Ever Had a Road Trip from Hell?

[dunbar_loop]

Back in the 90s the ex-wife and I headed out the for a camping road trip crossing the border between Canada and the States a few times. Our first day out had us crossing Washington?s Cascade Mountains before stopping at Loup Loup campground between Twisp and Okanogan.

Set among the ponderosas this campground was extremely quiet. Eerily quiet. There were three or four RVs here but we didn?t see any people around. We pitched the tent, laid out the sleeping bags, and had dinner. After an hour looking at the fire we went to bed.

A few hours must have passed when I felt my body being jostled. It was the ex-wife trying to wake me. She had been listening to a scratching sound. Something on metal or plastic. When I became fully awake I listened to a really loud scratching noise. The Mazda B-2200-pickup was about 20 feet from the tent and I had hard time believing it could be coming from somewhere else.

After a few minutes I slowly unzipped the netting and the fly of tent and looked to the truck. In the dark night I couldn?t see much other than the outline of trees. I grabbed the flashlight on shone it see nothing. Getting out of the tent in nothing more than a t-shirt and hiking boots I walked around the truck and couldn?t see anything. But, sure enough, the scratching noise was coming from the truck.

I shone the light into the passenger compartment and no one was there. Yet, the noise was unmistakeably coming from the truck. I opened the driver?s door and begin to look inside more. Nothing. I turn on the headlights and begin peering under the truck. Nothing. Still something was scratching away.

I popped the hood and look at the engine compartment. Nothing to be seen but the sound was louder. After listening for a few moments I figure it?s coming from near the passenger side up against the firewall. Turning to the ex-wife, I ask her to take the flashlight and look around the dash. She?s very hesitant insisting this is my job. A bit strange given she?ll pick up a shotgun and hunt grouse as well joining her dad for a bit of deer and moose. Finally she summonses up the courage and next thing I hear is her yelling.

She had pointed the flashlight down the vent to see two eyes staring back at her.

It was mouse that somehow got into the vent system. I kept looking over the hoses and couldn?t see a hole anywhere. The ex-wife is all excited and scared now at our newly acquired pet. I look at her. She looks at me. I figure why not drive down to Okanogan for something to eat and settle the nerves. After driving the 20 miles down the mountain to discover nothing was open, we went up to Omak and find a little diner.

The scratching continued. We watched people walk beside the car staring at it. The police cruised by a few times but were uninterested. After half an hour we head back up to Loup Loup. We were trying to figure how we?d declare the mouse the next day at the Canadian customs. We rolled back into our sleeping bags and drifted off to a fitful sleep.

The next morning I couldn?t find the mouse. Nor could I find a hole in the vent system. I have no idea if the mouse died in there, but there was no smell. It just vanished.

[yahtzee]

My sophmore year in college we decided to take my 86 plymouth horizon (hereafter called “the mighty horizon”) from Umass amherst to the blue hills of kentucky. It was me, my beautiful redheaded girlfriend at the time kristen, a good guy that was a little too tall for this car steve, and the adorably clueless class clown mike. The mighty horizon was not the most mechanically sound vehicle, but with a little tlc she had survived since high school. I even asked my auto mechanic brother to giver her a check up, and he gave her a thumbs up. As long as I checked the fluids every time I stopped. Fast forward to day 3 of the trip, we had already stopped to see the sputnick and other treasures at the smithsonian in washington dc, and were comfortably on our way to kentucky. Mike had been at the wheel through the night, and when i took over at the gas station i noticed that the thermostat was pegged on “wicked hot.” Mike came out with a bottle of oil and started putting it into the engine, and i politely inquired why he had not told me of the temperature issue earlier. He politely explained that it had started getting hot at an ungodly hour of the morning and didn’t want to wake anyone up, and proceeded to spill the oil all over the engine. I got out of the car to clean it up, and the mighty horizon decided to take this opportunity to burst into flames. Who knew that oil on a hot engine would ignite? Fire, smoke, redheaded screams, a slammed hood, and a tall man trying to extricate himself from the back seat of my tiny car as quickly as possible. All funny in retrospect. To make a long story a little less long, slamming the hood down (mostly due to the lack of a latch end the ensuing run for cover) actually put out the flames, we let the car cool down while we had corned beef hash, chicken friend steak, and other breakfast delicacies, cooled the car down, fill her with fluids, and proceed along our travels until mikes next shift. She died in Greensborough, north carolina next to a row sleazy motels, where we stayed the night until we found a ride home. Because we were all under 25, we couldn’t rent a car, trains didn’t run into town, and a bus would bring us back two days after class had started and cost each of us more than the total budget of the trip. So we rented a 35 foot yellow ryder moving truck, and made it back to campus in style. I always wondered why they wouldn’t rent us a car, but would give us a truck requiring a CDL license, but we got home safe. At least most of us. The state of North Carolina sent me a summons for the mighty horizon, which i promptly ignored, and i assume she has been turned into beer cans for the good of all. the end.

[timwatko]

My wife and I were on the ski club bus trip from hell. We were going from Danbury, CT to Stowe Vt. The trip leaders provided a couple of milk jugs of glug, a lethal combination of red wine, vodka and spices. Going up 91, a couple of miles from the VT border, the bus started shaking. A couple of miles into VT, the driver pulled over, just in time for some people. When we stopped, a bunch of people ran out and got sick and one guy actually passed out in a snow bank. We sat for about three hours before a repair truck came. We had a flat on a back wheel and the shaking cracked the adjacent wheel and broke half of the studs. We limped to exit 3 and spent the night at the Hojo in Brattleboro. At least one of our crowd started eating his way through the menu.
In the morning, the bus company dispatched a school bus for us. We had to unload our stuff from the coach bus and cram it all into the school bus. People were sitting on laps, as there wasn’t enough room on the bus. The school bus only took us as far as the VT bus terminal in White River Junction. The school bus driver was upset as some people had still not recovered from the glug and had gotten sick on his bus.
In White River Junction, we had to take a collection to rent a VT bus to take us as far as our hotel in Stowe. Once again, we had to move our gear onto another bus. When we finally got to the hotel, the VT bus didn’t stay around to take us to the mountain. We changed and started waiting on the road for the shuttle bus. Fortunately, another club member with a pickup was passing by and started shuttling groups to the mountain in the back of his pickup. It was probably after 12 by the time we got to the mountain.
Our original bus finally arrived after dinner that night, still smelling of second-hand glug.

[ericerler]

In the summer of 2006, my girlfriend and I (she’s now my wife) took a 6 week, clockwise loop around the country hitting what we considered to be the “hotspot”, “must-see” parts of the country and the “Essence of America” (you can check out our blog at www.Essence-of-America.blogspot.com). The following is an excerpt from Day 10. We had just left a frustrating visit in Memphis, TN and were on our way down to New Orleans, LA…

Back on the road and feeling good again we headed south toward New Orleans. Looking through our books for a campground, we found one that seemed to meet our needs, but it was almost 4 hours away, putting us there at about midnight. We decided to go for it because then we would at least be that much closer in the morning. So Eric drove while Ali slept, with the intention of her taking the wheel in an hour or so. Well, that never happened; Eric just didn?t have heart to wake a sleeping beauty.

Now three hours later, very drowsy, and ready for a good nights sleep, we pulled off of I-55, and onto a Mississippi back road. Not exactly sure how far it was until the next turn we drove for almost 20 miles until finally, to our great relief, we saw the next turn. As we approached the intersection, on the opposite side, waiting for the light to turn, sat a Mississippi local police officer.

Now even though we had intentionally been doing less than the speed limit, seeing that officer certainly made us a bit nervous. It was closing in on 1am by this time, and we weren?t sure how he would react to Yankees strolling through his town at this time of night. We passed each other without incident, but still we watched our rearview mirrors for sometime after that.

Our next turn came at the center of this town. Now again, it?s a bit after 1am, the road has been pitch-black other than our headlights and here we are pulling into the center of this backwoods Mississippi town. Most of the stores look boarded up, the gas station was missing the pumps, and the traffic light blinked in an eerily rhythmic pattern. Turning left, we traveled deeper and deeper into the Mississippi backwoods, still unsure of how far we had to go, and as the odometer ticked higher and higher, our heartbeats raced faster and faster.

Occasionally we would pass a dark house, rusty old pickup truck in the front yard. Finally we saw the sign, ? ? Big Sand Campground?. Turning down that road, there was another sign, ?? Big Sand Campground? again we turn left, this time onto a dirt road with the sign, ?DEAD END?. My heart beat faster.

Driving down this pitch-black road for about a mile, we passed a few more rickety cottages before finally getting to the entrance to the campground; their sign ?BIG SAND CAMPGROUND? was draped on either side with two Confederate flags.

When we pulled up the dirt driveway, my mind raced while my eyes scanned the empty campground, which was essentially a field, and I examined the steel fences that seemed to form some sort of corral, ?Probably to store the Yankees in,? I thought. Without even stopping, we pulled a very quick U-Turn and whipped back onto the road Dukes of Hazard style.

The van?s tail whipped back and forth as I accelerated down the road. But wait, go too fast and risk getting pulled over and arrested by a confederate sympathizing cop, go too slow and the campground hillbillies will catch up! Pinning the needle at the speed limit, we hurried our way out of the deep backwoods, back into the ghost town, and pointed our way for the Interstate, the whole time checking my mirrors, knowing at any moment we would look back just in time to see the headlights and off-road roof lights of a rusty pickup flash on and slam into the rear bumper of our sluggish van. There was no sanctuary in these parts, not even at the police station (if you could find it!).

Well, we made it back to the Interstate and not sure of where we were going to stay now, Eric had his mindset headed for the Louisiana border. Ali managed to make her way back onto the sofa and fell asleep, but not Eric. Remember before now he was so tired and couldn?t wait to get to the campground? Not anymore. Now he was wide-awake and ready to drive to California if he had to.

Shortly there after and beginning to feel sluggish again, he made a phone call to the Mississippi state police, asked if it was legal to sleep in a rest stop, and when confirmed, found the next stop, and put the van in park. After a short conversation with the incredibly polite security guard (an older man in his 70s who suggested, ?Ya?ll pull her right there. It?ll be nice and quiet, and my post is right here so ya?ll be safe. Sleep as long as ya?ll want.? Now closing in on 3am, and feeling somewhat manic after almost watching our lives flash before our eyes, we happily brushed our teeth in the rest rooms and laid down for some of the best sleep in our lives.

[scott.c.hansen]

On a cold wet and rainy morning in October of 1996, my phone rang. It was my friend Fiddlin? Dave. Some of your listeners in Portland Oregon will be familiar with Fiddlin? Dave as he?s a local Bluegrass folk legend from his days with the band Sam Hill. Dave wanted to go hiking in the National Forest on this day; before the rainy season really got under way here in Oregon. I pointed out that as bad as the weather might become this winter it would never get worse then it was right now! But this argument didn?t dissuade Dave and he picked me up in his Volkswagen micro-bus twenty minutes later.

Dave was always proud of the fact that he did all his own work on his vehicle, although he also admitted to being a terrible and impatient mechanic. The micro-bus didn?t have any heat, only one windshield wiper worked, and only one door opened and closed, after a brief foray Dave took into the world of body work. But in our opinion the only thing wrong with the micro-bus was that only one stereo speaker worked, which reduced our extensive music collection to one mono cassette tape of James Booker recorded live at the Maple Leaf Bar and Grill in New Orleans.

We drove two hours to the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Southwest Washington. The micro-bus performed beautifully, it even chugged up 3800 feet of elevation gain to the trail head of our chosen hike. According to our pocket guide the hike had ?majestic views of Mount Adams? but on this day of driving rain and fog we never had more then 100 feet of visibility.

When we got back to the vehicle I noticed that Dave was agitated. ?What?s wrong?? I asked him. ?My gas gage doesn?t work? he explained ?and now I can?t remember the last time I put gas in the micro-bus.? Dave could remember the trips to the store and ferrying the bands equipment around to practice and to gigs, but he could not remember if he had put gas in his vehicle at any time in the last week. It started up fine and we made it up to 45 MPH and then Dave dropped the micro-bus down into neutral and turned off the engine! It was the most beautiful drive I have ever had; we coasted for fifteen miles through the winding roads of the National Forest without the sound of modern technology to disturb the ecology.

Eventually the grade of the road started to level out and we started losing speed so Dave had to pop the clutch and restart the engine. ?Open the glove box? he instructed ?look at the map and tell me where you think we might find gas?. I pulled out a wad of maps as thick as the Sunday New York Times; there were maps of Colorado, New Mexico, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Northern New England and Southern New England but none of Oregon or Washington ?where we lived and where we were about to run out of gas- I could have found Car Talk Plaza on these maps but not a town where we were likely to find gas. I kept flipping through the same maps again and again aimlessly thinking I would eventually find a local map but to no avail. Suddenly in the distance we saw a sign; it was a gas station! We had actually driven by it on our way in and had not noticed it. We filled up the tank and bought snacks and drinks and then settled back in for the ninety minute drive back to Portland.

I put our one mono cassette tape back in the player and a long forgotten night of James Bookers piano playing came out of the one operable stereo speaker. The lone windshield wiper seemed to beat to the rhythm of the music squeak, squeak- squeak, squeak BONG! Suddenly there was a terrible scraping sound the micro- bus had thrown the one windshield wiper clear off the vehicle. I have never seen anything like it before or since. Dave pulled over and I jumped out, scouring the tall wet grass on the side of the road for the lost wiper. But Dave called me back to the micro-bus, the wiper arm had broken in half from rust or metal fatigue and there would be no way to reattach it even if I did find the rest of it.

It was starting to get dark, the rain was actually getting heavier and we still had a long drive on country roads and Interstate highway to get back to Portland. It was a white knuckler the whole way. When we got back to town (a feat I attribute to excellent driving by everyone else on the road that evening, who were able to avoid hitting the slow moving micro-bus) I asked Dave if he wanted to go have a beer, but the drive had taken too much out of him, and to this day this remains the only time Fiddlin? Dave turned down such an offer.

[eakahler]

I once went on a road trip so bad, it has its own title: Never go to Grandma’s in a Yugo.

I was 14 years old, and my mother wanted to drive from Orlando, Fl to Potosi, WI in our Yugo to visit Grandma for Christmas. She’d been concerned the car might not make the trip (we’d had bad trips before; I still remember sleeping in a toll booth in Indiana on Christmas Eve one year) but my father assured her the Yugo was fine. So she packed me and my two younger brothers in the car and headed for Wisconsin. I’d like to mention that all we had for the trip was a bit of cash and an American Express card - this will become important later.

Things seemed to go well at first. In fact, we made it all the way to Illinois before the Yugo started to sloooooow doooooown. It wouldn’t go faster than 35 miles an hour. We had to get off the highway in a little town called Marion, IL. Please note this particular town is famous for its prison. We managed to find a mechanic to look at the car that day. It was December 23rd. He told us the problem was the catalytic converter, and he could fix it for $200, but wouldn’t have the part until the next day. Not having much of a choice, my mother checked us into a hotel for the night.

This hotel was the stinkiest, skankiest place I’ve ever slept. The toilet had overflowed before we rented the room. The covers were 70’s style burnt orange with cigarette stains, and I refused to sleep under them for fear of what I might find. I’m not afraid of roaches, but if I were I couldn’t have slept there at all. But we endured this, and the mechanic fixed the car. My mother paid on the American Express, figuring if this was the biggest unexpected expense of the trip she’d be OK to pay off the balance of the card at the end of the month, as American Express requires. We got on the road.

We made it to Farmer’s City, IA before the car found 35 mph too challenging. We pulled off the highway again, to find a streak of fresh oil running horizontally across the passenger side of the car. We limp to the nearest service station. Since it was Christmas Eve, he said, he would not be able to look at the car that day, but kindly offered to drive us to the airport about 15 miles away so we could rent a car and he would look at it first thing on December 26th.

So we get to the airport, and rent a car from a surly employee who decided that since we were the reason she had to work on Christmas Eve, we were going to wait as long as she could possibly take to process our paperwork. Again, my mother puts this new expense on the American Express card - a full week’s rental. We get our map and drive into the fast approaching night.

Around ten thirty my mother looks over at me and says, “Can you get out the map? I think we’re lost.”

We found ourselves on a back road in a little town called Lamott, IA. It’s now a little after eleven and we are at the only intersection in sight. There’s a Camero at the stop sign, so my mother gets out to ask how to get back to the main highway. Before she gets to the car, the drive spins his wheels, kicks up stones at her and pulls away with a rev of the engine. A few minutes later a minivan arrives, and my mother tries again. This lady cracked her window about one inch and grudgingly parted with (incorrect) directions, like a middle aged woman with three kids in the rented car is some kind of career criminal.

But we eventually found our way back and rolled into Potosi around midnight. We wake up Christmas morning and the family gets into a huge fight, with my Aunt stalking off and refusing to return to the house after she slapped my mother for calling her a liar. I discovered I’d left my sneakers in the Yugo and only had a pair of sandals - in Wisconsin in the winter. The week limped along somehow, and we prepared to leave.

The kindly mechanic picked us up at the airport where we returned the rental car. He said he’d gotten it all fixed up for us. My mother hands over the American Express again, this time with a little more trepidation, but the cash is gone by now and there’s not enough left in the bank account to cover a check. We set off on the road again. it’s New Year’s Eve.

We get as far as Matoon, Il. We had to coast the car down the off ramp and push it into the parking lot of a Motel 6. It’s late and the car now won’t even move under its own power. We check into the hotel, my mother negotiating with the clerk to charge the card tomorrow, hoping the delay will put it on a different billing cycle.

We wake up the next morning, New Year’s Day, to discover there is no service station, airport, bus station, or train station for thirty miles. The only thing open is a U-Haul place across the street from the hotel. My mother went there, hoping to simply pack the Yugo in the truck or tow it behind us, anything to get home. But that store has no tow hitches, and apparently it is actually in the fine print that you are not allowed to load a motor vehicle in the back of a U-Haul. My mother gives up and sells the Yugo to the guy at the U-haul place for ten bucks for scrap, calls my father and says, “We’re stranded, come and get us.”

My father actually tells her he’s too busy to drive to Illinois to get us. But he’s got a friend we’ve never met who’s willing to come get us if we pay to rent a vehicle for him to drive up there, and give him some extra for his trouble. My mother has to arrange for the rental from Illinois (since she has the American Express Card), and the best part is he can’t be there for another day.

Now completely tapped out, she can’t even risk putting the hotel room on the American Express for another night. the last of our available cash is gone, and we can’t even afford dinner. The clerk at the hotel calls the Salvation Army for us. The Salvation Army kindly feeds us and puts us up in the hotel for one more night.

Our ride arrives the next day. I don’t know where my father found this “friend”, but he was the nastiest man. He was rude, patronizing, and even insisted we stop and eat at a Cracker Barrel, which he knew my mother didn’t have the money to pay for. He grudgingly loaned us the money to eat there because he wasn’t going to eat fast food.

Our trip ended after another day of that, though thankfully we didn’t break down. Being fourteen once we got home it was over for me and my brothers, but my mother continued to pay for that trip for the next year and had to buy another car.

She chose a late 80’s Monte Carlo, and never drove to Wisconsin again.

[jerchap2]

In June of 1978 my wife, who was 5 months pregnant with our first child, and I took a vacation in our 1970 VW Camper Van. We left from Indianapolis and headed for the Smoky Mountain region. All was fine until we decided to visit Brasstown Bald Mountain, the highest point in Georgia. Well, the VW Van got up the mountains OK, if a little slow, and we visited the observation tower. We found it was closed, but the ranger on duty let us in for a while. We camped there that night, then left the next morning, early on a Sunday Morning. While we were driving down a steep part of the mountain, with a high wall of stone on our right, and a single lane on the left with a steep drop-off, the left rear of the van fell to the ground and started dragging. At that point I discovered I had no brakes, and as I was downshifting and applying the emergency brake, I saw the rear wheel, which had come off, roll past us. After a tense few minutes, I managed to get the van stopped, then took a half hour finding the wheel, which fortunately had not rolled off the cliff. As it was early on a Sunday morning in a remote area, we saw no traffic going either direction. Although I could put the wheel back on, the nut and cotter pin holding it on were missing, so it would not stay on. After a while, a kindly older gentleman in his small pickup came by and stopped to help us. Everyone he know who might help were im church, so after church let out he took us to a friend who was a mechanic. We went back to the van, and he put a nail in place of the cotter pin, and bent it, which hld until we were able to get to civilization to get the right parts to get it fixed.

[lrlongshore]

We have a curse on our family, the curse of the caravan road trip. It began in 1995, when our well-loved Dodge minivan broke down outside of McMinnville, OR, while we were at a family reunion. We had to be towed back to Portland, farther than our AAA insurance covered. The nice men at the garage got it going well enough for us to drive it to a car dealership, where we traded it in as scrap metal. Ten years later, our daughter’s car broke down outside McMinnville, OR, while on a family reunion. This time we had the premium AAA coverage, so we didn’t have to scramble for cash to pay the towing service. The nice men at the garage got it going well enough for her to return it to the person who was letting her use it on long term loan, and we bought her a cute used car of her own.

We thought it was just McMinnville, but two years later on a family trip to the Southwest, yet another Dodge minivan broke down outside Kanab, Utah. This was a real driving trip - 7 days on the road, 2000 miles, looking at every great big hole in the ground from the Grand Canyon to Zion. On our last day we were in the lead on the road to Zion. Our daughter, driving behind us, called on the cell phone and asked if we happened to notice the huge cloud of black smoke billowing out of our tailpipe. That’s when the “something bad is happening” lights started flashing on the dash board. There was no choice but to call AAA for a tow again. The nice men at the garage said they could get it going well enough for us to drive it back home, but it would take two days. Since my nieces had a plane to catch that night, we stuffed five people - and our luggage - into a Saturn that grew smaller by the mile as we raced from Kanab to Las Vegas. The next morning my mother, son and I discussed returning to Kanab to caravan home with husband and daughter, but I couldn’t face driving those same miles two more times. We called to tell them they were on their own and headed back to California.

Now, maybe these don’t qualify as road trips from hell, but I’m pretty sure we made the outskirts of purgatory. I’m also guessing that if we were to invite you to caravan with us on our next road trip, you’d probably run for your lives.

[jerchap2]

In 1965, when I was 10 years old, my Dad and I were on the way back from a weekend fishing trip in a 1962 Plymouth station wagon. He was upset because we were running later than he wanted, and he told me he wanted to make the 5 hour drive home without stopping. I knew what that meant - he was not stopping come Hell or high water. Although I was feeling very sick to my stomach, I was not about to ask him to make a stop for me. We were driving fast, all the windows down, with country music loud on the radio, so with the air and road noise, you couldn’t hear much else. Finally I couldn’t hold it in any more, so I put hy head out the window, and blew chunks. I felt better. He did not notice at the time, but a while later, he said, "What is that smell? It was a horrible smell that was getting worse. We stopped, and my Dad saw the puke which coated the entire passenger side of the station wagon, which was now dried on, and I had no choice but to confess. Boy was he mad. The rest of the drive home consisted of him seething and periodically yelling and cussing, and me not saying a word. I still don’t know, 40+ years later, whether it would have been better to ask him to stop - either way I would have gotten yelled at. By the way, getting the dried puke off the car was not easy…

[Marnet]

In 1979 I had to rent a car for a 400 mile drive. The rental car was the first front wheel drive car I’d ever driven.

The horn started sounding on it’s own once I was well under way far from the rental agency and out in the open countryside, getting stuck and only stopping with repeated poundings on the horn button. Eventually, it simply wouldn’t shut up and kept going.

Now I’m mechanically ignorant but even I know that a continuously sounding horn can run the battery dead. Besides, I wasn’t about to listen to the deafening sound for another 300 miles. (Loudest car horn I’ve ever heard, by the way!)

So, I pull off the highway at the next exit which happens to be a simple country crossing in the middle of nowhere without a single building or person in sight. I figure I’ll raise the hood and disconnect the wire to the horn. I raise the hood, becoming instantly even more deafened by the blare of the horn only to behold an engine unlike anything I’d grown up seeing. It was fuel injected and cross ways mounted in the engine compartment, quite unlike the carburator engines I was used to seeing in rear wheel drive configuration.

Where the heck was the horn??? I couldn’t see or find anything resembling a car horn and the noise was so deafening there was no way to locate it by sound.

After some minutes I ended up jumping up and down, shaking a fist, and cussing in total frustration. Remember, this was before the age of cell phones, I was a woman alone with nowhere in sight to go for help and I just knew the battery was going to die from the drain on it.

While I was thus having a tantrum, a car came down the country road with a young couple with kids. Salvation at hand. A farmer on his way to town. He had the wife and kids stay in their car with the doors locked. Can’t say as I blame him; I must have looked like a lunatic with my angry antics.

After some effort, he found the horn and tried to pull the wires. Now this was a strong fellow used to hard farm labor but no matter how he tugged the wires wouldn’t come loose. The horn blared on.

Finally, he got a heavy duty fence cutter with handles almost three feet long from his car trunk and snipped the wires. His efforts to maneuver the tips of that big fence/bolt cutter into the tight space to cut the horn wires was almost as good a show as my tantrum had been.

When I turned the car in at the end of the trip I was honest and reported the problem with the stuck horn and that the wires had been cut as the only solution out in the middle of nowhere. Then I had to argue about not being charged for this! Not my favorite road trip.

[sbeck1949]

About 25 years ago we owned a little Datson station wagon. My wife, two young daughters I were driving from Houston to Daytona Beach on vacation. I had just had a tune up and oil change at a fly by nite mechanic shop that a friend recommended. Heading east in the Florida panhandle on 1-10, morning of our second day, I noticed my rear window suddenly covered with something. It was not raining, but looked like liquid. The car began to make a funny noise and shake, so I stopped. Turned out the mechanic had not put the oil drain plug in tight, it vibrated out and we lost all the engine oil.

This was before cell phones. Luckily, this stretch of I-10 has a call box every half mile . I hiked to a box, in 90 plus heat, and called a tow truck. The wrecker took us to a little town named Live Oak, which shall live in our memory forever. There was a mechanic shop that could do a valve job, but they were closed. It was a Sunday. The wrecker driver took us to the owners house and he was there. He let us drop off our luggage at his house and the car at his shop. We then wandered, on foot, thru little Live Oak, killing time until the greyhound bus came around 8 pm. The library closed, the little soda shop closed, they rolled up the sidewalks, and eventually we went back to the shop owners house to get our luggage. He was gone and the luggage was in his locked garage. I used a phone booth to call every person that had the same last name and finally tracked him down at Sunday dinner with family. While calling a big storm blew up with driving rain. A storm so strong the wind blew down signs and a traffic lite right by the mail box. It drove the rain into the phone booth and I was about half soaked. The wife and kids where huddling under the shop owners garage overhang. He came and let us get our luggage. Still wet we caught the bus and eventually arrived in Daytona.

When we got back to Houston I went to confront the mechanic who had mis-serviced our car. They were gone, out of business. Furious, I tracked them down, I don’t remember how, and threatened them with a lawsuit. Eventually they reimbursed me half of the $800 the repairs cost. My wife still has nightmares about wandering the streets of Live Oak.

[rdsxfnia]

My husband and I rented a car in Dublin, Ireland, for a drive to the Ring of Killarney. It didn’t look very far on the map, but the rental agent assured us that the nice four-lane highway leaving Dublin would soon turn into a two-lane country road, and the trip would take longer than we anticipated. Our first disaster occurred when my husband, who was driving on the “wrong” side of the road for the first time, ran into the curb. A few miles later, we had a flat tire. The car, unfortunately, was a Renault, so it took us quite a long time to locate the tools and figure out how to change the tire. That done, we continued on our way, only to have the car coast quietly to a halt a short time later. The gas gauge read “Full” so we assumed we had plenty of petrol. The good news was, we broke down in front of a little cottage that had a sign reading “Mechanic on duty.” The bad news was that the mechanic wasn’t home. However, his mother was, and she assured us he’d be back soon. When he returned, he checked and found that we were indeed out of gas, and the gauge was broken. He kindly drove us down the road to a gas station and after we filled up we were once again on our now not-so-merry way. Things were going well, although we were way behind schedule to get to our reserved hotel by nightfall, until the oil light came on. Fortunately, we were in a little village that had a gas station, so we were able to replace the several quarts of oil that we were down, and hit the road once again. By the time we stopped for dinner, we were so depressed and bedraggled looking that the restaurant manager asked what he could do for us and kindly called our hotel to tell them that we would be late arriving. We did finally get there the same day. The bottom line was, we had a terrible French car, but were treated wonderfully by several kind Irish people. The end.

[hage10]

When I was 20 years old in 1971, I was playing in a band that actually got a recording contract. It was a samll label, but a real recording contract! People just don’t appreciate who I almost was. Anyway, our travelling area went from just around Pittsburgh, to all over the northeast. We bought ourselves a used milk delivery truck, and set off on our first road trip thru West Virginia. The truck was a Ford straight van, with that tip over cab to get at the engine. We had divided the back into a compartment for equipment, and a room for passengers complete with carpet, windows, and a roof vent. Somewhere between Wheeling and Parkersburg, the passenger compartment filled with smoke. The truck was on fire. As cars passed by they were honkng to get the drivers attention. We had neglected to provide any means for those of us in the back to communicate with those in the cab. A minor oversight. Finally, our bass played, the days driver, looked in the mirror, saw the billowing smoke and pulled over. We all fell out of the truck. Another oversight, we had no fire extinquisher. Almost before we were out of the truck, a number of semi drivers had stopped and put out the fire. Those guys were amazing. The fire department came and squirted things down as well. Looking things over, we could see no obvious reason as to why the truck would catch on fire. So, we decided to do the logical thing and continue our trip. However, we found that the brakes were now locked. Obviously this was a problem with the emergency brake, so we disconnected it. That didn’t help. Our bass player, and driver, had worked in a service station and announced that he needed to bleed the brakes. He got some tools, had someone press the brake pedal, brake fluid suirted, and after some fussing, the brakes were working normally. Off we went. Within an hour, we needed to stop for gas. We pulled off the interstate and into the gas station. The truck drifted right past the pumps and came to rest after gently crashing into a light pole. It seems that we now had no brkes. Strange. We managed to get gas in the truck and thought about our options. The club we were heading for was directly across the road from the interstate exit in Parkersburg. If there were no traffic on the rosd between the exit and the club, we could drift right into the parking lot. This seemed a likely situation, so we did the logical thing and continued our trip. After dark, we discovered that no lights on the truck were working. This meant a slight reduction in speed. We arrived in Parkesrburg that night, with no brakes and no lights, and drifted accross the road into the parking lot. We discovered that the underside of the truck was smoking again. hmm? The next day, I decided to fix the main problem, the lights. I don’t know what I did wrong, but putting on the turn signal resulted in all the lights on the back of the truck flashing. I created a sort of “four way flash” system before cars and trucks had them! This time, to fix the brakes, we had to add fluid. Strange. (perhaps a puzzler?) On the way home, we found that stopping every 20 miles or so and spraying down the underside of the truck prevented another fire. On arrival at home base, one of our parents discovered the hole in the top of the muffler. With a new muffler, and some sheet metal on the underside of the truck, we were ready for our next adventure…in Johnstown. That’s another story…

[Jfkjyk]

For the first three weeks of May 1982, the weather was beautiful. That all changed on May 23rd when my wife and I were married. As difficult as it was to have rain on our wedding day, the rain became a bigger problem when we drove from New Jersey to Vermont on our honeymoon. In wedded bliss we headed out in our 1981 Chevy Citation looking forward to our two week honeymoon in New England. With less than an hour into our drive, there was a ka-clunk sound followed by the cessation of the windshield wipers. I stopped in a shopping center parking lot and could see through the grill which covered the wipers that a nut had fallen off. With what I thought to be an Ah-ha moment, I explained to my bride that I could fix this problem. A couple of hours later I managed to get at the mount that the nut had fallen off and reattached the nut. With smiles we drove off with a great feeling of satisfaction. A few hours later while driving on the NY Thruway the rain came again in earnest. That familiar ka-clunk noise was heard once again. This time we weren’t near the safety of a parking lot. With the rain coming down in sheets, my wife stuck her head out the passenger window to help guide me. A tractor trailer passed us and as best we could tell, the driver realized our dangerous predicament. He stayed in front of us at a slow speed and led us into the next rest area where we stayed until the rain stopped.
Once in Vermont, we took the car to a local GM dealership in an attempt to get it repaired. The service rep told us it would cost a few hundred dollars. We had already spent the wedding gift money on the wedding and honeymoon so I decided to give the self repair route another go. At a local hardware store I purchased a bottle of Loctite. After another afternoon of pulling the car apart, I was able to reattach the nut on the wiper mount with the Loctite. That repair held until 1988 when we traded the car in. End of story? Noooo…
The next day after relaxing and enjoying our honeymoon, we went to dinner at the fanciest restaurant in the area. We enjoyed a sumptuous meal and drove away believing our troubles were behind us. That good feeling lasted about 2 hours. It had been a very hot day and the un-air-conditioned restaurant served a salad tray which they passed around from table to table. On this tray was a cottage cheese dish. That dish gave me food poisoning which hit me with a vengeance after we got back to our motel. The residual effects lasted the entire 2 weeks we were on our honeymoon. Even the Loctite couldn?t help the food poisoning!
After the experience we gained respect for truck drivers and Loctite!

[montciel]

My road trip from hell:

It was 1972. I’d graduated from college in June and took off to travel the continent in my 1963 Dodge Dartre station wagon. My friends called it the “gypsy wagon” due to my tendency to live out of it, so I saw no problem in doing that all the way from sunny southern California to Nova Scotia. Prepared for all weather (I took a pair of socks I could wear with my rubber flip-flops if it got cold in the Rockies or Canada), I took off with my entire future ahead of me, completely unencumbered by the thought process.

5000 miles later I’d made it to Colorado (I meandered a bit) and was out of money. Deciding to go back to San Diego, I advertised on local bulletin boards in Aspen for riders to share driving and expenses. Three young men took me up on it: one older fellow (he was at least 30) and two 17 year-olds from New Jersey who were hitching across the country. Let me say here that I was a young thing myself at 22, and of the female persuasion (and still am of that persuasion, nothing in the intervening years having persuaded me that the alternative was superior).

First, let me make it it clear that I was a very polite young lady and have never, never been thrown out of anywhere in my life (well, if you don’t count the roller derby rink). On this road trip, we were thrown out of every, I repeat EVERY place we stopped, including the gas stations. These two charming and naive boys from New Jersey just could not communicate with western folk. Their accents made them nearly unintelligible for one thing, and well, what is it? There’s just a difference in… demeanor, if you will, between inhabitnts of New Jersey and those of the rural hinterlands of the great western expanses. Folks in the hinterlands didn’t take well to the two nice young men I was saddled with, oops , I mean sharing the trip with. The “older” fellow and I did our best to intervene on our behalf, but it was hopeless, and we were booted out of every establishment between point A (Aspen) and point B (the coast of California).

Back to the driving. Somewhere in the first 24 hour period, after having instructed all on the elegance of the push button gear shift, I eventually surrendered the wheel when I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. Later I was awoken out of my fuzzy backseat slumber to find us pulled over at the side of the road in the black black middle of the night in what appeared to be the middle of the desert. Jersey Kid #1 was at the wheel. There was a large law enforcement officer with a bright flashlight sweeping the interior of the car, demanding papers and explanations. That’s when we discovered that Jersey Kid #1 did not have a driver’s license. We politely followed directions to exit the car, and the officer demanded the registration papers from whoever was the owner, being me.

(Oops, let me backtrack a bit here: way back when, on day one of my jaunt across North America, I was driving north into the blaring late afternoon sun on the freeway, pulled down my visor, and FWOOP! My registration was sucked right out the open window and off into the vast black-hole known as the Los Angeles freeway system. Remember how we used to put our registration in the visor? Why’d we do that?)

So when I pulled papers out, I discovered that what I thought was a temporary registration from the DMV, was actually only a receipt. This did not help our credibility with the Officer of the Peace. We were directed to follow said officer to the Presiding Judge of this charming burg (Hurricane, Utah) where judgement would be passed and punishment meted out. (I never did find out what the infraction was.)

We followed and parked next to him in the sandy scrub lot of a private residence. The older fellow went in the house with Jersey Kid #1 and the officer, while I remained in the car with Jersey Kid #2.

Inside, the officer rousted the judge,ignoring the daughter of the house who on the sofa necking with her boyfriend. The judge staggered out of the bedroom, pulling on his shirt (a gas station uniform shirt with his first name on it, “Ed” as I recall); sleepily heard the complaint; fined the Jersey Kid $100; learned that he and the older fellow only had $40; so he took that. None of this ever disturbed the necking couple on the couch.

The two left the house to come out and find me and Jersey Kid #2 in the car with all the doors locked, trying to look invisible, as apparently every teenager in Hurricane, Utah was surrounding my little Dodge Dartre like a silent mob of zombies, us being the biggest thing to happen in Hurricane that night.

Onward…Somehow we managed to get some gas each time before being ejected from the stations, enough to get to California, where a one of my four retreads blew outside of Needles. (Ever been to Needles? I rest my case.) With another $10 used tire on the Dartre, I was talked into a “slight detour”. The charming older fellow convinced me that Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County was not REALLY out of my way to San Diego. I agreed?too exhausted to protest or even check his facts. Bribed with a free lunch, I said a long overdue farewell to my three fellow travelers for the preceding 50 hours, climbed into the driver’s seat, pushed the Drive Button and realized that Avila Beach was actually 350 miles out of my way.

The big question is why would a town in Utah be named “Hurricane?”

[jim10040]

This was the summer of about '82. I had a '74 Vega hatchback, and I was proud of it. My best friend (he still is), my sister and I decided to drive from Dallas Texas to Port Aransas for the day, go deep sea fishing and come back that night. The trip down was surprisingly uneventful, and we caught a boat to take us fishing without trouble. While fishing, I didn’t catch anything, my sister caught several red snappers, and our friend really did turn green “You look sick, you can throw up over the side of the boat.”“Ok.” Poor guy. We got back to shore, and began driving back home. We were on the road, and it was way too early in the morning to be awake and driving since the earlier morning, but you can do that when you’re twenty-two. My sister needed us to stop on the side of the road, and we found a truck stop. This truck stop had no facilities at all, but there was a cattle truck and she could duck down beside that, no big deal. A cow, startled by my sister’s activity, protested with a loud “Moo!”, scaring my sister and causing her to step in whatever she’d been doing. She came back to the car, told us what had happened, and so we spent a couple more ours driving around small country towns at 3:00 in the AM, looking for socks or anything she could wear on her feet. Poor girl. We got her fixed up in time, got home happy and sleepy.
That Vega’s long scrap, my friend is still our friend and he was the best man at my wedding, and my sister still has odd things happen to her. I still carry a comprehensive set of tools, a gas can, and jumper cables in the car. Life is good.

[kmccune]

Thought Tom and Ray didnt participate in forum? Or is posting a query not the same thing?-Kevin

[brayton]

1952, two buddies and I had finished Navy ROTC summer training in Corpus Christi, TX, and had a couple of weeks before we had to be back in school at U of Illinois. Mexico was practically across the street, so, hey! Let?s take a trip! I bought a car, a 1937 four-door Pontiac convertible for $100 and we headed out for Mexico City.

Some hours later, driving through the high desert and twenty-six miles from the nearest town, we were passed by a bus, horn honking and all passengers pointing to the road behind us . . . to a long thin black line of something coming from our car.

We pulled over. Problem: a hole in the bottom of the differential which, having been drained of lubrication, was almost red hot. Solution: Plug hole and replace lubrication.

Hole was plugged with a piece of a small tree. We drained some oil from the crankcase. (Tool kit at hand; I travel prepared!) But since the fill cap on the differential was tucked up under the gas tank, we couldn?t pour in any oil. Crisis! New solution: buddy Walt had bragged that he travelled prepared with what was euphemistically called, ?a safety,? tucked away in his wallet. Walt, said I, give it up.

Fill the condum with oil, stick open end in the fill hole, and squeeze from the bottom. Like milking a cow in reverse. After three cycles, the differential was full, we replaced the cap and were on our way.

However, the story does not end here. We arrived at the next town, found a garage, got the hole welded shut and proper lubricant installed. But after three hours or so in the sun in the high desert, we were fair dehydrated. Saw a man drinking water from a faucet. I asked ? having heard all of the stories about contaminated drinking water ? ?Is that good water?? He said, ?Si, muy bueno.? So we tanked up.

We arrived at Mexico City, decided to splurge on a hotel and rented a suite for the night in as I recall, the Waldorf Astoria. Went out to dinner. Then it hit us.

Call it what you will, I couldn?t leave that hotel for a week. The hotel sent in a doctor to treat all of us and we certainly ran out of money very soon. Called my father ? collect ? for the only time in my more or less adult life I ever asked him for money, which he sent down by Western Union.

We did heal, although the effects lingered for many years. One positive note: we drove the car to Chicago, where I sold it for five dollars more than I paid for it.

[jayenne]

I went on a family holiday, by car, to the seaside. My wife returned by air, while I drove the 400 miles home with my children. Prior to the holiday I had a muffler repair done by the local Chevrolet agent. They had welded a part that should have been suspended.
For the trip home, we decided to take the long more scenic route home, via a game reserve. I was hitting it up, when I heard a clank. The muffler and exhaust pipe had become detached (at the weld). I jacked up the car and tried to reattach the exhaust. The only wire I had was the top of a (toy) fishing net. It lasted two miles. Next time I tried some thick string. It lasted about five miles, before burning through. After a couple of more attempts at reattaching the assembly, I reached the game reserve.
Here I was given some electric flex which was used to reattach the exhaust. A couple of miles beyond the rest camp it fell off again. I jacked up the car and reattached the exhaust. I kept a tire brace at hand to beat off any marauding rhinos, for which the reserve was noted. Fortunately there were no rhinos, only giant spiders.
We made it to the exit gate before I had to reattach the exhaust. From there I went to a Holiday Inn. I enjoyed a cool beer while a nearby service station reattached the assembly. I thankfully threw away the electric flex, that I had used since leaving the reserve.
After all these delays, I tried to make up a bit of time by travelling fast. After a few miles of speeding, I heard a familiar clanking. I stopped a passing road gang, which assisted me by lopping off a piece of barbed wire from a nearby fence. I used this to attach the muffler. After a few more disasters. I reached the next town, just before 5 p.m. In all I had jacked up the car thirteen times. I had been scared to loose the exhaust completely.
A local service station said they could fix the problem, but only first thing the next morning. We stayed at a local hotel, where the mosquitoes feasted on fresh meat, us. This service station did the job properly. To be on the safe side I insisted they provide me with an emergency piece of wire.
We made it home without incident, and my children were not too sorry to have missed the first day of the school year.
Jack from South Africa

[iiiring]

Although I have quite a few travel stories, many of my friends have encouraged me to share one of my longest road trips with you, thinking Car Talk would be perfect therapy for me. My trip was long not only long temporally, but also spatially, meteorologically, and emotionally. Here is the summary: it took me 32 hours to drive the 320 miles from Allentown, PA to Cambridge, MA. Now the horrid details? I hope you enjoy them.

It began early on a February morning in 2000. I had an appointment to meet with a professor at MIT to discuss a doctoral program over the weekend, and I decided to leave early to spend time with some friends in the Boston area. I had intended to go alone, however, a girl that I was interested in wanted to bum a ride with me to Boston. That, in theory, was a good thing. What was bad was she wasn?t interested in me, and she wanted to go to Boston to spend the weekend with her ex-fiance. As you can understand, this was not the companion I wanted, but in order to look like the ?nice guy?, I offered her a ride anyway at a time I knew she would not able to go with me. See, a snowstorm was approaching, so instead of waiting for her to get off work Thursday at 3 in the afternoon (she was a teacher), I conveniently argued I had to stay ahead of the storm and leave in the morning while she was at work. Everything was good? problem solved, and I still looked like a gentleman.

That is until the next morning. Just my luck, the storm came early? so early in fact that schools were closed early Thursday morning, and she was now free to go with me. Five minutes before I was about to hit the road, she decided to take me up on my ?generous? offer.

As we left the lovely Lehigh Valley, snowflakes were beginning to fall. Because of the nature of most New England storms, instead of taking the colder, snowier ?interior? road of I-84 (through Hartford and the Mass Pike)? I wanted to take my chances on the coastal route through the city of New York and up I-95. While I anticipated more traffic, the temperature would be just warm enough to keep the roads free of winter weather? or so I hoped. (Did I mention I am a meteorologist?)

I was driving a 1983 Dodge Aries K-Car. The first 40 miles went smoothly in spite of the increasing rate of snowfall. The problem, however, was my car all of a sudden lost all electrical power. (This was on I-78 while traveling 65mph). It came back on quickly enough? just to go out again seconds later. In fact, the power flickered back on and off frequently over the next mile. I thought it was best to take the next exit in Clinton, NJ.

While I was on the exit ramp, I lost power for good. This happened while I was approaching a red light at the top of the ice covered exit ramp. Without power, I found it difficult to pump the now non-power brakes and turn the now non-power steering wheel. As I got closer to the red light, I saw an 18-wheeler skidding through the intersection. I couldn?t stop in time? the only thing I could do was bank the car into the curb and median strip, using the friction of the impact to slow down the car.

We stopped, and we were safe, but the car would not start. Worse yet, we had no heat, and the snow was now coming down at a blinding speed. We called AAA, and it took an hour for them to come and tow us to the nearest garage. When I turned the key to show them there was no power, the car started! I asked them where the nearest garage was. Imagine my surprise and embarrassment when it turned out the closest (and only garage) in the area was located immediately across the street. It was snowing so hard we could not see it!!!

At the garage, the mechanic diagnosed a coil wire that was installed upside-down. It was rubbing against the metal engine block and shorting out, causing the sporadic power problems. This needed to be fixed. Luckily for us, he had one in stock from a Dodge Aries K-car that wrecked on the highway 2 days earlier. It seems luck was turning my way? before lunch time, we were on the road again.

We spent the next 2 hours waiting for the snow to eventually turn to rain. Of course, it never did. (Did I mention I?m a meteorologist? ) Regardless, the snow tapered off to a point that it was smooth sailing through the rest of New Jersey and amazingly, New York City. Things were fine until we reached the Connecticut state line. In fact, it was as if Connecticut decided to close the road? we were stopped. It took us 3 hours to move a total of 6 miles.

While we were crawling in this evening rush hour traffic, I noticed another vehicular problem; the wheel was turning and pulling itself violently to the right. I feared telling my travel companion about this latest set-back, so I suggested we pull over at the next travel plaza to get dinner (while I planned on sneaking another call to AAA for advice.) Apparently, everyone else on the highway had the same idea. It seemed like there were a thousand other hungry people in the parking lot taking a break. In fact, it was impossible to find a parking space, so I made my own parking spot.

After confessing why we weren?t able to go on any further (although the girl insisted upon it), I called AAA again. They had to send another vehicle, but they were going to have to wait in the same traffic we just did. When they arrived two hours later, they diagnosed a broken front axle and would not let us drive the car. At 10pm, there were not many garages open. Also, the snow was picking up again, so under the AAA emergency policy, we were only allowed to tow the vehicle less than 5 miles. It was towed one-half mile to the nearest gas station.

At the gas station, I resigned myself to the fact we had to look for the closest hotel and wait out the storms and mechanics until morning. This was done using an old phone on that way that would disconnect in mid-call. Somehow, my luck needed to change quickly. The closest hotel that had room was a mile away. Because my disgruntled female companion refused to walk there (or sleep out in the cold), we were forced to drive the broken car on deserted streets to this hotel. There was one bed, a footstool, and a floor that looked like the cleaning staff decided to stay home during the storm. Guess who did not get the bed.

The next morning, I found the closest garage and limped my vehicle to it. As I waited in the lobby, I watched the mechanic lift my car. After loosening some screws, I noticed a few objects falling out of the front of my car. He called me into the garage and points to the four or five objects on the floor, including one that was still rolling around. As he pointed to each one, I remember him saying in his thick, highly profane Italian accent: ?You see this? That?s a? your &^! axle, that?s a? your &^! axle, that?s a? your &^! axle over there?? This was a problem? AND the struts were also bad. He asked me what might have caused the &^! problem, and I thought back to the day before where I had to jump the median to stop my car on the exit ramp.

I explained my story and predicament, and I believe he took pity on me. He said he would get me an axle from ?somewhere? and at least make it possible to get to Boston that afternoon. While he and I were waiting for the part to arrive (the girl was still sleeping at the hotel), we had a very pleasant conversation. He was telling me about a vacation that was coming up, and I decided to tell him some of my stories with bad luck on vacations. He liked my near-airplane crash story the best. (On a side note, I have had 6 ?incidents? on airplanes, including one that involved a 4000? stall and free fall on a commercial airliner to just 30? above the Greenland icecap? I have pictures to prove it? but that?s another story.) He was so entertained by my Boston story AND my Greenland plane story, that he called all the mechanics into the lobby, to retell the stories. I felt like the bard of Darien, Connecticut.

After I was done, the boss said ?Don?t worry? we?ll a? take care of you.? He walks over to the phone, makes another phone call, and starts screaming at the top of his lungs ?WHERE?S THAT A? &^! AXLE I ASKED YOU FOR??? YOU SAID IT WOULD BE HERE ALREADY!!!? WHAT!!??!! ? WHAT!!??!!. LISTEN? YOU HAVE 10 MINUTES, TEN &^! MINUTES, MICKEY, TO GET ME THAT A? &*^! AXLE.? He slammed down the phone, and winked at me.

Sure enough? within 10 minutes, I see a young lad running down the street holding a large metal object in his arms! He brought it into the garage? they put in the new part in my car, and the boss told me ?You will make it to &^! Boston, and you &^! will make it home? but not a? much &*^! farther than that.? (To this day, I am convinced this garage was run by the mob.)

Good enough for me? I drove back to the hotel, got my ?friend? (who was no longer talking to me) and drove the rest of the way to Boston in silence. Needless to say we hit Boston after the 1 foot snowstorm moved through there, so I will not to tell you about the rest of the adventures of that weekend (like parking in the snow, or the professor never showing up at MIT to meet with me.) Then, there was the 7 hour drive home with an emotional passenger which actually felt longer than the trip up. Regardless, the garage was correct, I did make it back home, and had a great story to boot. Too bad that was the end for the Dodge Aries, and it was the last time I ever drove a used car.