Your Car is Telling you something!

o.k., our car is dead.  The trip to Death Valley did it in, , though it didn't sputter it's final breathe til Las Vegas.  (and we are thankful for that!)

So what are your car stories?  What places have cursed your cars?

I remember as a kid, we took a family vacation out west.   As we didn't get to take many vacations, we were so excited and happy about this, treasuring mostly every moment, good and bad, in family lore.    There was the time we took a chair lift ride in South Dakota, my brother and I sitting in the car behind my mother and father.   My mother had motion sickness, and on the way back down, my brother and I saw her vomiting off the side of the chair lift, with my father sitting helplessly next to her!!!!!   Oh no, she never lived that one down and my brother and I still find it hilarious.

I remember our car breaking down in Murdo, South Dakota.    Of course, I have no idea what the problem was, but we had to wait there and get it fixed.   Murdo, South Dakota is not an exciting town!     We finally got it fixed, but the car never ran the same after that, and my father swore about it until the day he died.   We'd just say "remember Murdo" to each other, and shake our heads.

When Matt was in college, he went to Grinnell, which is in Iowa and about a 10 hour drive home to Ann Arbor.  Dan and I were driving home from there once, and our car broke down about 2 hours away from Grinnell, in Princeton, Ill.   Another one horse town.   it turned out to be an alterator, and we luckily found another one to replace it with right away.   Off we go, we thought. Oh no, that didn't happen.......it was a faulty alternator!   So we did manage to find another one, a good one.   But of course this took all day.   Then, when Matt drove home once from school, HE broke down in Princeton!    He ended up having to stay there for 3 days while they repaired the car, and in the process of all this, he inadvertently injured a mechanic who got in the way.    So now, when we say "Princeton, Ill.", we just shake our heads.

I also have to add Adam's car troubles this last Xmas vacation, though his car trouble had more to do with car rentals, than a particular place.    He rented a car from Hertz, which turned out to have a problem.  He rented another one, which turned out to have a problem.   I think he ended up turning in 3 or 4 cars before he finally got home safely.   But he got to try out different models, so he now has quite a bit of helpful knowledge!

What places do your cars hate?