Ken's Bloggy Blog and Stuff...: Van

We went to Disneyland last night. Our passes are no longer blocked out from the holidays. But they're back to their off-season operating schedule, which means Ca. Adv. closes at 6pm, and D-land at 8pm. So even though it's usually only a couple hours that we get to be there, it's still fun.

Anna asked Duncan what rides we should go on, and he said he wanted to go to Toon Town. Liam thought that was a good idea too, so we took the long walk to the far end of the park to spend some time in Toon Town. We went on the roller coaster, played in Goofy's play area, and went on the Roger Rabbit ride. We were there till about 7:30pm and then decided to go on the Buzz Lightyear ride. After the walk there, the wait in line, and the ride, it was already pretty much 8pm, so we headed back to the car.

The kids had a great time because they were the ones deciding where we went, and that was fine by us.

Oh and by the way, it was also our first time going to Disneyland with our new smaller van, and everything fit just fine! The double stroller can fit standing up in the back (it does push a tiny bit against the back seat, but only barely), but I laid it down. We also had our fleece blankets, pajamas, and jackets back there too. And because we're a little more compact in there, Anna can pass items directly to the back with both hers and the boys' reach, which is really nice. We recently clocked the gas mileage at about 18 miles per gallon, and that was with mountain driving. But I guess with all the convenience that a mini van provides, it's not for everyone... right Sara? Thanks again.

But even with all of that... there's one more story...

We get to the Disneyland parking lot, we're unloading the kids, and loading the stroller. Anna helps the kids get their sweatshirts on, and suddenly looks at me worried... "Did you grab my sweatshirt?" she says, slight panic in her tone. I reminded her that she was wearing hers when she got home, so I couldn't have packed it. "I'm pretty sure I forgot it. I'll just wrap a blanket around me." I tell her she can wear mine. I'll be fine. She is glad I am letting her wear it, and says she's sorry. We spend our time at Disneyland. I am handling the cold just fine, but make no mistake, it's still cold. We're back at the van, we're getting the kids ready for the drive home, and I'm unloading the stroller. On the floor in front of the passenger side front seat is a black wad... looks suspiciously like a wadded up sweatshirt. I pick it up... and lo and behold, it's Anna's sweatshirt. I show it to Anna. She smiles an "uh-oh" look. "Where was it?" I explain that it was right at her feet the whole drive there, she would have been close enough to touch it when she was telling me she thought she forgot it, etc. All I could do was shake my head as she laughingly tells me she's sorry.

Oh yeah, well...

Hey look everybody, it's a picture of Anna...

Oh yes... I just did that.

Last Thursday we were scheduled to have an IEP meeting for Liam and then leave to Arizona to visit some family. As you may recall, that meeting was cancelled at the last minute. We scrambled to schedule a new IEP asap, and it ended up being rescheduled for the next day which was Friday. That meant pushing back our trip to AZ, but at least the meeting would be done.

The meeting was a marathon! It started at a decent pace but then we needed a computer to access some district files, so we had to move to a different room. Then in order to print anything, the printer was in another room on campus, and it didn't want to cooperate. Then the wrong pages were printed, then the correct pages were printed, copies were made, etc. The technical difficulties were a huge contributor to the delay of finishing the meeting. Another reason it went long was due to the district representative not agreeing to give Liam a 1 on 1 aid. So Anna went back and forth with her for a bit. (I'm summing that all up.)

We were WAY behind in terms of when we wanted to leave to Arizona. A huge thanks goes to Anna's mom for coming out to watch our kids both days from all the way from Pasadena. We loaded up quickly and got on the road. We had about a 6 hour trip ahead of us. I think it was about 4:30pm when we got on the freeway.

Everything was going fine. The kids were reading books, or drawing on their magnadoodles. The time seemed to be flying by pretty quickly. At about 2 hours or so into the drive, we were in the middle of a huge dust and thunderstorm. There was as much dust in the air as rain, and it was coming down in buckets. The wind was blowing as hard as I've ever driven in. I think we were going about 35 to 40 mph during that time. Maybe even less. On the westbound lane, a big-rig truck had been blown over as we began to emerge from the storm. another interesting thing about that storm was the outside temp gauge in the van was reading 75 degrees. As soon as we left the storm, it jumped back up into the 100s.

The storm was an adventure in it's self, and we settled back down into our seats for the rest of the drive.

At some point, I noticed the battery gauge seemed a little lower than normal, but then it would seem fine. Then I noticed it was even further down than the other time I noticed, so I watched it more closely. It wasn't recovering like it did earlier, and it was going down. The "idiot light" indicator came on, and that's never a good sign, and I mentioned to Anna that I was getting concerned. Anna began making phone calls to ask if that meant if the battery or alternator was not working. The gauge kept dropping.

I began running through all the scenarios for getting stuck in the middle of nowhere AZ. We were approaching a gas station/quickie mart exit. I knew that once I turned the van off, it was not going to start again. So I had to choose between getting as far as I could and wait till the van shut off to pull over on the side of the road, or pull off into the gas/mart. I knew it was going to be a lot easier to deal with the kids if there was a bathroom, and a place to buy any "distractions" that might be necessary rather than be in the dark, next to the road where vehicles are flying by at excessive speeds. Though we were given the advice to get as far as we could, I changed my mind and pulled a uturn in the middle of the highway to get us back to the "Zip" gas/mart. I pulled into a parking spot a ways off to the left of the store under a light, and turned the van off.

We were officially stuck!

I want to say it was about 8:30-ish when we pulled into the Zips. Right away, Anna's brother Ken was looking up tow trucks and hotel rooms, etc. And so was Kevin and Jason and Kristi on my side. The nearest town was one behind us called "Quartzite" (official webpage). It was about 30-40 miles away. We were about 100 miles away from Phoenix still. Kevin and I came up with the idea of having Kevin buy 2 or 3 batteries at their WalMart and drive out to us, and use the batteries to get back to Quartzite by switching them out as they died. But that meant waiting as they bought batteries and then drove out to us. A 3 hour wait, easy. But we thought that was better than paying the $320.00 we were quoted for a tow back to Quartzite. We reserved a room in Quartzite at a place called "The Quartzite Yacht Club", and told them it would be very late before we got there.

After sitting in the gravel parking lot for a long time letting the kids play in the dirt and rocks, and feeling a bit helpless, and knowing we were probably going to have to be there a lot longer, we were encouraged to just call the tow truck and get where we needed to be rather than wait and wait. They even offered to help pay for the truck. We knew they were right, and called the truck at about 10:30pm. We were touched by the generous offer, but declined. They know who they are, and we appreciate them very much.

The tow truck was an extra cab, and we fit just fine. It was about a 45 minute drive to the hotel room. The "hotel" was actually a bunch of double-wide coaches. But it had a tub, a couple of beds, a tv, and a kitchen with a fridge, so it was awesome! The kids enjoyed chasing the moths and crickets, Anna gave them a bath, and we watched some Olympics before going to bed.

Somewhere in the 8am hour, there was a knock at the door. It was the owner of the repair shop. He gave us the bad news, and we told him to fix the van. He said it should be done by noon. Check out was suppose to be at 11:00am, so that was going to be interesting. But they let us stay till the van was done. At about 11:30am, the knock came again, and I was on the way to pick up the van.

We loaded up again once I got back with the van, and we were on the road again! We were a bit poorer, but we were happy to be driving again. We got to Kevin and Dawn's house a little before 3pm, and boy were we happy to finally be there.

The rest of our trip went fine. We stayed at Kevin and Dawn's Saturday (watched UFC 87 that night), we visited Ken and Rachel's family and house Sunday, and drove to Bullhead City, AZ Monday and hung out with Kristi and Jason (who had also been visiting Kevin and Dawn that same weekend with us), and drove home Tuesday just in time for me to go to mutual.

We had a great time. We could have done without the breakdown, but that was out of our control. At those times when we thought "why us", and "this stinks", we were both reminded of how much worse it could have been. Had we left any earlier Friday, we would have been stuck during the hottest part of the day rather than when the sun is going down and the temperature isn't unbearable. Had I not noticed the gauge, we would have been on the side of the road. Etc. Before we left on Friday, we had a family prayer in the van, and we asked that we would be watched over and protected from harm or accident, and that we would be kept safe. All of our prayers were answered.

Here are the pictures!...