Driving rain

I haven't blogged in a week. Sorry about that. I was off galavanting along the west coast. Ben picked up Scooter for spring break on Friday after school, and they flew back here together. Saturday, we took off for Disneyland. We waited until after the breakfast stop to tell Scooter the news. I'll have to post video of her reaction later.

We hit snow in the Cascades in northern California. We had to put tire chains on my car. I've never done that before, and it wasn't fun or comfortable. I had wet pants for the rest of the day. That's not the worst of it. Our transmission crapped out somewhere just south of the mountains. Actually, we were right next to a rest stop near Orland, CA. Ben never could remember the name of that town. We called Les Schwab, mostly because they were open and they have a reputation of being extremely service-oriented. Also, we thought at the time that our new brakes were the problem, since the engine idled fine, went into all the gears with no issue, and really only sounded like it had a problem when we were braking. Les directed us to a towing company, and Ben, Scooter, Bubba and I had our first ride in a giant big-rig tow truck. He took us to Les Schwab, and we sat in their waiting area for about 2 hours. Maybe closer to 3 hours. Either way, the poor employees of that tire and brake company had to listen and watch as 2 stir crazy children wreaked havoc on their waiting area. All the other garages in town were closed. There was only 1 car rental company open on Sunday, and that was in Chico, CA (about 25 miles away). We got everything out of our car, hopped into a taxi and took off for Chico. Les Schwab doesn't do tranmission service, but they diagnosed the problem, and coordinated the storage and transport of our car to the transmission mechanic in our absence on Sunday so we could still go to Disneyland with the kids  - for free. Kudos to them!

Sunday, we got up, and Ben walked almost 2 miles to the car rental place. It didn't open until 9am, so we got kind of a late start. We drove through crazy rain all the way to our hotel in Anaheim. Reports of people not being able to drive in rain in Southern California are not exaggerated. We saw a truck who had driven off the interstate and 1/2 way down a 400 foot drop off for no reason. We also heard a radio report of a driver who had mistakenly driven his car off an overpass onto another interstate below, causing traffic delays on 2 separate highways. We still somehow made it to our hotel, and soon after, were graced with the presence (and presents) of two dear friends. An exciting drive down, for sure! You might think that Disneyland would pale in comparison...