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How I spent my SummerStar vacation…or what really happened on the read trip from Hell!
But before then….skip 440 for my flist -- I love you guys…
Friday dawned bright and early at 5:30 for me. Got up and showered, had a cup of tea, woke the girls and let them get ready while I clung to my laptop like the addict I am spending as much time with it that I could before we went to SummerStar.
We got out of the house by 7:00 (yea us!) and hit the road. One brief stop in Centralia for food, then another shortly later to pick up the forgotten stuff at Wally World. Back on the road and looking to pull into Beacon Rock State Park somewhere in the vicinity of 1:00 pm.
Yeah…right….somewhere between Woodlawn and Hazel Dell the car stopped going forward. The engine would rev, but no forward momentum. ‘Sounds like transmission fluid is low’ I thought. Pulled over (unfortunately to the left, and not the right, as we were in the far left lane) and got out to look at the fluid level. Looked kinda low, so I eyed the exit which we were across from by 4 lanes of 75+mph traffic.
Frogger….yep, you remember that game don’t you? That’s what I felt like as I ran across the freeway and headed up the off ramp for a gas station. Tow truck pulled over as I was climbing up and gave me a ride to the station. I picked up a bottle of fluid, thanked the nice driver and hot-footed it back down to where the car was. Where I stood on the side of the road for what seemed like forever waiting until there was enough of a break for me to trot back across…..
Added fluid, started back up the car and headed off again. No real momentum, but enough to get us to the right side of the freeway and to the next exit which was a rest stop. There we chugged water, hit the biffy’s and called for a tow. I ended up calling the place that had given me a ride. Explained the issue and that there were four of us that needed to go with the car. They sent out a big truck with a duel cab, and it turns out the same guy that gave me a ride earlier.
By this time my hands had mostly stopped shaking from the adrenaline rush from the run across the freeway and I was feeling a little giddy.
We towed the car back to Woodlawn and to a transmission shop there that had a good rep. The folks there were wonderful. They drove us in to Vancouver so that we could rent a car. After they dropped us off we went in to talk with the rental folks -- suffice it to say there were some issues…nothing was going to go smoothly if the world had a say in it. Car would not be available until 4-6 pm…it was currently 1:00.
Headed down the street to a Carls Jr. for food and *hopefully* air-conditioning. While there I contacted my credit card place to make a payment (which I had meant to do the day before…) wish I would have remembered to do it then….
Came down to not being able to use the card as security for the rental as it was on hold till midnight. And no, they couldn’t do anything about it. I should be happy to have a place to site and wait 8 freakin’ hours until their system flipped over. I ended my ‘terse’ conversation with Washington Mutual (who I have had as a bank for 15+ years and until this trip haven’t had any issues with!) with a comment about why I bothered to continue to be a customer with them if this was as good as it got. The supervisor kept saying to me ‘is there anything I can do?’ I replied that no, there wasn’t. After all, the thing I needed her to do she was incapable of doing and would she please stop saying that, as it was only pissing me off far more that I already was. She couldn’t help me, her suggestions as to what to do in 104+ heat in a strip mall until midnight were ludicrous, and she was just saying what she thought I wanted to hear.
Stupid cow. I know that her hands were tied and I cannot blame her for that. It was the ‘autopilot courtesy’ that made me angry. Don’t say things you don’t really mean. Is that so hard to understand?
Went back over to the car place and explained the situation. They took me to the bank to get a money order to work as the deposit and gave me a car. Mind you, not a car really big enough for four to go camping in with a tent, etc, but still….it was a car.
Headed back up to Woodlawn to get our gear. Once there, we found out that the transmission plate had snapped (a common affliction of the Dodge Caravan) and that they could rebuild it for about 400 less than buying a new version off of the dealer. But either way, Wednesday was the closest that it would be to being ready. Finally, we headed off to camp.
Got there and it was horribly hot and still and muggy. I think it was 95+ degrees and at least 90% humidity. We dumped the gear, set up the tent and screen house, then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
laceyleopard and I went in search of food and booze.
Drove down to Washogue (sic?) and hit the local grocery store. The liquor store was already closed (for those of you outside of Washington state, all liquor stores are state owned and ran, so hours are funky. You can get beer and wine at the grocery store, but nothing hard and I really had wanted vodka…)
Did you know that the Smirnoff Twists has a Black Cherry that is wonderful? I do now…. And the watermelon isn’t too bad either. The black cherry reminds me strongly of the old New York Seltzer flavour of the same name.
The festival was fun. What bits we did, but to be honest, with the stress of getting down there and the heat most of what we did was lay around with squirt bottles trying to keep hydrated. Went to the Columbia on Saturday afternoon and sat in the river. That was heavenly. Visited with some folks, but truly spent most of it just trying to recouperate from Friday.
Sunday morning we got up and ate, then began breaking down camp. We knew that we had to spend the night in Vancouver (or close by) they car couldn’t be turned in until Monday. So once we were packed we headed off. Got into Vancouver and rented a motel room then headed out for lunch while the room was being made ready.
Once we got into the room, the girls headed off to the swimming pool and I headed for the shower to cool off….(heaven…I must be in heaven…) we called the car repair place and they were willing to come out and open the shop so that we could drop off the camping gear and give ourselves some more room in the car (they are soooooo nice).
Monday morning dawned bright and early (the friggin’ alarm was set for 5:30 and turned on!) so we went ahead and got up, packed the car and headed south to Cottage Grove to visit with1_disturbed_kat & family. Not able to kidnap _midknight_, we left (sans the kittens they tried to send with us) to head north and finally home. Stopped in Salem to grab lunch, realized that the cost of driving the car and keeping it for two more days v.s. the train was about the same, so decided to just drive home.
We calledmartianmooncrab to see if she wanted to visit while we were in the neighborhood -- and toddled off to meet with her and see her new house (very nice BTW). While there we got to see Elaine and Holly, who we hadn’t seen in 10-15 years. We unfortunately didn’t make it out of martianmooncrab’s place san’s kittens….
Yep, we brought home the two feral boys she’d trapped in her yard because her boy hated them and wanted to kill them.
They are about 8 weeks old and just adorable. One is a mac tabby and is very adventurous and his brother is a soft grey tabby who is fluffy. I’ll get pictures up later this week.
We finally made it home at midnight Monday night. After having spent the better part of 18 hours on the road and in the car….
Yesterday I got up, drug myself into work and then came home and slept, which is why there was no update until today…
I’m crossposting this to both my journals…..
But before then….skip 440 for my flist -- I love you guys…
Friday dawned bright and early at 5:30 for me. Got up and showered, had a cup of tea, woke the girls and let them get ready while I clung to my laptop like the addict I am spending as much time with it that I could before we went to SummerStar.
We got out of the house by 7:00 (yea us!) and hit the road. One brief stop in Centralia for food, then another shortly later to pick up the forgotten stuff at Wally World. Back on the road and looking to pull into Beacon Rock State Park somewhere in the vicinity of 1:00 pm.
Yeah…right….somewhere between Woodlawn and Hazel Dell the car stopped going forward. The engine would rev, but no forward momentum. ‘Sounds like transmission fluid is low’ I thought. Pulled over (unfortunately to the left, and not the right, as we were in the far left lane) and got out to look at the fluid level. Looked kinda low, so I eyed the exit which we were across from by 4 lanes of 75+mph traffic.
Frogger….yep, you remember that game don’t you? That’s what I felt like as I ran across the freeway and headed up the off ramp for a gas station. Tow truck pulled over as I was climbing up and gave me a ride to the station. I picked up a bottle of fluid, thanked the nice driver and hot-footed it back down to where the car was. Where I stood on the side of the road for what seemed like forever waiting until there was enough of a break for me to trot back across…..
Added fluid, started back up the car and headed off again. No real momentum, but enough to get us to the right side of the freeway and to the next exit which was a rest stop. There we chugged water, hit the biffy’s and called for a tow. I ended up calling the place that had given me a ride. Explained the issue and that there were four of us that needed to go with the car. They sent out a big truck with a duel cab, and it turns out the same guy that gave me a ride earlier.
By this time my hands had mostly stopped shaking from the adrenaline rush from the run across the freeway and I was feeling a little giddy.
We towed the car back to Woodlawn and to a transmission shop there that had a good rep. The folks there were wonderful. They drove us in to Vancouver so that we could rent a car. After they dropped us off we went in to talk with the rental folks -- suffice it to say there were some issues…nothing was going to go smoothly if the world had a say in it. Car would not be available until 4-6 pm…it was currently 1:00.
Headed down the street to a Carls Jr. for food and *hopefully* air-conditioning. While there I contacted my credit card place to make a payment (which I had meant to do the day before…) wish I would have remembered to do it then….
Came down to not being able to use the card as security for the rental as it was on hold till midnight. And no, they couldn’t do anything about it. I should be happy to have a place to site and wait 8 freakin’ hours until their system flipped over. I ended my ‘terse’ conversation with Washington Mutual (who I have had as a bank for 15+ years and until this trip haven’t had any issues with!) with a comment about why I bothered to continue to be a customer with them if this was as good as it got. The supervisor kept saying to me ‘is there anything I can do?’ I replied that no, there wasn’t. After all, the thing I needed her to do she was incapable of doing and would she please stop saying that, as it was only pissing me off far more that I already was. She couldn’t help me, her suggestions as to what to do in 104+ heat in a strip mall until midnight were ludicrous, and she was just saying what she thought I wanted to hear.
Stupid cow. I know that her hands were tied and I cannot blame her for that. It was the ‘autopilot courtesy’ that made me angry. Don’t say things you don’t really mean. Is that so hard to understand?
Went back over to the car place and explained the situation. They took me to the bank to get a money order to work as the deposit and gave me a car. Mind you, not a car really big enough for four to go camping in with a tent, etc, but still….it was a car.
Headed back up to Woodlawn to get our gear. Once there, we found out that the transmission plate had snapped (a common affliction of the Dodge Caravan) and that they could rebuild it for about 400 less than buying a new version off of the dealer. But either way, Wednesday was the closest that it would be to being ready. Finally, we headed off to camp.
Got there and it was horribly hot and still and muggy. I think it was 95+ degrees and at least 90% humidity. We dumped the gear, set up the tent and screen house, then
laceyleopard and I went in search of food and booze.Drove down to Washogue (sic?) and hit the local grocery store. The liquor store was already closed (for those of you outside of Washington state, all liquor stores are state owned and ran, so hours are funky. You can get beer and wine at the grocery store, but nothing hard and I really had wanted vodka…)
Did you know that the Smirnoff Twists has a Black Cherry that is wonderful? I do now…. And the watermelon isn’t too bad either. The black cherry reminds me strongly of the old New York Seltzer flavour of the same name.
The festival was fun. What bits we did, but to be honest, with the stress of getting down there and the heat most of what we did was lay around with squirt bottles trying to keep hydrated. Went to the Columbia on Saturday afternoon and sat in the river. That was heavenly. Visited with some folks, but truly spent most of it just trying to recouperate from Friday.
Sunday morning we got up and ate, then began breaking down camp. We knew that we had to spend the night in Vancouver (or close by) they car couldn’t be turned in until Monday. So once we were packed we headed off. Got into Vancouver and rented a motel room then headed out for lunch while the room was being made ready.
Once we got into the room, the girls headed off to the swimming pool and I headed for the shower to cool off….(heaven…I must be in heaven…) we called the car repair place and they were willing to come out and open the shop so that we could drop off the camping gear and give ourselves some more room in the car (they are soooooo nice).
Monday morning dawned bright and early (the friggin’ alarm was set for 5:30 and turned on!) so we went ahead and got up, packed the car and headed south to Cottage Grove to visit with
1_disturbed_kat & family. Not able to kidnap _midknight_, we left (sans the kittens they tried to send with us) to head north and finally home. Stopped in Salem to grab lunch, realized that the cost of driving the car and keeping it for two more days v.s. the train was about the same, so decided to just drive home.We called
martianmooncrab to see if she wanted to visit while we were in the neighborhood -- and toddled off to meet with her and see her new house (very nice BTW). While there we got to see Elaine and Holly, who we hadn’t seen in 10-15 years. We unfortunately didn’t make it out of martianmooncrab’s place san’s kittens….Yep, we brought home the two feral boys she’d trapped in her yard because her boy hated them and wanted to kill them.
They are about 8 weeks old and just adorable. One is a mac tabby and is very adventurous and his brother is a soft grey tabby who is fluffy. I’ll get pictures up later this week.
We finally made it home at midnight Monday night. After having spent the better part of 18 hours on the road and in the car….
Yesterday I got up, drug myself into work and then came home and slept, which is why there was no update until today…
I’m crossposting this to both my journals…..