TGIF

I’m ready for it to be Friday. The past week has been defined by the following events:

Saturday 1PM lock keys in car while at Sears (after which, Ali wrote Craig a note that said “DONT FERGIT TO PUT QES IN YOUR POCKIT” because, you know, wow, if only we had a note to remind us, we would have remembered. :-)
Saturday 8PM Lady dies in drive through (as described below)
Saturday 9PM we discover that Penny’s clutch is out
Saturday 10PM Our good friend Rob helps us tow Lady to the mechanic
Wednesday 12PM I walk to the mechanic and pick up Lady, pay $177
Wednesday 6PM We use Lady (the bug) to tow Penny (the bus) to the mechanic. I really really wish we had pictures of this. Craig says we got some really funny looks. I did not notice as I was too concerned about not crashing our cars into each other.
Thursday 6PM Lady dies (again) on the way to pick up dinner. We push her onto a side street and decide that there’s no use wasting pizza, so we walk to the pizza place. We walk back to Lady, and proceed to push her half of a mile (no exaggeration here—I looked on google maps) back to our house.
Thursday 9PM we acquire my grandparent’s truck (thanks Mom and Dad!) and tow Lady to the mechanic

It has been an all too eventful week. In the interest of not sounding like a whiner—I do love our cars, and this chaos is just part of the game when your newest car is older than you.

Other significant events during the week: we received a very helpful and generous check in the mail (thank you!); Charlie turned four and we bought chicken nuggets at his request of which he ate none; we almost finished our bedroom floor; and became seasoned experts at administering banana flavored oral medication to our cat.

I’m desperately hoping for an un-eventful weekend...after the Pepper concert.

A little TOO Coincidental

Last Friday I posted on this blog saying that our cars have been running great and that some shop time should be coming up soon. The following dialogue serves as evidence of my telepathic abilities.

Here’s the scene: Saturday night—Garden City Dairy Queen drive through.

Lady in the speaker: That will be $6.37 at the window

We pull forward—there are two cars in front of us.

Maryn: Doesn’t Lady (the bug) sound weird?
Craig: (revs engine) yeah

Bug Dies
Craig tries to start bug

Maryn: *%&#
Craig: *$&#
Maryn: Do you want me to get out and push?
Craig: yes

Maryn gets out and pushes car

Lady at the window: That will be $6.37
Craig: thank you

Maryn pushes bug past drive through window and into adjacent alley

Onlookers: ha ha ha ha ha

I’ll spare you some unnecessary details here: We sit for about 10 minutes, and after several failed attempts to start Lady, we call my grandparents who pick us up, take us to my parent’s house and we borrow their car (luckily, they’re in Florida). We decide that we don’t want leave Lady in a parking lot over night so, when we get home, we decide to take the bus down and tow Lady to the mechanic. We get in the bus. Resume scene.

Craig: There’s no clutch.
Maryn: What?!
Craig: the clutch is gone—there’s no clutch
Maryn (laughs hysterically): you are joking.
Craig: “no—there’s no clutch ^*&%”
Maryn (still laughing hysterically): “$*%&”
Craig: Let me see if it is the cable. (Craig looks at undercarriage) There’s oil all over the slave cylinder.
Maryn: Hooray.

Again, I’ll spare you the unnecessary details: our friend Rob saved the day by meeting us at Dairy Queen and towing the bug to our mechanic. (Thank you Rob!)

Sigh. All we can really do is 1) laugh, and 2) be grateful for the six months we went without visiting the mechanic (we love you Mike!)

Splitting from the Splitty

This blog has long been neglected and I became embarrassingly emotional when I visited it this morning and realized that I need to simultaneously update the blog and eulogize Aunt Tranny. Well, maybe eulogize isn’t the right word, but it feels right. A couple of months ago, we sold Tranny. I’ve attempted on several occasions to explain this decision to people, but words don’t exist that make it okay.
We sold her to a man named Dan who was absolutely ecstatic to have her and he plans to return her to original condition. I feel like the mother in India who sells her son to the trader so that he can have opportunities that she can’t provide him. Tranny deserved a lot more care (read—financial investment) than we could give her and for that reason we are really happy that Dan has her. What lessens the sting is what we gained by selling her—financial peace of mind.
Sigh. The good news is that we still have Penny and Lady and they kick ass. I’m sure we are going to have some serious shop time coming up because they haven’t given us an ounce of trouble in…SIX MONTHS! This is an astonishingly long time for us to have not visited our mechanic.
We’ll see how long I can keep Craig from shopping for new a new bus. I’m guessing I’ve got another…three hours.

VW Fun

The annual Bus Pilots family reunion was a few weeks ago. It was fun as always, but this year we also attended the Saturday morning event which we'd never gone to before but which turned out to be gobs of fun. This was a type of scavenger hunt where we had directions like--turn left at the 17th street you pass, or turn right at the 5th stop sign. I navigated while Craig drove like he was 19 again (I'm so glad we all made it). We had the kids with us and they "helped" us count streets and I think they got a little bored towards the end, but had a good time overall. Here are a few photos of some sweet vee-dubs.

and Heeeerrrrrreeee she is!

A VW for Everybody...plus one for the cat.

We are getting a ’72 Bug (if everything goes as planned—I have to add this disclaimer in order to try to prevent the gods of whammies and jinxes from interfering)! It doesn't look quite so shiny as the one in the original VW brochure pictured above, but it is the same color.

Craig and I have looked at a LOT of bugs. We have been talking ourselves in and out and in and out of getting a bug for, well, pretty much as long as we’ve been together and we finally found the right one and we are going to do it (if everything goes as planned).

I’m not going to try to describe it because really, only pictures can do justice, but I just wanted to get my excitement out to anyone who cares! She is currently owned by a really cool guy we met who is a VW enthusiast and quite obviously takes pride of ownership in his vehicles. He’s done a lot of work to this little girl and she is fantastic. We should (if all goes as planned) have her on Wednesday and we should also be rid of Clearwire by then so I will be able to upload some photos!

We will then have a ’64, ’72, and ’81 VW. We are kind of excited to have three decades of VW’s at our house. It is kind of like a museum—we should start charging admission (if all goes as planned).

Panic Ensues

Craig and I went camping at Kirkham Hot Springs on Friday. We’ve gone there several times and it is different every time. The pools vary a little in size, depth and temperature with regularity, but it is always enjoyable. This time, however, was altogether shocking. We started the little hike down to the springs. I was paying close attention to my footing and little attention to my surroundings when suddenly Craig said “they’re gone!”

For those of you who have never been to Kirkham, there are two tiers of pools and the lower tier (normally) borders the Payette River. Currently, the river is running “120% full” (whatever that means…it wasn’t flooding, so how is it more than full?) and the lower tier was quite literally gone. It was so bizarre—like a building being torn down overnight. There were two pools partially remaining in the upper tier so we took full advantage of those; and Craig tried to make a dam to block the river water.
(FYI—the little hike at Kirkham is fun if you are ever there and are tired of swimming/don’t want to swim/ there are no hot springs in which to swim.)

The next morning, we went to Bonneville Hot Springs because 1) Craig has been wanting to for quite some time and 2) we thought maybe they might be more separated from the river. We found them to be a little disappointing. People have used several tarps over time to try to keep the pools warm and at this point it looks really trashy. Also, the river has taken over this hot spring as well.

We also visited Pine Flats Hot Springs. These pools had a huge nerd filter on them because normally you can walk on the bank of the river to get to the pools. As you’ve probably guessed by now, the river was really high here as well leaving no bank. We “billy goated” it as best we could to get a good view of where the main pool normally is. Nothing but river.

Also, every time we drive the road to Lowman, I try to find Staircase rapids. I have consistently missed them so we made a point of finding them this time. We found them, and it is my non-professional opinion that if you want to run Staircase, but are a little chicken, this is the time to do it. It was really quite flat and nothing like the videos I found on You Tube yesterday.

Long story short—hot springs campsite camping is still great right now…just don’t expect much from the actual hot springs.