Now to my long dramatic story that will have you going Oh, no! more than once, twice, and possible three times over :P.. I went camping. and the place was only 1.5 hours away from my home. Back country, no cell service. Next to an unmarked road, and the first 48 hours I was going to be all by myself. Just me, my dog, and natures playground. The thing is I decided to take a car that I purchased three years ago. Last year the fan melted, radiator, coils, water pump, and even the head gasket welded shut. It cost me the price I paid to purchase the car just to repair it again. Everything had been great with the car since then. No problems at all in the last year. Now, I hadnt been camping since 2009 so it was long overdue, and I was determined to make it. One week before my trip the coolant spewed out of my rad cap all over my hood. Took it to the mechanic, and he put on a new cap, and said it was good. One week later on the day I was supposed to leave it did it again. This time the coolant was coming out of a pipe connected to the coolant reservoir. Had a different mechanic look at it, and he simply put on a stronger clamp on the hose, and said it was good to go. Me being the trusting person I am headed off. I get 20 minutes away from my camp site, and it did it again. This time it was starting to overheat. So I parked, and a nice lady at the gas station called a friend of hers who was a mobile mechanic. He came out, and I told him to just get me to my camping spot, and Ill deal with everything else after my trip. So he bypassed the sensor on the fan to make the fan run at all times so that my engine didnt overheat. Worked like a charm. Got me to my camping spot, and finally I could sit back and relax. After I got everything out my car aside from my clothes, and toiletries.. I setup camp, and sat down for a bit. After a while I went back to the car and opened the trunk to get something. Someone drove up the road, and asked me a few questions about fire bans, and I closed my trunk as I headed over to talk to them. After they left I turned back to go open my trunk again, and realized I had locked my keys inside! Luckily I hadnt locked the cab, but the handle by the drivers seat to pop the trunk didnt work either so there I was on an unmarked road, without cell service, by myself, keys locked in my trunk, and a 3 hour hike away from the nearest town. I wasnt about to pack up, and leave everything in my car unlocked so I could hike that long to hopefully find help, and hopefully have my stuff still be there when I got back. At that point I decided to just sit back, relax, chill by the fire for the night, and deal with it in the morning. The next morning I get up, and Im sitting there thinking *What am I going to do? Its my boyfriends birthday so I dont want to have to call him to get him to come out and save me, and I dont want to leave my stuff here unprotected from freeloaders. I dont want to have to rely on some stranger to send a text or make a phone call on their way out of here either.* I was lost for ideas. So I went back to my car, and started tearing at the backseat trying to figure out how to remove the bolts without any tools. All I needed was a socket wrench, and all I had was a piece of wire I found lying in the road. There I was twisting this wire around a bolt to tighten its grip so I could possibly yank it loose, and someone pulled up to go fishing next to my camp site. After a few minutes I mustered up the guts to ask the guy if he had any tools in his truck, or even pliers in his tackle box. The Goddess mustve really wanted to help me make it work, cause he just happened to be a mechanic, AND he just happened to have his tools in his truck! Yay! Took him 20 minutes to pop the seat out so I could crawl into my trunk, and get my keys, and have him put the seat back in. He didnt charge me a dime! At that point I put my keys on a long cord, and wore them around my neck for the rest of the camping trip. Later that day after scrounging up all the firewood I could find I knew it was going to be an early night, cause there wasnt enough. Just as I was thinking this a logger pulled up selling firewood. I didnt have any cash, and he gave me enough for the night, and next day anyways!.. Again, Yay! I gave him a couple drinks for him to have later in trade, cause I felt obligated to do so, and he even chopped it for me so I wouldnt have to hack at it with my hachet. What a start to my camping trip!.. lol.. After that things went great. A friend of mine met up with me, and we enjoyed the rest of the trip in peace. On the way home for what should have been a 1.5 hour trip to make it back took 5 hours in blazing heat with no air conditioning cause I kept having to pull over to let the engine cool before it got overheated. Finally I get back, and took the car straight to a mechanic my mother trusts well. He looked at it for a few hours, and called me up to tell me that the fan is gone, radiator, coils, engine is hooped, and even the head gasket again!.. I wasnt about to pay the whole price of the car to fix it again so I told him if he can get it so I can sell it for parts for $1500 then were good. That mechanic bought it off me on the spot!.. Triple yay! So now the trip is over. Im home safe, and on foot till I can find something new. Holy wow was that an adventure :P ~CVK
Posted on: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 19:15:34 +0000