THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

The bad and the ugly.....

I'm going to get to THE GOOD in another post. We left on Tuesday morning the 17th of January to drive to Peoria, AZ to meet up with Mark's sister Michele and her wife Pam. From there we were leaving the next day for a two day drive to Houston, TX for Mark's Mother's 95th Birthday party. 

The first day went well and we had a great time in the car talking about so many things. We had planned to listen to music but never got around to it. It was a really nice time. I don't even remember the town we stayed in that night. We took Michele and Pam's car and Pam and Mark did the driving. The next day we would get to Houston. 

So on Thursday we started the rest of our drive. We were basically in the middle of nowhere in Kerrville, TX when the car started acting funny. The cruise control turned off and Mark pulled off the road. Then we decided that something must be wrong with the cruise control so we started again and before too long the car was losing power, no gas was getting to the engine. Thankfully Mark was able to pull off the side of the road again. Thankful we were not in the passing lane where there would have been no place to pull off the road. 

So Pam called AAA. It took awhile for them to figure out exactly where we were. We were told that the nearest AAA tow would take one and a half hours to get to us. The gentleman who arrived was super nice. When Pam was on the phone with them she suggested that he take us to the nearest one.

So it was about a 45 minute drive to the closet AAA. He also ended up getting off the 10 Fwy because the only way he could take us was for us to sit in the car on the bed of the flat truck. He didn't want to get in trouble so he took some back roads. We found out later it was his second day on the job. 

Here is the view from the flat bed truck.

So we get to the AAA shop and they were wonderful. The owner Ed was great. This shop has been open for 45 years. They of course were busy and had a backlog. We could have been towed elsewhere but we decided to stay. The other thing with this shop was that they were open Mon - Thursday from 8 am to 6 pm, Friday 8 - noon and closed Saturday and Sunday so the repair was going to take longer. 

They did a quick diagnosis and got a few codes of what it might me. The fuel pump was one of them which sounded like it could have been the issue. So Michele and Pam decided that they wanted them to do the work. So then we needed to get a rental for the rest of the trip to Houston. Ed was kind enough to drive us to the Enterprise Car Rental which was over an hours drive. Mark went with him to get the car and us ladies stayed at the shop and sat outside on a patio table with an umbrella. So that basically took over 2 hours. 

So we eventually got on the road. We didn't go to Mark's moms house that night, we went straight to the hotel, so we missed a small celebration on her actually birthday but her big party was taking place on Saturday. 

So to make this long story shorter, it took them awhile to get the bigger testing done and then they had to order 3 parts for the Mazda and wait for them to be delivered. The parts have arrived. It will be a 12 hour fix. They expect it to be ready Monday or Tuesday which means we will pick it up either Tuesday or Wednesday. 

We should have been home by now obviously. So what was supposed to be a 10 day trip for Mark and I has turned into a possible 20 days away from home. So Mark's sister Michele had to call her doctor to send a small supply of all of her medications to a local Kroger. We had Adam go to our house to get our mail from the box and see that the house was okay. He also got Mark's pills together and sent them FedEx to his mom's house. 

Pam and I had enough extra supplies with us. I had two weeks worth of medication and then another two weeks without my vitamin supplements in them. I also had 2 of each of my inhalers in two different places. I am always prepared for the worse case scenario. 

So this is the Bad and the Ugly part of the story which I pray will have nothing else added to it. I will try to get around to posting the Good which was really GOOD! So we have moved into my mother in laws and have been here for about 3 nights now. Thankfully we can also do laundry.😊

Waiting on the side of the road and then 

waiting to get to the repair shop.....