). Turn the car back on, no check engine light... He tries to do a HISTORY and nothing comes up. Oh yeah its been raining all day too...
Day 3 - Get to pet the wolves and feed the wolves... I got pictures... It was awesome. Had a great day and sooooooo much fun! I am indebted to HunterAja for telling me about this place... I got to pet and feed an Arctic wolf and a Grey wolf... Again I say it was the best. The Arctic wolf kept licking my face hehe
Car did NOT break down.
Day 4 - Car breaks down 2 or 3 times. It is Memorial Day all the mechanics are closed. Stop over at a Super 8. Excellent room, they just had a grand opening on Thursday, so everything was nice and clean... Go to Walmart (think this was like the 3rd time we went to Walmart). I was asking this girl something and she didn't know, and then blaming it on her bad day. I told her I can probably meet her bad day and raise it with a terrible day. We got to talking and her dad is a 'mechanic' (basically as a hobby). So he stopped by and was stumped cause of course it would start no problem. It was only 11 in the friggen morning, so we wasted the whole day.
Day 5 - We got to the mechanic at 8 am. The receptionist drives us back to the motel. Around 12 I call, because check out time was 11 and the girl was trying to give us a break but we didnt want her to get into trouble... (She was super nice). The mechanic was at lunch. I called again around 1:15 and they couldn't find anything. Drove it 60 miles and nothing happened. So of course we got charged like 144.00 for them to find nothing... So we continue on... Driving until maybe 11:00 I don't remember...
Day 6 - Wake up at 5:30 didn't shower or anything, just ran back to the car and tried to go as far as we could... Car breaks down around somewhere in Eastern Colorado I think. This time we call 911 cause I had no idea what the non emergency number was. The dispatcher said someone would be out as soon as they can. We almost got clipped on the shoulder several times. Not only that, several state troopers just passed us by without slowing down, so **** em all.
(I think I am getting some of this confused with days but its been a rough week)
I try to get the car started cause it's taking longer and longer to get the car started and shorter times to break down. It finally starts so we keep driving. Car goes dead again... This time I can't start the engine and a nice state trooper in Nebraska stops and asks whats going on (They are always so cautious... Makes me feel like I am a criminal or something). He calls a tow truck and we get towed to Ogallala, Nebraska. We get towed and this time the guy says oh it's the chip in the key has gone bad. So we use the spare key. At least he didn't charge us anything. So we go down the road about 30-40 miles maybe and the car dies again. It won't start again and another state trooper comes by and gives us a card to call if we can't get the car started in about 20 minutes. The car starts in about that time and we go not even a couple miles and it happens again. Call the dispatcher and they give me another tow company so I call them (you know I usually hate cell phones, but I will admit on this trip they came in handy) and the guy comes out. It starts but this time he said he would follow until it dies again. About a mile down the road the car dies. He tries to see what it could be; nothing. He brings us to another mechanic in Hershey, Nebraska. We were there for hours. The car finally died for them, but it started right up so there were no codes that came up. We were there for hours. They couldn't find anything. Luckily the guy only charged up 39.00. That was so nice of him. At this point I was getting really tired, because this was killing my vacation days from work. I called Penske truck rentals to see how much they would charge for a truck with a tow dolly... Holy crap 700.00 for the truck and 300.00 for the tow dolley... Then I called U-haul, they charged 700.00 for the truck and 82.00 for the dolly. That was still expensive but we were almost 800 miles from home and if kept getting stranded and towed and had to go to the mechanic it would have come out a lot more expensive. So I drove the U-haul....
Day 7 - Continued driving the U-Haul straight from Hershey, Nebraska to home... It is odd seeing the sunset and the sunrise. We get home around 10:00am. I drove straight for 18 hours. I get home and I am so beyond tired I am awake and it took about 30-45 minutes to get to sleep. Oh and by the way the car is completely dead because every 2 minutes the car alarms were going off so I kept the key in the ignition turned to ACC so the alarm didn't go on, but of course it drained the battery. I am way beyond stressed cause I was so tensed up driving that stupid truck. I felt like I was driving a semi! My shoulders and my head and my right knee are killing me!! Anyway, I sleep from 11:00 AM Thursday, to 6 PM then back to sleep...
Day 8 - Until around 3:30 AM. Since there was nothing really to do, and I was afraid of getting up due to something else going wrong, I stayed in bed until my mom got me up at 10:00 AM. Car is still dead. I try getting the straps off the wheels so I can take the car off the U-Haul tow dolly. I couldn't get the left one off for anything. Call U-Haul. They send someone out here and of course he gets it off in 5 minutes. I tried for over an hour. Oh, the alarm is going off non-stop because I used one of those cigarette chargers and it just charged enough to get the alarm going, but I couldn't shut it off. The nice man reset the alarm by undoing the battery bolt. So because the alarm button won't work, I have to reset the stupid thing under the hood every time I want to shut off the annoying alarm because of going into the car for something... All my clothes from the trip are still in there :( (We bought the car when we lived in Chicago after having someone steel our previous car, so we needed lot's of protection). We have an appointment for Monday for them to take the wires out so we don't have to deal with it. Just hope the car will make it there...
Got my doggy back and my iguana back, so the only real reminder of this trip from HELL is the U-Haul truck sitting in the driveway (and the headache and skyrocketed stress level).
Oh and I haven't eaten in 48 hours so I am going to go to McDonald's and eat one of everything :D lol... cya laterz
I know I forgot things, and I will edit this as I remember them. I hope you enjoyed the read... lol...
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