The Odyssey

No, not Homer's,...my beautiful Honda Odyssey.  We bought the van about six months after Austin was born.  We have loved it and taken very good care of it, except for when the old man at Bear Lake backed in to me a few years ago. 

This year we have gone on a lot of roadtrips:  Disneyland, Moab, Zion's, Unintas x2, Victor, Idaho x2 and then of course our many trips to visit family an hour North of us. The van gives, gives and gives and asks for very little in return.  Until now....

On our way to our first Lodge trip this year, we were driving on the freeway North of Ogden when all of the sudden, in the lane next to us, we see a yellow end table laying in the road.  There is a truck in that lane and he is a little ahead of us and he plows right through the table without stopping.  Pieces fly everywhere, including a table leg which hits our windshield and cracks it.  Who know what else was hit, but the driver was very unconcerned, in fact, he never even put down his phone.  Nice.


The crack continues to spread.....

Two weeks later, we are heading back up to Victor when he some road work.  I don't wan to tell the whole story, but let's just say that a semi, gravel and our windshield are not a good combination.  We got stuck behind the semi and it resulted in 20+ huge rock chips and 4 or more cracks.  That windshield is toast.  Pretty sure I won't be passing my next inspection. 


Three weeks later, we are headed up to our annual trip to the Uintas with Matt's family.  This was the weekend after the wedding and we were looking forward to relaxing and having fun.  We are nearly to the campsite, on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.  We came up over a hill and hit a washout and a rock and heard a horrible sound.  We stop the car in the middle of the road (there is never anyone there) and got out to check it out.  Oil was POURING out of the van.   I got the kids out and we played some games on the hill while we tried to figure out what to do.  The oil pan was cracked and we were not going anywhere.  There is no cell coverage there, so Matt was getting ready to run back a few miles to where we had seen some four-wheelers and see if he could get a ride to where he could make some calls.  Just then, I truck pulls up, full of interesting characters.  They offer their help and so Matt and one of the men head instead to the campground, about 6 miles away or so, where Matt's parents are waiting for us.  That leaves me and 4 children with 4 other very interesting charcters.  (3 male, 1 female.)  We hung out for about an hour.  They gave my kids  m&ms and taught them all kinds of new words.  I finally sent the kids to walk up and down the road and let me know when they saw the truck coming back.  They were very nice, if very rough people.  We very much appreciated their help. 
Matt and the driver came back with John and Laurie and Meagan in the truck.  We pushed the van to side of the road and I grabbed my purse and the diaper bag, not knowing when we would be back to the van.  We squished in the truck and head back down the road to find cell coverage.  (side note:  our regular campground was closed.  We didn't know where we were headed yet.)  We found a meadow, and while John and Matt called around (insurance, towing, sisters in Evanston, seeing if we could fix it ourselves, what we needed to do, etc.)  the girls took the kids for a walk in the meadow.  We found a little campground nearby, so we unloaded and Matt and John headed back to the van to load all of our stuff into it and wait for the tow truck.  (In case you are wondering, tow trucks that have to come to the middle of nowhere=$$$).
We set up camp as best we could with half the stuff and made some lunch.  Meanwhile, the van gets towed, there is a teeny tiny little mechanic shop in Lyman, Wyoming.  There is no part anywhere near, not even in Utah.  The part can be shipped there in 5 days.  We can have our van back in 6 (keep in mind, this place is 3+ hours away from our house).  Whatever, the rest of the family gets there and we have a fun trip.  The only problem comes when it is time to load up and go home.  We have to fit an extra van load of stuff and 6 people into a van, a truck and a car that were already overloaded.  Somehow we made it work and as we drove out of the campground, the truck got a flat.  Took a little break and got that changed and then we were on the road again.  John drove us back to Lehi and we were a one-car family (that didn't all fit in the car) for a week.  Odyssey is now back in in good working order (minus the spider-web windshield).  She took a beating this summer and I am glad to have her back.