Several years ago, I was traveling through the middle of southern Ga, which can be pictured by imaging grass and pine trees, then blink fast to repeat the image over and over.
On this particular stretch of highway, there were sections of two lanes allowing you to pass grandma, grandpa on the tractor (not kidding), other slow drivers. On one such stretch I floored it near the end of the passing zone, to get in front of a truck and cargo trailer, which turned out to be a friend of mine with his racing carts. So I turned and waved through the open sunroof, only to turn back to look at the road and see a dead full size deer in my lane. Having a truck on my right, and an oncoming car, I committed to straddling the deer and slamming on brakes in unison.
My so-called buddy continued on, not realizing why I stopped and not worrying about me enough to care!
Its a good thing I was driving a 1975 530i bmw tank, because I rolled over the deer and came back down on the other side of it, having completely lifted the car off the ground at one point. However, my exhaust pipe was now wide open and I had to pull over. I could see from the muffler back was loose and Im in the middle of nowhere.
Realizing after 15mins or so my buddy wasnt coming back, I set to figuring out what to do. Having limited tools in the toolset, I moved the car over and actually straddled a driveway/ditch that I could crawl under the car. Once under it, I realized the exhaust clamps were gone, as well as a reducer/connector that transitioned from the pipe to the muffler.
As Im laying in the ditch, I noticed that the beer cans Im laying there with (keep in mind that even in the most remote parts of GA there are beer cans in the ditch) are roughly the diameter of the pipe i need! I cut open one can, and sure enough it would work. So now i needed several of the thinwalled beer cans to make up the pipe I needed. After walking up and down the highway, I collected enough to get the job done. With some copper electrical wire (Im a computer tech) to wrap up and twist tie the cans, I was set. As Im under there, I did noticed that there were several pieces of, um, venison, caught under the car- especially along the hangers for the exhaust, but I figured they would fall off.
I got the car backed off the ditch, changed, and got back on the road, and it held even at speed!.
Once I got to the clientsâ office, I had to get through the guard gate, as Im telling him what Im there for, he is sniffing with the strangest look on his face, then I finally smelled it to, the vension was now barbecue. I explained what had happened, which got spread around enough, that someone from the company put a bottle of barbecue sauce on the hood of my car with a napkin.
I actually drove back that night around four hours to home on the beer cans and the venison getting cooked to well done! 
The price to pay.
To grasp fully the terrible events that I am about to relate, you need to know that I am a ski fanatic (I grew up in Switzerland and started skiing when I was but a lad of 3 years old.) I live in Natick, and to satisfy my passion to ski, I used to drive to Neshoba Valley ( a small but great hill) to ski from 9pm to 10 when the resort closes. Ski at night with the lights on and a very few people around is fantastic. At 10 I would just drive back home.
On this fateful evening, the last week of the season I drove to Neshoba valley planning to get there shortly before 9pm. I noticed that my gas gauge was dangerously low, but, what the hell, ski comes first and it looked like I would have just enough to get there. I would deal with the problem later. As I cam to Neshoba Valley, I was astonished to see that they were closed. After inquiring, they told me that for this last week they were closing earlier, but, I could drive to Wachussetts,( another small ski resort.) about 20 minutes drive away where they were still open till 10. With not a slight hesitation I got back in my car and continued ma journey. Now the level of gas was dramatically low. As I zoomed on route 2, I could see by the side of my eyes gas stations but I resolutely ignored them. I needed to get there on time at all costs. With my heart pounding, I finally reached the parking lot where the engine slowly but surely died down. ?So what? I thought, I had managed to make it and there was a good 30 minutes left of skiing, which I did, thinking that I would solve the gas problem afterwards. After half an hour of lousy skiing (the snow was terrible) it was time to face reality. By then it was past 10 and the parking lot was mostly empty. I asked few people if they could give a ride to a nearby gas station. Let my tell you at 10 pm after skiing , few people are in the mood to do more then just getting back home which was exactly what I was longing for. Finally some good souls gave me a ride to the nearby station which of course was closed. Filled with guilt, I told them to bring me back to my car. I would manage I said. By then the parking lot was thoroughly empty. I managed to find some of the employees of the station and one of the snow plow operators offer to give some gasoline from a canister. He tried to pour it in my car?s tank but we soon realized that the opening to the tank was too narrow. So, using my finger to keep it open, he proceeded to pour. I was in horrible pain since the spout was pressing on my finger. Needless to say that most of the gas was pouring out of the tank! Feeling guilty again at seeing the effort this nice guy was putting in rescuing me a such a tae hour, I told him these fateful words: I think this is enough!? And so, with his benedictions, I started my journey to the closest possible gas station. After sometimes on Route 2, I saw an exit sign for a gas station, and just when I reached it, the engine died down again. The station was closed!!! By then, it was past 11pm. I noticed an hotel nearby where I proceed to. The bar was still open but empty. I called AAA and told them about my misery. They promised to be back with some gas within an hour. As I was waiting I drank a beer and had a pleasant conversation with the bar lady. I was just getting very tired. By 12, the AAA truck showed up. Now, with the right equipment the mechanic was able to poor a couple gallons in my tank and gave me directions to the next open gas station. And yes, I got there, filled my tank and started my journey back home. By then, it was past 12:30. As I was driving briskly home through the charming village of Sudbury, I was startled by the sound of a police siren. I was being stopped for speeding! At this point, the only thing I had on my mind was my bed. I submissively accepted the ticket, and respecting scrupulously the speed limits (which is natural behavior after a speeding ticket) I finally reach home, at about 1 in the morning, exhausted.
As I got in my bed, I thought to myself ? I am glad the season is over!?
PS : A true story.
Ah, the road trip from hell!
It was 1986, and I had just graduated from college with a degree in computer engineering. I had accepted a job in north Texas, which was quite a ways from where my parents lived on Long Island. My meager belongings included a stereo, a couple of chairs, and a rusty 1976 Ford Pinto (with no A/C, of course). I could have flown to Texas, had my stereo and chairs moved by movers (paid for by the company!), and bought a new or used car when I got there, but whatâs the fun in that?
I rented a big yellow truck (which was mostly empty), and my Dad thought it was a great idea to tow the car with a tow bar, which meant NO BACKING UP (this is an important detail!!!). We hooked up the car after a little cursing, removed the driveshaft, and we were ready to go. I chose to bring along my brother, since he had time for the drive, but he has ABSOLUTELY no conversational skills.
The first day was slow, Friday before Memorial Day weekend, and we had to crawl through New York City. But the best part was that it was uneventful. The second day was when it got worse.
We were kind of sick of each other after 2 days on the road, the truck was not exactly comfortable, and it only had an AM radio. If you liked listening to baseball, it was great, otherwise it was preachers and polka music. Nothing to get the conversation going like preachers and polka music and a monastic brother.
Hereâs where it went from bad to worse. It was getting dark, we had already seen the lovely slums of St. Louis (did I mention that my brother has no sense of direction, and is paralyzed by indecision?), and we found a couple of hotels along the road. We chose one that looked promising, and instead of pulling up at the side of the road, I drove into the parking lot, believing that it would wrap around the building and exit on the other side. Of course, there were no rooms at this hotel, AND the parking lot was both full and had only ONE exit!!! That meant backing up, which I was told I COULD NOT DO. Well, I tried to inch the truck forward and back, trying as I might to buy enough room to get the beast to clear the parked cars that filled the lot, but it was not going to happen. So we unhooked the rusty Pinto and pushed it off to the side, got the truck turned around, and then lined the car up to hook it back up. Um⊠it wouldnât hook back up no matter what we did. We called the truck rental help line, and the guy at the truck rental place basically told us he couldnât help us because of liability or something, and told us we were on our own. I think I was hopping mad at my brother and at myself for getting us into this mess.
I crawled under the car and hooked up the driveshaft (I guess I owned a crescent wrench in addition to the chairs and stereo), and we got a room at a hotel across the street. We thought we might try once again to hook up the car in the morning, but if that didnât work, we could just follow each other the few hundred miles to Texas. The tow bar was no better in daylight than in darkness (though would have been cooperative if Dad was along for the ride), so we set out to drive the truck with the car following (or was it the other way around?).
Now a little note about the Pinto⊠it was showing some signs of old age, it had no A/C, no power steering, but it did have a hand cranked sunroof. And since it had questionable tires, I had liberated 2 radials from a friendâs Pinto (he was about to junk his after graduation) to go with the two bias-ply tires that still had tread on my car. The handling was squirrely to say the least. So we headed off from Missouri on to Oklahoma, where my direction impaired brother tried to take the interstate WEST into the wilderness instead of heading south to Texas. This being 1986, we didnât have cell phones OR CB radios, so I could only lay on the horn and hope he followed the big yellow moving truck instead of his own faulty internal compass. He did.
We arrived at the apartment I rented sight unseen a few weeks earlier (it was a nice place, whew!), but to get in we had to have a pass code to open the gate. We fumbled with this for what seemed like 15 minutes before someone in the rental office buzzed us in, and we tried to get both the car and truck in with one opening of the gate. Bad idea! I think the truck ended up with three parallel lines along the length of the left side of the box when it closed on me, but the rusty crusty Pinto was unscathed.
I can look back on this now with a smile. I never drove a long distance with my brother again, the Pinto was sold 3 months later (after an unbearably hot summer driving that thing), I only stayed in the apartment 6 months, and the job in Texas for 2 years. Letâs just say that the drive back north (to the west of Boston) was quite uneventful.
Larry
I should tell you at the start that this story has a happy ending. If you want to stop reading right here Iâll understand but please bear with me. I was coming back to L.A. from Phoenix with my 1982 Toyota Corolla filled with boxes of books and other junk that a friend had held onto for me. I was in the California desert coming into the Mecca/29 Palms area (you know, the middle of nowhere), driving into one of the most spectacular sunsets I ever saw. It was the kind of sunset that poems and songs are written about. Suddenly, I heard a grinding sound coming from my engine. After picking my stomach up off the floor and uttering a few curses and prayers, I pulled over to look under the hood. I saw nothing, but the sound was awful. Since there was no way I was going to be stuck where I was, I got back into the car and kept driving - praying the entire way that I would not soon become a vultureâs dinner (somehow I forgot all about that glorious sunset). Amazingly, I made it another 50 miles to Banning where I had to stop for gas anyway. I pulled into a gas station, stopped the car, got out and opened the hood only to witness the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. As I was scratching my head intelligently, I heard a litle sound coming from over my left shoulder. âLooks like itâs your water pump.â At the sound I turned to my left and standing there, appearing out of nowhere like the angel in âItâs a Wonderful Lifeâ, was a little old lady who must have been 68 or so if she was a day. Obviously knowing more about engines than I did, she peered at the gushing fluid, sniffed and said, âYep, itâs your water pump.â âOkay,â I said like a dope. âWhere you going?,â she asked. âLos Angeles,â I replied. âWell, Iâm going to Orange County. I can give you lift there, if you like.â Now understand I hadnât slept for three days nor shaved. I was wearing a dirty t-shirt and jeans and I must have looked like something that had just come off the work farm or out of the state prison. Regardless, this sweet old lady put all of my boxes in her car along with me and drove me all the way to Orange County. I called a friend who happened to be staying with his aunt down there. He picked me up and we stayed at his auntâs house. The next afternoon we rented a tow bar, drove out the 80 miles to Banning and towed my car all the way back to my mechanics. Also amazingly, he was open at eleven oâclock at night when we finally got there. It all worked out beautifully and Iâll never forget that sweet, trusting old lady. See I told you this story had a happy ending. Sorry about that guys.
Iâll admit it I am a terrible driver, the following is a factual account my sister wrote regarding our trip home from Chicago to NM late December 2007, she was behind the wheel the entire drive.
I called American before we left Momâs house to make sure our flight was not delayed. At the time, I had no idea that NM had gotten hit with a major snow storm. I had heard that the storm would dump 3 inches on Friday (ie. by Saturday, weâd be fine getting into ABQ). Hah!! Robert and I made it through security and tried finding our flight gate. ABQ was not listed anywhere on the boards. We finally found a person at one of the gates and asked him where are gate was located. He said that our flight was cancelled - I responded - it canât be, we just called an hour ago. I really should have checked the weather channel before leaving momâs house - if I had known we had gotten that much snow, I would have known there was no way the airport would be open.
We called American to reschedule our flight â earliest flight out was 7pm on Tuesday night. By this time, Robert was calling his friends and finding out that NM had gotten socked with tons of snow (Rio Rancho wound up with 14 inches â unheard of for us), and one friend said another storm was coming in on Tuesday. We decided to cut our losses and rent a car one way (not bad of a price, $219, considering we would have spent at a minimum another $130 to get back and forth to Momâs house on Airtran if we had stayed until Tuesday).
If I had thought about it, I should have seen if we could get a flight to El Paso, TX and flown into El Paso and taken a rental car back home up I25. We tried doing that later on our drive toward St. Louis â all flights were booked solid on American and United. Kate met us at a truck stop in Springfield to give us an adapter that converts electric power plug to car power (cigarette lighter). Neither Robert nor I had an adapter for the car for our cell phones - we both brought home the adapters that plug into outlets (not realizing weâd be driving for ever and a day).
We made it quite easily through MO with updates from Kate as to whether roads were bad in OK. The Texas panhandle was getting hit with an ice storm so we figured weâd spend the night in OK city, OK. I had not been feeling particulary well, but figured Iâd make it home ok. Right outside of Springfield, MO, I knew I was going to vomit. I moved over to the âslowâ lane and was trying to slow down onto the shoulder when I threw up. It was projectile vomiting ---- open mouth, out it comes. Three times. Blasted onto the windshied, the console, and the steering wheel. My pants were covered with vomit as was the drivers side of the car. While vomiting Iâm steering onto the shoulder of the road. At this point, I am now feeling just fine â must have gotten some bad food poisoning. There was a rest area only 1 mile from where we were on the shoulder of the road, so I drove to the rest area (keep in mind itâs pitch black outside which is just as well since Robert canât stand the sight of vomit and would and thrown up if he could see me). I got out of the car, got most of the vomit off my pants and top, staring âshovelingâ the rest off of the seat, console, etc. Robert went to the bathroom to get me paper towels (by the way, rest stops donât have paper towels anymore â itâs all electric fans). He found an open door from a cleaner and grabbed an entire roll of paper towels. I spent a 15 minutes wiping up vomit with paper towels and throwing the towels onto the street by the car. One of the cleaners came by and I told her Iâd pick up the towels when I was done cleaning up. She asked us if we needed anything else (I probably should have used one of her cleaning solutions, but I just used water when everything was done being wiped up). Robert had the chore of shaking out the floor mat.
I start toward the womanâs bathroom completed soaked in vomit on my pants â a woman tells me that Iâve gone to far and opens up the door for me. I just say "yes, Iâve vomited all over myself, and walk into the handicapped stall â she took the ânormalâ stall. I changed my clothes and then washed everything out at one of the larger sinks. I put everything in one of those large zip lock bags that Kate had given me.
An hour later or so Robertâs on the phone talking to Dick and telling him about me vomiting. I had been drinking some diet coke to get some caffenine in me â big mistake. As Robert is discussing the situation with Dick, Iâm back to pulling over to the side of the road. Robert figures out something is wrong, asks me if Iâm going to vomit again. This time I was able to open the door so the vomit (three times again) flies onto the window, on the door, and out the door (only some got on my second and last pair of pants). Since it was all liquid this time, it wasnât so bad cleaning up. I cleaned up the car on the side of the road with trucks passing me at 70mph. I have to admit â I littered and left the towels on the ground. It wasnât that many compared to the first time. Oh by the way, when Iâm about to start vomiting I hear Robert ask me whether Iâm going to vomit, tell Dick he shouldnât be talking about it if itâs going to make me vomit, and then hang up with Dick as the vomit lets loose. I didnât vomit because Robert was talking about it, it just came out of the mouth again. I figure the diet coke didnât settle well with my stomach. I think we stopped just outside of Tulsa, OK that night.
The next morning, we arise around 4am b/c Iâm cold in the car (stayed at a rest area) and need to get warm. Within an hour, Iâm too tired to drive and itâs too dark out to see well so we pull into a hotel another truck stop. This time, I was warm in the car, but Robert was cold. We leave again because I want to get to the other side of OK city before taking another break. We get outside of OK city and I decide to stop again b/c itâs hard to see out of the windshield (since there is a big scratch mark going across the windshield). We pulled into a hotel parking lot. No wind blowing into the car and weâre both nice and toasty warm. I slept for a good two hours somewhere outside of OK city.
By now Kate has told us that the roads our wipe open so we head on out to Amarillo, TX. Weâre also calling the state road hot lines, but the hot lines are not updated very frequently. Turns out that I40 was opened on Sunday morning, but closed in the afternoon. More on that later. About 100 miles outside of Amarillo, we hear rumors at a rest area that I40 is closed in NM. I asked for a map, but the lady told me that the rest area has no maps, but we can get them at exit 76 (Amarillo) travel center. We make it to Amarillo and the truck center. The lady there says that I40 is closed at Santa Rosa, NM. She says we should wait at the travel center b/c once I40 is open, weâll be able to âflyâ out of here on the interstate. Furthermore, if I40 is closed, there arenât enough hotels in Santa Rosa for all the people heading through I40. Evidently a ton of people spent the night in Amarillo. I tried to my friend Mike to see if it would be better to take a road down to Clovis, NM (southwest of Amarillo) or stay on I40. Couldnât get a hold of Mike so we decided weâd head on out to Santa Rosa, and then head south if necessary. Amarillo had tons of ice on the trees and grass - the interstate was clear. They really got socked with an ice storm.
We start flying down the interstate at this point, when suddenly it comes to a stand still. It was unbelievable â trucks and cars are at a stand still. It takes a long time to get people going once the interstate opens up I guess. There was also a jack-knifed semi in the median. A wonderful semi let us out onto the frontage road (he came to a complete stop and just let people in the left lane âcutâ him off so that they could get onto the frontage road). We were making great time on the frontage road when we decided we should stop and get gas. After getting gas (and that was an adventure â everyone else is thinking the same thing weâre thinking), I decide that the interstate looks like itâs moving again. WRONG!! Stop and go traffic again. We drive off the interstate (illegally) onto the frontage road (I gunned the car to make sure we didnât get stuck) and take off down the frontage road to the border of TX and NM. Suddenly the frontage road ends in 1.5 miles (which is why everyone else was turning left to go back onto I40 or over I40 to get to the Stuckeyâs truck stop (and another frontage road on the other side of the interstate). We decide to stop at Stuckeyâs to find out if the frontage road on this side of the interstate goes all the way to Tucumcari. I couldnât even find a place to park at Stuckeyâs so I parked on the driveway leading out to the frontage road. The guy in Stuckeyâs and people coming back from Tucumcari, NM are saying that I40 is closed again and that NM is turning around traffic and sending people back to Amarillo to find hotels.
I finally am able to call Mike, and he tells me that I should take the Texas Road 214 down to Clovis, NM. Since I have no idea what exit Iâm at, can not even park the car again (I had left the parking space), Robert and I head back toward Amarillo looking for Texas State Road 214. Poor Mike is trying to figure out where we are in relationship to State Road 214, and Iâm near the breaking point of hysteria. It was only three miles away. My GPS was on, but it was taking a while to find all the satellites and âlocateâ our position. We get onto State Road 214, and itâs a road of ice. Finally my GPS âlocatesâ us and shows that we are indeed on TX 214. The ice ended in about 5 miles, and it was clear sailing all the way to Clovis, NM. From Clovis, we canât take US 60 across the mountains to I25 b/c itâs closed too. We then head down (southwest) to Roswell, NM. At this point, Kate is making sure the roads are ok from Clovis to Roswell and from Roswell to I25. Everything is open, but I25 is said to be slick in some spots.
From Roswell, we take US380 to I25. US380 forces us up over the mountains. Itâs a winding two lane highway. The roads are clear, but thereâs snow everywhere else. The traffic coming toward us is terrible, though âour sideâ of the traffic isnât bad. I bet that US380 was closed going east bound for quite a while because of the next described accident. We had to stop for about 5 minutes while the police were letting the east bound traffic through âourâ side of the road. At the top of the mountain, we saw a UHaul truck on itâs side in the east bound lane. People were moving the stuff out of the one U-Haul and into two other U-Hauls. I bet thatâs why the east bound traffic was so bad. Until the police go there, there was no way to go around the accident safely. I felt so bad for the people with the U-Haul. ⊠And so glad that it hadnât shut down the entire highway.
My goal was to get to I25 (from US 380) before the sun went down. US 380 isnât a bad road once you get to the other side of the mountain, but itâs still winding and only two lanes. I was praying that nobody did anything stupid to cause an accident. We made it to I25 around 5:30pm. I watched a spectacular sunset while getting there.
Now weâre only 70 miles from ABQ, and Iâm really getting tired. Suddenly fog rolls onto I25, and visibility is reduced to next to nothing in some spots. Cars and trucks are flying by me in the âfastâ lane. I stayed in the âslowâ lane with my hazards blinking. I traveled about 40 to 50 mph. Whenever I saw a car coming up from behind, I pumped the brake so that they hopefully noticed that I was going slowly. Of course, we are now getting close to empty on the gas situation, but I donât want to exit the interstate until I can find a gas station right off I25. Robert points out that there are no gas stations on the road leading into the airport so we stop in Los Lunas (last town before hitting ABQ). Itâs still foggy there, but at least they have street lights on.
Once back on I25, itâs still really bad visibility. I know that we need exit 222 to get to the airport (to pick up my truck and drop off the rental car). The visibility is so poor that we canât see any signs until they are right in front of us. I thought I had taken the wrong exit even though the sign said otherwise. It was so foggy out. We finally made it to the âpark and rideâ where I explain that we had flown to Chicago and gotten stuck there and drove home. They let us go pick up my truck for free. The aisles are clear of snow, but everything else is covered with snow. My truck had at least a foot of hard snow on it. The rental car had a brush and ice scraper in it so Robert used that (I later found another one in the truck). I hid my hands in new jacket and used the sleeve to brush off the snow. I had to use my elbow to just break the snow apart before using the sleeve. That coat is great â my shirt sleeves didnât get wet at all.
I then took the rental car back to the renta car place with Robert following me. I forgot to tell them they needed to clean the car. There was no one to check us in so I just put the form in a box. Iâm assuming theyâll figure out that we brought the car back. The road from the airport to home was really icy and foggy. I dropped Robert off at the street in front of his driveway. I didnât even bother trying to get my white truck up the driveway and left it in the street. Boy is it a long way up my driveway in foot high snow carrying tons of stuff. We got home around 8pm on Sunday.
Back in 1991, we decided to take a winter vacation with our three young sons in order to go find snow. Having grown up in Florida, they had never seen snow, so we were headed to North Georgia, where friends had assured us there was ALWAYS snow by the third week of February.
On our first vacation day, we got a very late start because there was an emergency at my husbandâs workplace. Therefore, we were only four hours from home when we decided to call it a day. After supper, our 4-year-old son did a sommersault on the motel bed, flipped off onto the floor, and broke his collarbone. It was the wee hours of the morning by the time we were done in the emergency room, and the doctorâs parting words were, âDonât let him fall.â
Back at the motel, my husband and I discussed cancelling the trip and going back home, but we knew how disappointed the kids would be if they couldnât see snow. We also didnât want to lose our downpayment for the cabin we were renting. We should have followed our instincts to go home.
The next morning, our first job was to buy button-down or zip-front clothes for our son (since he couldnât raise his arm to put on the sweatshirts we had packed) and a roomier jacket to accommodate the sling. The clothing bill was more than the downpayment on the cabinâanother strong hint that we ignored.
The farther north we went, the colder it got, but there was no snow on the ground. At the state park check-in, we were informed that it had been the driest winter on record and that no snow was due for the foreseeable future. There were reports, however, that one of the North Carolina ski resorts was making snow because it was finally cold enough for it.
Consequently, the next morning we headed to the NC ski resort. We got permission to play in the snow as long as we stayed in one small area at the bottom of the slope. We demonstrated the fine art of snowman-building, but our oldest son decided that he needed a bigger challenge. He broke off some branches from a nearby bush and tried lashing them together with his shoelaces to make his own skis. While we were hovering protectively over the youngest so he wouldnât fall, the other two decided they needed bigger branches from a bush that overhung a stream nearby. The middle son was the âgo-fer,â and in trying to reach a suitable branch, he tumbled down the slope and into the icy water. We immediately pulled him out of the creek, took him to the car, stripped him of his icy-wet clothing, and parked him in the front seat close to the heater. We had to abandon the snow-play and go back to the cabin. Did we get the hint from this latest omen? Nope. We pushed on.
Since our sonâs clothing was still not dry the next morning, we found a laundromat in town, dried the wet overcoat, and then took a nice little drive around the countryside. It was a beautiful day, and we had an enjoyable trip, so we thought our luck had changed.
In the late afternoon we headed back to the cabin for dinner, but a few miles from our destination, we encountered a roadblock. A park ranger stopped us and told us that a forest fire was coming over the ridge above the cabins and no one would be allowed into that area. He advised us to find a motel in town for the night. We informed him that all our stuff was still in the cabin, so he reluctantly escorted us back to the cabin, giving us 10 minutesânot a second moreâto pack up everything. We formed a âbucket brigade,â throwing everything into the car in a jumble, and by the time we got back to the roadblock, little fingers of fire were creeping close to the road. We declared that we had finally been defeated by the bad luck, that the vacation to find snow had been a bust, and that we would go home the next morning.
We tucked the boys into bed at the motel and went to bed right away ourselves. In the middle of the night we were awakened by the sound of our youngest son throwing up. Fortunately, he had been sleeping on a separate cot because of his injury, so we got him cleaned up, stripped the bedclothes, and went back to sleep. A few moments later, the middle son woke up complaining of a stomachache, and soon he too was in the bathroom throwing up. Waves of nausea were beginning to overwhelm me also, which led us to believe it must have been food poisoning, since my husband and our oldest son had ordered a different menu item than the one that the three of us had shared. I guess it was payback time for not listening to our first instincts.
We were miserable on the journey back home, stopping frequently by the side of the road to accommodate whichever of the three âsickiesâ needed to stop. We were almost back to the town where we had stayed on the very first night of the trip when we heard a loud âker-THUMP, whack, whack, whack.â We pulled off to the side of the road and examined the tires. We depend entirely on competent mechanics for car help, so since it wasnât tires, we were clueless.
We had broken down about halfway between exits, but there was an emergency call box about a half-mile up the road, so my husband went to place a call. He came back and said that he hadnât talked to a real person but that he had followed the directions on the box. We waited for a couple of hours, but no one came. Between bouts of nausea, I read to the boys, exhausting every storybook resource we had brought along, and still no rescue came.
Finally we spotted a tow truck going northbound, not southbound as we were. The driver saw us and crossed the median to help us. My husband said, âWhat took so long? We called from the emergency call box a couple of hours ago.â The driver said, âOh, yeah, thatâs the only call box along this stretch that doesnât work.â More payback.
The tow-truck driver quickly ascertained that our car was not driveable, so the five of us crowded into the cab with him, and he took the car to a garage down the road. The mechanic there discovered that the 4WD axle of our Colt Vista had sheared off, jamming the non-4WD part of the transmission, and he gave us a choice: spend gazooms of money to fix it, or remove the 4WD workings and go home. We opted for the latter.
At that point we were about an hour from my in-laws, so we called to ask if we could âcamp outâ with them for the night. They listened to our tale of woe but chose not to have âa bunch of sick peopleâ in the house because my father-in-law was recuperating from a recent surgery. We assured them it was food poisoning, not the flu, but they were firm in their decision, so we ended up back at the very same âbad-luckâ motel we had stayed in the first night of our vacation.
We finally made it back home completely exhausted, but since that time no one at our house has ever dared to utter the words, âLetâs go find snow!â
I decided to take advantage of BMWs European Delivery Program and ordered a new 128i coupe so I could take my first overseas trip to Europe and have some fun driving around Germany by myself. From the time I got off in Munich my learning curve was very steep. I had trouble getting out of an airport where apparently no doors led to the outside. I expected an elevated train, so dragged my luggage upstairs, later realizing that the airport was elevated, not the trains. After I picked up my car at BMW headquarters, I somehow found my first hotel, slept to the sound of âBourne Identityâ sirens all night, and couldnât find the correct red door (out of six available choices) that would take me to the underground parking lot the next morning so I could leave Munich in my new car. On night two I got lost near Stuttgart, trying to find a tiny German resort town. It was dark, rainy, and everyone I stopped to ask for directions couldnât speak English. I finally got help from a restaurant owner who said that the street sign where my lodging was located had been taken down because of road construction. When I parked my car across from my âhotelâ and opened to trunk to remove my luggage, I heard a creepy male voice in the dark saying âHellooo.â After I looked around frantically, the voice said âOver here.â I was so sleep deprived by this time and freaked out by my personal stalker that I was ready to get on a plane and go back home.
The rest of the two weeks in which I drove throughout Germany was a combination of getting lost, getting sick of eating boiled eggs, bread, and meat for breakfast (as Iâm a bagel person), and trying to learn how to use my windshield wipers and signals. That said, I would do it again in a heartbeat. It was a rush to drive 120 mph on the highway, listen to Beatles songs sung in French, and watch Halle Berry and Kurt Russell speak German in âExecutive Decision.â
This particular epic of travel-incidents occurred during one of my many (20 or so) car trips across the country. On this particular return-leg of the journey I was accompanied by my new girlfriend, the longtime vegetarian drummer in my band, and ten tornadoes. We had just finished playing in Montana and the other members of the band wisely chose to fly home leaving the three of us to make the drive hauling the equipment back to Massachusetts with us. (By the way,no one will ever sue U-haul for false advertising, itâs always an âAdventure in Movingâ.) Nonetheless, as we crossed the border into Wyoming, the drummer fell asleep and in his unconscious state his relaxed body began to âoff-gasâ. That is to say he was flatulent. But no words can describe the level to which this offense can be described. The closest I can come is to tell you that it filled the vehicle with a cattle-pasture odor that not only could not be exhausted no matter how many windows were opened but it set my âlady-friendâ into a tirade that equaled the aroma and also lasted through Wyoming and most of South Dakota. The more she complained, the more it awoke and angered him into directing his foulness between the front seats. At the fuel stop in Sioux Falls I was ready to let them go on their merry way by themselves and I would stay behind in S.D. just so I could be rid of the agony of my nose and ears. Unfortunately, the band gear belonged to me, the trailer had to be returned and the drummer had no driverâs license. Worse still, I paid for fuel on the way out and we were relying on her to cover the gas home. In hindsight I should have locked them in a bathroom stall and let them duke it out to see who rides, but being the gentleman I am, having promised her mother I would return her safely, I left my best friend standing at the Sioux Falls truck stop as the girl and I pulled away. We drove through one and within ten minutes of nine other tornadoes. We arrived on the coast on a Thursday and my drummer got home the following Tuesday. Curiously, he still speaks to me and she wishes I were dead. It just goes to show that the price of gas is higher than you think.
Let me start by saying this trip was taken in the early sixties; before ABS, automatic belt tensioners, turn signals having seperate lights from the brake lights and seat belts or AC became common in anything other than high-end vehicles. I was 15 years old and working the night shift at an all night full service gas station. My older sister and mother ran an all night diner aprox. 100 yards from the station, both of which were the only ones open after 10 pm for 50 miles in any direction. I tell you this to let you know how difficult it was for all of us to get off work at the same time. We had planned a trip from central Illinois to Nashville, Tn. as a birthday present for my older sister. My mother, sister and my sisterâs boyfriend were all into country music. I, on the other hand, couldnât stand it, especially the twangy kind, but had been persuaded to go along. The plan was to leave early in morning as soon as I got off work at 6:00 am. That would get us to Nashville, barring any complications, in time to get checked into our hotel, showered, clothes changed and into the line for the first show at the Grand Old Opry. Around 5:00am, the day we were suppose to leave, a customer pulled onto the drive with his alternator belt squealing like crazy. I was hurrying to get the shelves stocked, service bays cleaned and all of the other jobs that I had been assigned completed. I really didnât need this kind of trouble this close to the end of my shift just before our trip. I tried to tighten the belt but even with it adjusted as tight as it would go it still squealed. I looked at all of our reference books and couldnât find a belt that would fit this car in our inventory. As a last resort I grabbed a tube of belt dressing off the shelf. I told the customer to bump the starter then shut it off so I could get the dressing to all parts of belt, hoping the dressing would stop the squealing until he could get to another station that hopefully had the belt he needed. He bumped the starter, shut off the key then just as I started to apply the dressing bumped it again. The belt grabbed the two fingers I was using to apply the dressing and slammed them into the alternator pully, smashing them both. After a quick trip to the emergency room it was decided that I was very lucky to still have those two fingers and the trip could still go forward. (The novacain along with my 15 year old bravado allowed me to believe I could do this without too much discomfort.) Aproximately 4 hours later the temperature in the car was 95 degrees and the novacain had worn off. I was curled up in the corner of the back seat moaning and cradling my thobbing hand in my lap. We were approaching another vehicle that appeared to be preparing to turn right. My sisterâs boyfriend who was behind the wheel at the time decided he should just move into the left lane and pass them. Just as we got to the back of the other car its driver turned left. We found out later that the other car had a faulty left brake/turn light and the driver was in the habit of pumping the brakes. Luckily the other driver saw us and attempted to pull back into the right lane before any major damage occured. Not before my sisterâs boyfriend had jerked the steering wheel violently to the left throwing me across the back seat however. Needless to say my injured digits came solidly into contact with the right side door. No major damage was done to either car but a police accident report had to be filled out which put us even farther behind schedule than the emergency room visit had. By the time we got to Nashville and into line for the show it serpentined completely around the block. When they had filled the auditorium and stopped letting people in our group was stopped in front of the Earnest Tubb record shop. For two hours we were stuck in front of the speakers at the front of the shop that played Earnestâs latest release, Waltz Across Texas, over and over. (Did I mention I couldnât stand country music, especially twangy country music?) After about an hour of this torment I convinced my mother and sister that my hand was hurting so badly that I would be better off going back to the hotel. I told them I would be fine if I could just go back to the room and put some ice on it and elevate while they enjoyed themselves at the second show. The rest of the trip was uneventful as long as I didnât bang my hand into anything which I of course did, numerous times. While I was gone by boss talked to his insurance agent. He was informed that according to Illinois child labor laws was illegal for a child under 16 to work after 10 pm and was definitely forbidden to work on automobiles for pay. He fired me as soon as I got back.
My story is not about a vacation or a road trip, but it is a car story from hell, so I thought Iâd share it. These kinds of things can only happen to me.
Some years agoâroughly 1995âI was a freelance house painter and I drove an old beat up Chevy truck from the early 70s. It was a Chevy Cheyenne to be preciseâI think it was a '71. It was Friday afternoon and it was the end of a hard day and a hard week. I parked in my driveway and as I got out of the truck I heard a hissing sound. It was air escaping from my tire. Naturally, I didnât have a spare or even a jack, for that matter, so I jumped in the truck and rushed to a tire shop before it went completely flat. They fixed it in about 15 minutesâlife was good. âSee Mark,â I said to myself, you just have to deal with things and it all works out." Feeling good, I decided to go straight to the bank and deposit some checks.
My bank was a very busy one, located on one of the busiest streets in Santa Barbara, CA. That was especially true, of course, on Friday afternoon. I zipped down the one-way street, radio blaring, and then whipped the truck into the entrance of the parking lot. Or at least that was my intentionâinstead, just as I started to turn the wheel, it came off in my hands! Let me emphasize, that is an odd feeling. The truck was partly turned, but not quite enough to make the lot, so I hit the curb and came to a stop, blocking two lanes of the very busy street, as well as the only entrance to the very busy bank, on Friday afternoon right about 5:30.
Now, at that time of my life I was used to pushing dead cars out of traffic, but it suddenly dawned on me that pushing would be no good without being able to steer. So I sat there, holding the wheel. The shaft had dropped down into the steering column, so there was no way to re-attach it.
Finally, amidst the honking and yelling, etc., a couple of guys came to help. We discovered that we could maneuver the truck by lifting the hood and slowly turning turning the the steering shaft by hand. It took forever to turn the wheels, push the truck back, then turn them the other way, push it forward, and so on. It took about an hour to get the beast to the side of the road. By then, traffic was backed up for blocks, people were staring at me with actual hatred, and one woman was yelling at a cop to give me a ticket.
And that is how my Friday ended. I walked home in disgrace, leaving my truck illegally parked by the side of the street, hated by a large percentage of the good people of Santa Barbara. I canât say that this incident was the catalyst, but I did go to law school not long after that. Coincidence? You decide.
Mark Yates.
I had just finished school in Dayton, Ohio and my wife and I were moving to Largo, Florida for my new position. Since we had two small, old cars my parents in Florida offered to drive up with their van and help us move. We loaded up our earthly possessions in our two cars, the van and a rented trailer hitched to the van and set off on our ill fated journey. Things were going smoothly until we ascended a steep mountain pass on I-75 at the Kentucky-Tennessee border in the Great Smokey Mountains. Our caravan began to slowly lose speed until we were below 30 mph and the van/trailer in the lead began to buck and heave followed by a trail of smoke and fluid spilling forth from below. Diagnosis, cooked transmission. Luckily, there was a garage at the base of the mountain in Jellico, Tennessee which was able to tow the van and repair the transmission. Unfortunately the vans towing days were permanently over. Lo and behold they also rented moving trucks since the unforgiving mountain provided a steady stream of âdo it yourself moversâ like ourselves. So we took the truck back up the mountain and off loaded our things from the trailer into the truck. After several days and much unanticipated expense, ie.three days lodging, meals, a new transmission, and a rental truck with now empty trailer we were on our way again! Just as I was getting used to driving the truck which was the biggest vehicle I had ever driven, the previous having been dadâs 79 Lincoln TownCar, we were all starting to get our humor back when I noticed the truck was getting low on fuel. I pulled off the interstate and into the gas station NOT noticing the height of my truck and the lack thereof of the filling pumps overhanging roof. Yep, wedged that sucker tight! Luckily the only person at the station was an adolescent cashier who didnât seem very upset about the mishap. We set about trying to figure out how to unwedge the truck while atrracting as little attention as possible hoping to escape before the station owner returned. We finally ended up letting the air out of all the tires and gained just enough clearance to escape. Free, free at last as the man once said! We were so proud of ourselves until I began looking for the air compressor hose which you guessed it, was not there! You really can drive a loaded rental truck with 6 fully deflated tires but only at about 3 mph. After many hours driving, punctuated by a variety of stares, honks and gestures we finally found an air pump and reinflated all the tires. The remainder of the trip was uneventful and we arrived safe and sound in Largo, Florida. As calming as the sound of the gulfs surf upon the beach was I vowed then to NEVER move myself again and have in the 22 years since managed whenever changing jobs to insist my new employer pick up the tab for moving expenses. Paul & LuAnn
1959- THE BEAST WITH NO PEDALS, THE WORST CAR TRIP!
My friend Doug and I (BOTH 19 y/o) took a 1954 Chevy convertible and installed a 1955 Chevy V8 engine. He was more the Dr. Frankenstein and I the Igor in this endeavor, the car turned out to be ?you know who! ?THE BEAST?.
After the engine transplant we ?road tested? it for about a week. The only thing that went wrong was the hood blowing off (Doug was an excellent engineer, but was lacking in the methodical portion of this project, like tightening the bolts, or getting the convertible top to work). All and all the car ran well, no leaks, no smoke, nobody stranded. We decided to take a road trip to Watkins Glen NY to see a Formula 1 race.
We picked up our girl friends at 4 AM on a cold autumn morning. Doug would drive up (about 240 mile from Wayne NJ), my girlfriend and I were crouched in the back seat under a flimsy blanket as the heater poured radiant infra-red energy into the front compartment of the car only to be sucked out before reaching us in the back. We cruised up (about 5 hours, along mostly Rt. 17 into NY State). Doug was happily talking with his girl in the front as I and mine cowered in the back, both shivering and snuggling for warmth (no hint of sexual desire, here was ?Maslow?s Higharchy of Needs? in full action? waiting for the trip to end. We lusted for that front ?warm seat?. We knew it would be ours on the way home. We arrived, and it took an hour before we stopped shaking from the cold. The race was watched and we headed back on the long journey home. I now driving and infused by the warmth of the heat in the front seat. Doug had ducked under the blanket in the back and was making the most of a cold situation, if you know what I mean!
As we left the darkening parking lot @ 5:30 PM, the clutch ?felt funny?. The trans was grinding and difficult to get into gear. After stopping to check, we found that the hydraulic clutch master cylinder had sprung a leak?the clutch was useless. We soldiered on? I learned to turn off the engine at a stop sign or traffic light and to start the car in 1st gear, the engine would start with a roar, the tires would chirp and we would move ahead with the aplomb of a spasmodic dancer. Once moving, I could figure out how to up and down shift using the revs of the engine. It was not a pretty site as we meandered our way back to the hi-way. This did not worry Doug, as he was busy in the back seat?
Now on Rt. 17, a pretty straight road, and not needing the clutch, we cruised in 3rd gear, basking in the warmth of the heater, Doug, buried in the back; oblivious!
Doug raised his head and said, ?let?s see how fast she goes?. I hit the gas and we got it up to about 105 MPH; that was enough as traffic was seen ahead about a mile away in the darkness. I let off the gas and stared to gently touch the brake, the pedal went down, and down and finally right to the bottom?NO BRAKES? I revved the engine and down shifted into 2nd gear at about 70 MPH, this brought the speed down to about 50. We cruised along, NOW TWO PEDALS USELESS (clutch and brakes GONE). We stopped to check, and the brake master cylinder was leaking as well? Doug (Dr. Frankenstein) said he had run out of regular hydraulic brake fluid and substituted hydraulic jack fluid (which eats the seals of car hydraulic systems)? so the mystery was solved!
We searched in vain for open gas stations that might sell brake fluid, to no avail, as it was late Sunday night. Travelling down Rt. 17, we approached Mahwah (20 miles from home) and an open gas station was sighted. I was so overjoyed at the prospect of getting some brakes and clutch I ?whipped? in to the gravel filled parking lot, for a moment, forgetting I had NO BRAKES. At the last second I put the car into a 4 wheel drift and slid past the two gas pumps looming as disaster sentinels before me. The wide eyed worker saw us approach and came out of his shack. Unluckily, he had no brake fluid, but did have a story of our entry into his lot as it was an epic sight that he would long tell to his family. We approached Rt. 202 now close to home. Then it happened, as I revved the engine to hit 2nd gear, the gas pedal fell off? only the knob of the throttle rod was sticking through the floor board, my only connection to the car.
Travelling that last 20 miles was tough, I had to use compression breaking (turn off the engine with ignition key) to slow down, luckily it was 4 AM an little traffic was encountered.
We finally got home; all pedals on the floor of this ?BEAST? were now disabled. Although up for over 24 hours, I could not get to sleep. Visions of trucks, cars and stop lights came to mind as I relived the PTSDS (Post Traumatic Stress Driving Syndrome). It was at least a few days before I could sleep and forget our drive to Watkins Glen.
About 4 years ago my wife had to go to from our home in Brooklyn to Washington D.C. for a grad school interview. We decided to make it a family trip and see our nation?s capital with the kids ages 9 and 10 at the time. We were past Baltimore when our Honda Odyssey first died on the highway. The check engine light was on and it wouldn?t start. Being a cheapskate, I had booked a hotel that night for $50 through priceline.com so we had to get there, or waste the money paid for the room. We called AAA and got towed the rest of the way, about 30 miles. The next morning a repair shop checked it out and couldn?t find anything wrong with the car. Our family saw the White House, the Lincoln memorial, and we took my wife to her interview.
The Honda cooperated, until on our return trip, late at night in southern New Jersey on the turnpike it started conking out again. A few times we pulled over after it died and after a while could start it again and go a little longer. Finally we gave up and called to get towed again. A young tow truck driver responded, and we asked if we could get towed home, but some New York City law prevented him from being able to tow the car from NJ into NYC. At this point we didn?t want to be stranded in New Jersey in the middle of the night, so we arranged for him to tow us to the closest service station to NYC still in NJ and then give us a ride home. He agreed to do this for a couple hundred bucks in cash. The driver drove fast through back roads and then said he had to make a stop and made a detour and went in to a house. My wife and I imagined a pickup of drugs to keep him going through the night or the possibility of a crash or getting robbed by this guy.
We made it and dropped the car off in NJ, left the key so that it could be checked the next day at the shop, and made it home to Brooklyn without further incident, other than the extremely uncomfortable ride for my wife and 2 kids trying to sleep in the back of the pickup truck?s cab.
The next day the NJ service station had checked it out and couldn?t find anything wrong with the car. We also have a Subaru wagon, so my wife and I drove out to pick up the Honda and bring it home. I drove the Honda with my wife following in the Subaru and we got from New Jersey into Staten Island before it started dying again. We got to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and when it died there, my wife used the Subaru to push the Honda up onto the bridge until I could coast down into Brooklyn, using hand signals to try to tell her when to push and when to stop, since she couldn?t see what was in front of us. We limped and pushed until we got to to Alba, the repair shop where I have been going for a long time. Dimitri drove it and saw the problem first hand. He replaced the ignition sensor. For a long time, we were to scared to take the Honda on long trips, but eventually the memory of our road trip to hell faded and we have taken long trips in it with no breakdowns, including a recent trip to Chicago with a spur of the moment stop in Niagara Falls on the way back (with a small detour in Canadian Customs because we didn?t bring our passports).
Walter - formerly from our fair city, before moving to Brooklyn. A long time (decades) listener of Car Talk
Being a female, I get lots of advice from the men in my family (who all work for Ford) about what kind of cars to buy, which to avoid, and blah blah blah. I rarely listen, being an independant minded kinda girl. A few years ago, I decided to look for a Fiat Spider, I thought they were cute⊠this I later found out is a poor excuse for buying a car. I found a 1976 Fiat Spider convertable, much to the dismay of my family. No amount of common sense could deter me. I drove the car for about a month before something went wrong, I donât even remember what it was now but I took it to a garage recommended by my father-in-law. I asked the mechanic to only fix what I was bringing it in for. When I went to pick up the car, he had fixed several extra things, including replacing the oil cap. I was furious and being that I couldnât have him unfix anything, I told him to take the 4.00 oil cap off. I stuffed a rag in and was on my way. The next week, I was on the freeway in Louisville KY. when the engine caught on fire, yes, the rag had been sucked in and the oil caught fire. I now had a FLAMING Fiat spider. My fault yes! I had it towed to a different mechanic who replaced the engineâŠon the way home, the engine blew up. I bought a second engine! This one worked but the gear shift came off in my hand while I was driving, had it fixed and all was well until I left a tin of brownies I was taking to a picnic on the dash. I came outside to leave and found a big hole ripped in the ragtop. Some kind of varmit, broke into my car, ate the brownies, and pooped all over the front seat. I patched the hole with duct tape and sold it to my father-in-law, who never drove it, just parked it in the garage and admired it. I was later told that Fiat means Fix it again Tony. That cute little car cost me about 10,000.00 and a tin of brownies. Never again will I ignore automotive advice freely offered.
Hello
The trip started out normal on our drive from Nashville, TN to Boone, NC to go for a skiing trip. We arrived with no trouble at all. On our way to the first ski of the season from our hotel we started up a hill to only hear a slip and a bang from our engine. We pull into a pluming and lamp store where we are now stranded with the engine no longer turning. We go into the lamp and plumbing store to call the local good old boys to come and give us a tow. About 30 min latter the tow truck finally came up the road. After it came to a stop a no older that 19yr old kid gets out and starts too hook up our car. as the cable creaks and groans we realize that there is no way my family(all three of us) are going to fit in his truck. So my mother(the lucky one) rode in the cab with the young man. My father and I rode in our car on the back of a tow truck down country roads. we felt as if we where on a roller coaster, as the truck sped down curvy two lane roads. I felt like I was going to be sick. We finally arrived at the Exon, gas, tow, mechanic and country store. We got out of our car and jumped from the bed of the tow truck feeling lucky to have survived our experience. to add insult to injury our car turned out to have blown an Engine. We then ended up getting our uncle to come with an U haul tow dolly to tow us back to Nashville. We now dub this trip the vacation from the evil realm.
Hope this brings some laughter.
My road trip from hell began in March of 2005. My girlfriend (at the time), who is a full blooded Italian and I jumped on a plane from Rome, Italy to Stansted (near London) England. My intention for this trip was to propose to my girlfriend and I had things planned out perfectly. The proposal would take place at sunrise at Stonehenge. HotelâŠbooked, rental carâŠbooked. We arrived in Stansted and took a bus from the airport to central London. We were a little early at the rental car agency, but I figured âWhat the heck! Letâs see if our car is ready!â So I approached the counter and asked the employee if our economy Ford Escort was available. I was told that the car had not been cleaned yet, but they could upgrade me to a Jaguar immediately, for $70 more. After saying thank you and declining the upgrade, the assistant motioned for me to come over again, âI tell you what, I will give you the Jaguar for the same cost as the Escort.â Things were looking good!
We were now headed for the hotel in a beautiful Jaguar. The hotel was approximately 3 miles away. After circling the hotel 6 times trying to find which one-way road we needed to take to actually park near it, we found the road it was on and parked in what I thought was a pay parking spot. I promptly jumped out and paid the $8 for 2 hour parking fee and helped bring our bags into the hotel. As I was checking in, the concierge asked me where I was parked. I notified him of the space we were parked in and he said I should move it immediately because I wasnât in a pay spot, but a private one. I should have known that 2 lines in the parking bracket means private and 3 lines means pay parking. Hurrying away, I arrived just in time to see a parking maid placing a ticket on my windshield. After 30 minutes of arguing, showing the 2 hour parking receipt, and a few other choice words, I walked away with a $300 parking ticket.
Damage done, we finished checking into the hotel and decided to find a pay-parking lot to leave the car for the evening, go sightseeing in London and then, the all important, wake up at 3:30am for the drive out to Stonehenge! After driving another 3 miles to locate the parking lot, we exited the car only to notice one of the rear wheels completely deflated. Being a rental car, and having paid for the RAC (Royal Auto Club) temporary coverage, I didnât want to put the donut tire on in fear of the possibility to cause more damage, so I phoned up the rental company. They notified me that someone would be out to assist me within 30 minutes. 2 Hours later, I phoned the rental company back and told them that I was going to see London and I expected someone to be at the vehicle at 2AM, explaining my intentions for this trip, hoping for some sympathy. It was agreed, 2AM the RAC would have someone at the vehicle to repair the flat tire. The rest of the day was filled with sightseeing London.
At 2:30AM, the RAC car finally pulled up to my joy. The mechanic inspected the flat tire, opened the trunk and began to install the donut. Taken back, I asked âWhy arenât you repairing the tire?â to which I was told âItâs not policy to repair tires, just replace, you will have to go to the rental agency for a new tire or new car.â At 2:30am, the only rental agent open, was the one at Heathrow airport. After some quick directions, we drove to Heathrow as fast as our â50mphâ donut would take us (hey, they DO work over 50mph!). Finally, at Heathrow, we walked into the office, where we were told âThe computers in the US are down for maintenance, it will be another 20 minutes.â By this time, I was looking at my watch every 5 minutes or so and sunrise was approaching ever so quickly. Finally the computers came back up and the agent gave usâŠa Ford Escort as a replacement to the Jaguar.
After the paperwork was signed and we left Heathrow, you would think there would be a nice quiet ride through the English countryside to get to Stonehenge on timeâŠbut the fact that the countryside is exploding with rabbits who seem to congregate on the side of the road like spectators at a Rally Car Championship prompted my girlfriend to sound the horn, most likely waking every poor soul between Heathrow and Stonehenge!
âŠAnd even after all thisâŠshe still said yes!
-Keith in Italy
Another Try At Disney World
We had our second attempt to say âHeyâ to Mickey and Minnie at Disney World. The first attempt at a dream vacation at Disney World involved a âlostâ car in acres of parking lots, a blown up rental car, and a hungry children wanting fried chicken.
Again, we flew to Orlanda and rented another car at the airport. We drove to our luxurious hotel and were greeted by a uniformed parking valet who set our luggage on a cart and told us to check in while he parked the car for us and would leave the keys at the front desk for us. We got to our fancy room and everyone changed clothes to meet Mickey (both children had thrown up on themselves and Mom and Dad on the air plane). We proceeded to the front desk and asked the receptionist for our car keys. She muttered with a blank stare on her face, âSir, we donât have your car keys.â My husband explained we had given our car keys to their uniformed parking attendant and he said he would leave them at the front desk. She replied with another blank look, âSir, we donât have parking attendants!!â Could we have given our rental car keys to a stranger in uniform? You bet we did, and happily too!
The car was found several days later abandoned at McCoy Air Force base. It seems a very clever (almost genius in my opinion) young man needed to get back to base before being listed as AWOL so he became the âgreat imposterâ. Bet they are still laughing at us and about us at the hotel!
Iâm also sure the rental car company now has a âdo not rent vehicle to â EVERâ notation by our name!
It was a beautiful summer day, we were headed to the beach. Husband driving, kids in the back and Maggie Mae, our West Highland Terrier (like Toto only white) was in my lap in the front seat with her head out the window. We were at a stoplight in Sandwich waiting to turn left. Because sheâs not very big, Maggie was straining to get more of her head out of the window, to the point of stepping on the side mirror so that her belly was resting on the car window frame. Light turned green, hubby steps on the gas while turning left and out goes the dog! I instinctively grab the leash and pull her back in, donât know if she even hit the pavement! If that wasnât bad enough, there was a family standing directly across from us on the corner, waiting to cross the street, and there they all were with their mouths wide open in astonishment! We beat it to the beach. Good thing Westies have stong necks. Of course we ran into the family later on at the beach, they inquired about the dog, I wondered why they were asking - I hadnât recognize them with their mouths shut!
It was February 1995. I drove down from Ithaca, NY to New York City for the weekend in my 1984 Honda Civic hatchback . My graduate school Brazilian friend, Roberto, came along to visit his girlfriend in Queens. He kept the car while I stayed over with friends in downtown Manhattan. âHave fun, Roberto!â
Sunday afternoon Roberto picked me up to return to Ithaca. Itâs about a four hour drive. An hour into the trip, the lights start dimmingâŠthe radio stops playingâŠthe heater is not heating. So we stop at the nearest gas station to figure out whatâs wrong. âThe car wonât start back up again so it must be the battery, right?â (Note that Roberto and I, future engineering PhDs, know nothing about cars - we can barely drive. Also note that it was super cold that night. I believe it was actually the coldest night of that winter in Ithaca.)
We call AAA and costs $80 to recharge the battery. âCanât I buy a couple of brand new batteries with that? Fine.â The battery is recharged, problem solved. We get back on the road. Two hours later, the same thing starts to happen. âRoberto, what did you do to my car!? How is it still running with the electrical system down?â We stop at another gas station and call AAA. Itâs another $80. This time, the AAA mechanic explains that the alternator is not charging the battery. âWhat is an alternator?â We are about an hour away from Ithaca. âThe battery lasted two hours last time we charged it so we should be able to make it, right? Letâs go!â
Half an hour later, itâs pitch black on the road, we are in the middle of nowhere and the lights start dimming again. âOh, no! What should we do? I canât see the road.â Roberto comes up with a brilliant plan. âFollow that car. We can use its lights to guide us.â I accelerate right up to the car ahead. Itâs working. We can keep going this way and weâll be back in Ithaca in no time, especially because the car ahead is going pretty fast - really fast. Itâs going faster and faster. So fast, that itâs obvious the driver is scared of the car behind him with its lights off trying to catch up with him in the middle of nowhere. So fast, that itâs too dangerous to keep going and I end up stopping.
Unfortunately, I couldnât see where I was stopping and only realized it wasnât far enough on the side of the road (without hazard lights) to be safe until we stepped out the car. We struggle to push the car through the snow away from the road. I donât have any gloves and the cold is killer. How are we going to get through the night? We walk up to a nearby home and call for help. The only reply is the bark of an obviously huge and hungry dog. âDidnât a japanese grad student get killed recently walking up the steps of someoneâs home? Letâs wait near the road.â (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshihiro_Hattori). Miraculously, another student on his way to Ithaca is brave enough to stop and pick up a couple of creepy guys dangerously close to hugging each other for warmth. Wherever you are, thanks dude!
Itâs a few hundred bucks to tow the car back to Ithaca and repair the alternator. Itâs a few hundred more to pay for the New York City tickets and penalties that Roberto racked up that weekend without telling me. Somehow, after several such adventures, we managed to graduate. PhDs!
My spouse, two kids and our beagle piled into our Ford Falcon for a trip from Delaware to New Mexico. It was July, 1961 and air conditioning was a distant dream. The trip began well enough, that is, we got out of the driveway without hitting anything, or each other, but by the end of the first day the engine was getting noisy and losing power. This had happened before and I had determined that the rocker arms were out of adjustment, which I had corrected by adjusting the clearance with a feeler gauge. So, at the end of the day, while the family hunkered down in a motel room, I did it again. Ditto at the end of the next day, only by then I was running out of adjustment. Happily, the next morning we were passing through Pratt, Kansas, so I stopped at the local Ford dealer, Trout Motors. I walked into the open garage and asked a mechanic about getting some new rocker arms. He said, ?Oh, you don?t need new rockers- there?s a bulletin on that problem. The rockers aren?t getting enough lubrication so the bearings are wearing out. It?s a simple fix. I?ll take care of it.? With that, he removed one of the bolts which holds the assembly to the block and ground down one side. It turns out the oil is supposed to flow around the bolt to lubricate the arms and the annulus was too small. I started the engine and the oil was supposed to flowed beautifully throughout the assembly. He wouldn?t take any money for his work and only reluctantly charged me for a couple spare rockers to replace those which had completely bottomed out.
With the car problem fixed we had only to endure four people and a dog in an un-air conditioned compact car traveling four thousand miles through the Midwest in July.
Incidentally, we?re still married after fifty four years, which I attribute in no small measure to air conditioning and hydraulic valve lifters.
Lee Schaller, Chapel Hill, NC