Bubbles and Gus

We are now here in Salt Lake City, will try to keep the myriad number of pictures of Isaac to a minimum, though it's hard. We got in wednesday, in the rented van, which is working out very well. Gus enjoys the back seat more as he can see out of it.

We got to Matt's house, and he was making fresh trout on the grill, with grilled veggies. We put Gus in the back yard, letting Isaac slowly get used to him. Isaac is talking up a storm now, what a change in the 2 1/2 months since we've seen him. He seems to remember us, as he took right to us, showing us his books, showing off the words he knows, dancing, reading, etc. He was sceptical, yet fascinated by Gus, whom we kept outside. Isaac kept going to the back door to see him, wave to him, and just check on him, though he was tentative about petting him or getting too close.

Matt and I gave him a bath, then put him to bed. This may seem so routine to many of you, if you live near your grandkids, so you see them often. If you don't have grandkids yet, it may be boring, but for us, we treasure it all, as we don't see him often.

Thursday, Matt went to work, Isaac to Daycare, and Dan and I had the day. We took a fun bike ride, went downtown, relaxed. Later, Matt picked me up to get Isaac from the Daycare center, and we went home. We didn't bring Gus with us, but when Isaac saw us, he asked for Gus, ran and looked out the back door for him. Isaac's regular Thursday night babysitter, Ashley, came, and we went out to dinner at a nearby restaurant. We met Meghan and Eric there, and we took them all out to dinner. It was a nice evening, and a very nice dinner, great to see them.

Today, Dan and I are babysitting, having so much fun. We took Isaac and Gus to the park, where we brought bubbles. Isaac loves bubbles! He had so much fun, and so did we. Isaac talks about Gus all the time.

Eulogy for a Dead Van

It seems like cars take on a life of their own. They can be temperamental, reliable, fun, old, etc. We depend on them to carry us around in our daily lives. They become our own personal entertainment pod, with CD's, radios and these days even DVD players. We take care of them, feed them, water them, take them to the "doctor" buy them new "shoes" and give them a place to live in our homes. I have had the Venture now for eight years. She was a reliable, car that got me back and forth to Swartz Creek 120 miles a day for seven years. We also made hundreds of trips back and forth from Ann Arbor to our soon to be new home in Cedar. The AWD never failed, and there was not one moment that I felt unsafe in any road conditions with her. I was pretty confident in her ability to get back and forth to California, even though she had 185000 miles on her when we left Michigan. After the 3000 mile trip to California, we put another 7000 miles on her in California. So when we hit Death Valley and the heat, it was too much. It overheated several times, and though we limped up and down the hills to get in and out of Death Valley, a hundred miles later, she just stopped. That was it, sitting by the side of the freeway 30 miles north of Las Vegas. Dead, no movement, no last sigh, just dead.

Dan

The ordeal afterwards, getting the tow truck, waiting for the tow truck, finding a hotel, finding a repair shop, getting a rental to complete the trip home, took the better part of two days, and was exhausting. We're now through that part, and are headed home after a couple of stops in Salt Lake, and Des Moines. Stuff happens, plans change, and it has just become part of this great adventure we have been on since January.

Pictures of Death Valley are posted at http://picasaweb.google.com/danklim1/DeathValley#

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?

More Death Valley and More Car Trouble

Want to include more pictures of Death Valley. But meanwhile, Dan called. Car is dead---new engine, $5000, not done til saturday! Oh, bad news. We will let you all know what we do. meanwhile, i am downloading pictures and will add some beauties. This may bore you, but really, I
have anything else to do!

Neither a 20 Mule Team, nor a Jazzercize Class!

We went to Death Valley on sunday, spent the night there, and left on monday.  Death Valley is fascinating, a very unique place.  Not warm or welcoming, very desolute, majestic, and quiet!    One comment Dan had was how far away you could see.    We thought about our favorite Larry McMutry books, the "Lonesome Dove" series and the Berrybender books, how they all took place in the 19th century west, how the characters could always see others coming from miles away.  We now see how that is possible.   

It was very hot and very dry!   102 degrees, and this was at 7 P.M.!     We did see some bloom, and some green, but not much.   It's beauty is it's vastness and the way the shade and light play off the mountains, the sand dunes, the rocks.  We stayed at a lodge on the grounds, but were limited to one area because of the dog.    I did not really like the room, it was pretty plain and not very clean, but we were captive there.  I think it was also sort of weird to stay there, it is so isolated!  It was interesting.  I kept wondering about the people who worked there, not the forest rangers, but the people in the restaurants, or the ones who run the two resorts there.   I asked our waiter where he lived, and he said he lived in the trailer behind the restaurant, which is where many of them live.    I thought i'd like to write a book about the people who do live here, what are their stories?

There were startingly beautiful areas--the Artists Palette, the volcano, Zabrinski's Point, but also, lots and lots of desert!  When we woke up on monday, our travel day, we made our way out of the park, viewing the sights along the way.  We both felt the same way--"we gotta get outta the desert!"    We felt like we were in a movie.    What made it even more dramatic, was that the car kept overheating, so we had to pull over, put on the heater full blast, and wait for it to lower.  There are tanks with water for car radiators all along the park, and we used a few of them.    it felt, and ultimately was, foreboding.

We finally did get out of the park, and made our way for St. George, Utah, and more parks.   well, after navigating out of Las Vegas, in AWFUL  stop and go traffic, we filled up the car, changed drivers, and headed out.   I was driving, and about 20 miles north of Las Vegas, the car literally broke down.   I was able to manuever it over to the shoulder, though it was scary because there was no power--no gas pedal working, no brakes working.    Yikes!

So-----we called AAA, waited 3 hours for them to come tow us, found a Comfort Inn in North Las Vegas near car dealerships and garages, and towed the car to the motel.   

I wait as i write this for Dan to talk to the mechanic, see if the car can be fixed, what is wrong, how long it will take, etc.    Do we scrape it?  Do we fix it?  Do we rent a car, buy a car, lease a car?   We don't know.     An interesting development .    We think that Death Valley was the death of our car!   Matt said we would not be the first for that to happen, thinks we are in a great location to get a good, used car, not to even bother fixing old blue!   Melisa thinks that Gus should pull us out of here, ala Chevy Chase in "Vacation", Adam thinks we should hit the casinos to win a new car, and Jay thinks the good news is that we really don't have any schedule.

so, it's time for a few interactive activities, we hope you make your comments known.

First of all,  we were below sea level in parts of Death Valley, so the obvious question Dan had was, does that mean that we can boil an egg faster?

Secondly, you can't help but think of all the pioneers and 49ers who crossed Death Valley, some of them not surviving.    We wondered if it would have been better for them to battle the extreme heat, or would it have been better to deal with the extreme cold?  Death Valley doesn't get deathly cold, but one of the things I read was that several groups of pioneers chose to cross over Death Valley because they had heard of the Donner Pass incident over the Sierras and wanted to avoid the cold.   They didn't necessarily survive any better.   So, your comments and thoughts--heat--little water, sweltering hot, incredible thirst, limited food supply.  Cold--freezing temperatures, impassable trails, predators.    What do you think?   What would Larry McMurtry think?