She's Gone :(

This has been a difficult weekend. We took Sarah up to college and dropped her off. We left Saturday morning with Lisa and Sarah going in the van and I followed in the old Camry that we bought for Sarah. After checking with the Toyota dealer and our favorite mechanic (Midland Auto) we decided that $1,000 might fix the more serious problems with our existing Camry or it might not. For $1,500 we could buy another old (1993) Camry where we know that the A/C and the windows work. Unfortunately there were a couple of other issues that we couldn't see.

Somewhere around San Bernardino we stopped for a potty break and Sarah hopped in the Camry with me. No sooner were we back on the road when we started up the long climb up the mountain. With Lisa going 80mph, the A/C fighting the 90° heat and the steep climb I noticed the temperature on the gauge starting to climb. That was only the beginning of a long hot trip to Utah. I stopped once and saw that the overflow tank was still full so I just assumed that I needed to lighten the load on the engine but even driving 40mph with the A/C off and the heater on full blast it still overheated. I had Lisa stop and wait for me and I send Sarah on ahead with her mother and I suffered alone.

I finally gave up and stopped on the side of the freeway to let the engine cool down and that is when I noticed that I had no coolant. I had flushed the radiator, replaced the hoses and put new coolant in the engine just before I left so I knew that stuff was all good but here I was in the middle of nowhere with an overheated engine. I dumped my drinking water in the engine and looking around I noticed that there was a small dump of a store on the other side of the freeway. I'd parked under an overpass and this must have been the only store for 50 miles.

I climbed up onto the over pass, crossed the freeway and walked the quarter mile to the store hoping to fill my water bottles but the jerk in the store wouldn't let me into the bathroom unless I bought something. Boy was I mad but he had me over a barrel (which he knew) so I bought a gallon jug of water and off I went. So that is how it went for the next seventeen hours. Sometimes I could drive ten miles before I had to refill my radiator and sometimes I could drive further. My record was 200 miles. At no time was I able to drive faster than 60 and usually I had to have my heater on full blast. Can you imagine driving though Nevada with the temperature over a hundred and the car heater on full blast? I drank nearly as much water as my car did. At one point I actually stopped at a mechanic on the side of the freeway to have himm look at the car. He was rather rude, was going to charge $100 just to look at it and I had to wait half an hour before he would even look at it. I decided to take my chances and I headed on out.

You'd think it would get better as the sun went down but the problem actually seemed to get worse as time went on. Thankfully Lisa and Sarah got there at a reasonable time and got most of the stuff out of the van loaded into her apartment.

Sunday Alycia and Trevor drove down to Provo to show us their new apartment. They think they've died and gone to heaven. The apartment they live in now is not much bigger than a closet and they just signed a lease on an apartment for a two bedroom apartment with a huge kitchen and nice large living room. I think they're going to really enjoy it. Sunday Sarah went to her new ward and we went with the Sanchez's.

Naively I thought that Monday morning we could unload everything into Sarah’s apartment, send her off to class and then head back home. By the time we fixed the Camry, got it registered in Utah, bought Sarah a year’s supply worth of groceries and everything else it was way too late to leave. The mechanic we took the Camry to couldn't make it overheat but they put a new radiator cap on it, checked out the thermostat and put new coolant in it. Wouldn't it be hilarious if all those problems were caused by a $10 radiator cap? 

We spent another night at the Sanchez’s and then headed back to Sarah’s Tuesday morning to help her with a few last minute things and then hopefully be on the road by noon. We left at eight o’clock that night. Lisa wanted to spend another night but I just couldn’t miss another day of work. I’m way behind as it is and I’d told everyone that I’d be back on Tuesday.

It made for a very long night and I had to let Lisa drive for a few hours but at 7:30 this morning we pulled into the driveway. I slept for a two or three hours then it was off to work.

From what I can tell Sarah is loving her new home. She thinks it’s weird to attend a student ward and say’s she prefers a family ward but she loves her classes and her professors. I’m thinking it’s going to be a great year for her.

It was sure tough saying goodbye to her. I know she’s going to be back her in a couple of months but still. I miss her already.

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Mushrooms are the only vegetable that produces vitamin D.

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