previous - menu
The parking lot of our motel in Grant's Pass, Oregon. Our car overheated going up a grade about 15 miles before that, and we pulled onto the shoulder, where it was 100+ out and there was no shade and a foot between us and the trucks chugging by because it was a guardrailed cliff bank and the slower trucks drive along the shoulder lane we were parked in and I was terrifed one wasn't going to see us as it came around the bend and would plow right into us. A super nice guy named Jerry, whose pick-up was festooned in flags, who had a Korea veteran tattoo on his big sunburnt arm, stopped to offer us the use of his cell phone, gave us advice and helped us get the car going again, and followed us several miles as we did 20 mph up the grade and then a couple more when we started descending again. As soon as everything seemed to be fine again, we gave him a big thank-you wave and he drove off. The car overheated the second he was out of sight and our thermostat blew, about ten miles outside of town. Chad completely freaked out, but we managed to make it to a shaded turn-out where we waited for an hour for a tow. We got the vacant last room in Grant's Pass, which had one full-size bed and lots of spiders, cost twice as much as the double rooms at the other motels, and was about the only motel in town without a pool. A mobile mechanic charged us $300 to come out the next morning, a Sunday, to change the thermostat, and told us the mechanic who'd put in the new alternator belt the day we left on our trip hadn't lubed it at all and the ball bearing was worn down and could cause the belt to snap, which would not cause any problems until we stopped the car, at which point it wouldn't start up again, but said we'd probably be able to make it home. We had to stop every fifty miles to check the coolant, because there's a hairline crack in the overflow container, which is what caused the overheating in the first place, that it had all leaked out, and we're lucky it was just the thermostat that was damaged. And we had to drive slowly all the way home, but we made it, and I am never going on a road trip again.
