10 years and 268,000 miles later

our van gave up the ghost. that thing had groundhogs, chickens, peacocks, children, adults, cement, shingles, dogs, cats, trees, feed, drew and practically everything else in it. mom and i made it up to ohio in great time with it. no problems, just a little oil leak. nothing wrong. then the way home! well, that is another story. we got about three hours away, and we started getting slower and slower up the mountains. 30 miles per hour. the engine was making this clicking/pounding/hissing noise. i didn't think it sounded right, so i pulled over. mom thought i was just driving funny. we got to the gas station, where the car died for the first time, and this guy told us to put octane booster in the gas tank cause it was probably the high altitude that was making it chug. we did that and nothing happened. we tried to get it started, but it just died. these two guys in their mid thirties were sitting near us in a car with their windows down, and heard our dilemma, and came over to see if they could help. they knew everything about the car. i think they had been working on cars since they were one. i wouldn't be surprised. they tried everything they could think of, and it still wouldn't turn over. finally they got it started by hot-wiring it and poured water in the radiator. they told us that we would have to stop every time it got overheated and put water in it. so we thanked them and left. we got twenty minutes away, and the car died again on the side of highway 77 this time. a little more scary. we waited about 45 min. before we could get the engine going again, and chugged up the hill to the next exit. we pulled into a gas station and this little guy came out to look under the hood. he pulled the oil dip stick and nodded sagely, and then told us to go to the napa center. we coasted into the center where our car promptly died. and this time we couldn't get it to start again. a guy, steve came out to look at it and pronounced it dead on scene. he said the heads were cracked and warped, the coolant system was practically nonexistant, and that had ruined the engine. the compression was leaking into the radiator and pushing the water out of the radiator system and was getting so hot it was boiling over. the guy steve told us that we probably had five miles left of pushing it before the engine blew. five miles down from us was a tunnel thru the mountains that lasted for a mile. our engine would have blown in the tunnel, and serious things could have happened. well steve was nice and he told us that it would be a minimum of eight hundred with just replacing the heads, and more cause the engine was ruined. we called dad and he agreed that it was time to say goodbye. (enter sappy music by sarah brightman...) our friend had made its last trip. our time together was done. well now our dilemma was that we were trapped in bland, virginia (yes folks, that was its name) and had no transportation. another guy, i don't know his name, took us all the way up to the hotel and dropped us off. it was so nice of him. mom said she felt safe cause he voted for bush and got all worked up when mom mentioned kerry. we don't like kerry. so he ranted and raved against kerry on the way to the hotel. we checked in, and were pleasantly surprised that the rooms were pretty nice, and they had tv land which made me happy. so we watched westerns, an interview with laura bush, and a crime show. then we walked about 1/2 mile to the dairy queen and got dinner. this i think was the first week of hunting season, and there were about ten pickups in the parking lot pulling trailers with four wheelers on the back. when we got in there, there were guys all over the place in camo and orange hats. all talking about their great conquests this week. ah! rural life!

dad came and picked us up the next morning around nine. he had made it in three hours. we drove over to the place that had the van, and we unloaded everything in it. when it was time to say the FINAL goodbye, daddy got all teary. he started to thank the Lord, but couldn't go on. we turned it into a joke and then he said he felt like sheffy when his horse died. that got us laughing so hard. and we drove away.

we have had that van since i was twelve. gwen and i have almost died in that van. i drove that back and forth to work. in a way i am glad it is gone gone gone, but in a way, lots has happened in that van, and i will miss it. even tho it smelled. and even tho the carpet and seats were so messed up, you couldn't tell the original color. and even tho the outside of the car had a rusty gash on the side cause dad fell asleep at the wheel and had to swerve at the last minute and knocked over a mailbox. and even tho there was a scratch the whole length of the car from me when i was learning to drive. so goodbye van. may you rest in peace, and may your trip to the happy hunting ground be a quick one. thanks for the service