smacky and bucky

Sunday afternoon: I got on the road about 1pm, and at 2:30, the warning light on my car went off saying my car was overheating. It was 100 degrees outside. I pulled into a parking lot and lifted the hood. The overflow reservoir on the radiator was full of boiling liquid. I stood there
for a few minutes when a guy in a pick-up asked if I needed help. The manual mentioned checking the fuse to the radiator fan, but it looked fine. The fan only came on when the AC was on though, but it did work. The guy knew a mechanic about a mile down the road, in the closest little town, and he drove down to see him and came back and said he'd stop in.

The mechanic came and asked me to follow him to the garage. About 500 feet down the road, the warning came on again, and when I pulled into the garage, I could hear the water boiling in the radiator. We added water to it, and let it cool for an hour, but after starting it, it started boiling almost immediately. He said he thought the thermostat was bad. I called back down to the river where I'd come from (now three hours since I left), and my father-in-law had the idea of loaning me his wife's car for the week (she is not going to be using it, as she just got out of the hospital and is bedridden for the next few weeks). He and my wife (who was staying an extra day) drove two cars up (about an hour north of the river), and they arrived around 5:30. I gave the mechanic the key, transferred all my stuff to my loaner car, and continued to Arlington. I got home about 7:30, so the trip took six hours and two cars!

The cats were thrilled to see me. We had someone come by every other day, but they still missed us. I called the office and explained what had happened and said I'd be in on Tuesday (since I was beat by this time). The mechanic has a week to fix it, which is good since I'm sure he'll have to order parts to his little town.

This thrilling 100 degree adventure was the climax to a week off that frankly was not much of a vacation. I did get a lot of time to read while sitting around, so I got to read Zombie Planet, the end of David Wellington's zombie trilogy, so that's something.