Trip to Canada, Part 1

Time sure flies! We made a last minute trip to Canada a couple weeks ago (has it really been that long?) to attend the funeral of Doug's Dad. It was a very eventful weekend worthy of more than one post! So here's part one...

I was surprised when all was said and done, that everyone was going to be going. Ben and Steven were going on their 50 miler hike with the scouts, but decided to come home halfway through to attend the funeral with us. Jon was put on a temporary leave of absence at work so he decided to come, Melanie and Beth and just gotten home from California and weren't sure if they were coming but Jon pretty much talked them into it! Shawn rescheduled shifts at work and was able to come too. We even brought our dear niece, Holly, with us. So we were travelling with 14 people. We obviously had to take two cars. We decided to take Jon's little stick shift sports car to save on gas. It was also a good idea because he and the girls decided to come home earlier than the rest of us. Am I boring you yet??? LOL

I really wish I would have taken more pics. At one point we were inside a Wendy's ordering lunch. It was awfully comical to try to get all these people to cooperate and order their food and get out of there. I wish I would have planned food better on the trip, it would have saved a lot of money. I have to admit, though, it was easier to not have to cart the food, just the snacks and water!

Anyway, we were slated for a full weekend...Drive up on Thursday, funeral on Friday, family reunion on Sat, attend church and head home 1/2 the way on Sun. and the rest of the way on Monday.

We all gathered on Wednesday night, most of the big people didn't get to bed until 3am. Not smart when you are going to be travelling all the next day. Doug and Jon are amazing, though, they both drove the whole entire way! We didn't leave as early as we should have, but thought not too bad seeing I had to get 14 people up and out the door! It was about 9am.

We were doing well until we went through Butte, Montana. About 2 miles north of Butte Doug noticed Jon falling behind. He pulled over and waited. When he didn't see them, he called them and we had to turn around to go see what the matter was. It looked like something was wrong with the clutch, seeing that he could put it in gear and not kill the engine, but not able to go anywhere! Good clue, huh?!

We decided to tow it back to Butte to see what we could do to get it fixed. This whole time the van was sitting there, idling with the a/c running as well as the dvd player (did that make a difference??, I don't know) anyway, by the time we got the tow rope all hooked up and ready to tow it, the van simply wouldn't run! WHAT????! We could start it, but it wouldn't stay running!!

So here we were...not one car dead on the side of the road, but two cars dead on the side of the road!! I did the only thing I could do...I called roadside. I told them I had a very interesting situation...I not only needed a tow truck for one car but for two cars!!! How often does that happen???

We sat there for about an hour before the first tow truck arrived. By then the van was running again. Our guess maybe vapor lock?? It was a hot day. When the tow truck guy got there, he pulled a rod out of the trunk and popped out a little plug out of the front facing of the fender and screwed it into the body and towed it by that. We had no idea it even existed! We had the tow rope under the bumper and attached to the body. If you ask me, I think Heavenly Father had mercy on us! He knew we were already up to our eyeballs in repairs, we really didn't need to break that front facing of a bumper by towing it improperly!! We ended up only towing Jon's car, the van ran just fine all the way back!! Go figure!!

Anyway, it was indeed the clutch. They quoted him $850 to fix it and it wouldn't be ready til late afternoon on Friday!! NOT in time for the funeral! So we had to leave it and rent a car to drive the rest of the way. The kicker was that we had to be able to take it across the border and they had to be okay with Jon driving it, being under 25 years old. It took some doing but they finally agreed. We had to put Doug on as the primary driver, and Jon as the secondary. They understood that Jon was the one bringing it back. So Already we were off to a great start on our journey!! Jon doesn't look very happy, does he?! By the time we were on our way again, it had delayed us almost 4 hours!! ugh!

We didn't get to the border until 11pm. There was a long line up so it took about 1/2 an hour to get across. We didn't get to the hotel until almost 1am. That really made for a long day of 16 hours in the car!! It was supposed to have taken us only 12! (Did I really just type ONLY 12 hours!)

Boy were we bushed!! But very happy to finally arrive!!