curses

It seems we have a sort of tradition to make a trip to Lake Chelan every summer. It started from doing my first sprint triathlon there way back in 2004, and we fell in love with the area.
With this past weekend finally bringing on the hotter than hades weather, we decided it would be the perfect time to head up there.
The plan this year was to spend the entire Saturday at Slidewaters, the sweet water park they have there. The kids are able to ride on all but one of the slides. They LOVED it! We got there right when it opened at 10, and left just before it closed at 7.

This is when the "real" fun began.

About 30 minutes after we hit the road, Aaron noticed the temperature gage blinking. He pulled over and topped off the water reservoir. Another 20 miles down the road it starts blinking again. By now, we're at the top of the hill just before Cashmere. Aaron checks it again and sees that water is leaking all over the road. He gets to where the engine is and can't tell where the leak is coming from. Then I hear a couple choice words. He found the problem. The water pump pulley is bent. There's no way we can drive the rest of the 100 miles home. So we coast down the hill into big, beautiful Cashmere and park it at Rusty's. When we started the van to get to where we could coast, it makes an awful noise because of the broken pulley that sounds a heck of a lot like the shrieking eels from Princess Bride. All of them shrieking at the same time. It's not a pretty sound.
We call our dads for advice. Our insurance would have covered a tow, but it would have towed us to the nearest mechanic's garage. It being almost 8pm, wasn't an option. We call Mike. He's got a nice rig for towing and knew someone with a car trailer. He quickly came to our rescue.
While we waited, we bought dinner from Rusty's World Famous Burger's. If you ever happen to be passing through Cashmere and need a place to eat, keep driving. Wenatchee is only a few minutes up the road.
Our knight in shining armor arrived and the men secured the van onto the trailer. Corgan and Lily were waiting nearby in the grass. All of a sudden, Lily starts screaming and Corgan soon follows. They were covered in ants. Biting ants. It was a little crazy for a few minutes while we tried to wipe the ants off of them and their car seats.
We were finally on the road home. Cash ((mike's boy)), Blake, and Corgan were in the backseat of the truck and Lily, me and Mike were in the front. Aaron laid down on the floor of the back and took a nap.

It's not fun when things like this happen. But I think I've mentioned it before that we only cursed ourselves when we married each other. Vehicle breakdowns are a part of our pasts and sadly our future. But we both knew what we were getting into when we said yes. Thinking back on family vacations and even just growing up, the times I remember most are when things didn't go as planned, when "something" happened and threw everything off course. But things always get back on course sooner or later and it's friends like Mike who help us remember and love those $#!@@* times.



thankful things:

1- mike hajny....i can't say enough good things about this guy!
2- ac unit. it's been over 100 degrees the past couple days. it is so nice not to fry when we're inside.
3- foxx family. rob offered his truck to us to use until the new water pump is delivered to the parts store tomorrow.