Holiday Car Adventures

We drove to LA for the holidays. Something pretty exciting happened too! (Not getting presents, although that was awesome). 

So, we left in the Honda Odyssey van.

We arrived twelve hours later--SIX HOURS LONGER THAN IT SHOULD HAVE TAKEN--in a Mercury Marquis. 

Yep.

In that sedan we had squished our four family members, presents, bags, food, and two retrievers that spent the last four hours of the trip lying on our laps--since there was no room at all. 

Guess why! Guess! Guess!

When we were about halfway to LA, I was driving, and all of a sudden I heard a quiet thunk sound from the engine and then nothing happened when I was accelerating except the rpm's needle shot up to the danger zone. Instead of going 80 mph all of a sudden I was going 60mph. Since all the cars were going more than 80 I immediately clicked on my emergency lights and after we realized that all I was doing was revving and not accelerating, even in lower gears, I moved into the break down lane and we coasted for maybe 1/2 of a mile total before stopping. 

Dad looked in the engine and we were leaking fluid and our transmission was shot. AAA came forty-five minutes later, hooked us up to the tow truck, and towed us an hour and a half away to a auto mechanic that had a transmission shop. (We rode way high up in the truck! And the dogs were alone in the car--Kali was sitting in the front smiling at everything she saw, and we couldn't see Sage, she was probably hiding). 

So here's another cool part!

This happened Tuesday--and they cannot look at it until MONDAY! SIX WHOLE DAYS LATER! And they are quoting us at LEAST $2,500 for the transmission and $800 for a cylinder thingy. 

(So we might get a new car! Woooooot!)

So we were still hours away from LA with a broken van full of presents and dogs. We called at least four rental places and the ones that had big cars didn't take dogs and wait, sorry, we don't have any big cars, just a Hyundai Sonata, and we close soon anyway, bye! 

Finally we got ahold of a Mercury Marquis--a big sedan. We had to leave only a few things, but did have the dogs sleeping on us the whole rest of the way. 

(Note! Sage did NOT vomit on this trip at all! They were incredibly well behaved!) 

So we arrived and heard the story of our relative's day in Disneyland--complete with one person getting sick from the rides and while driving home throwing up all over the side of the car! 

And that is why our trip took us two times longer than normal. Yaaaay for holiday travel! 

Bleeeeeaaaagh.