Casper or Bust

This was my window before: Casper or Bust!!

I changed it to: Casper or BustED!!

There's a story to it of course, but first let me show you some pretty big jackrabbits, enjoy.

Lindsey, Jessica and I

Me

Jessica

Lindsey

This was in Dubois on the way to Casper to see Chelsea. We also saw bison, a lot of deer, a lot of roadkill. We were cruising along, making good time, having a good time and I had just had a conversation with the girls about how reliable our van has been for us, how the only thing we have ever had to do to it was regular maintenance. (Open mouth, insert foot). 

We were just outside of Riverton, WY which is literally the only town between Jackson and Casper that has a population over a few hundred. One town even had a population of 10! That's like one big Mormon family, is that really considered a town?

So, we were just outside Riverton when my oil light started to come on and off. Lindsey was sitting shotgun and I told her to grab the owner's manual and see what it said. "Pull over" was the advice. We could see Riverton, it was raining and pulling over on the side of the road wasn't going to help one bit so we decided to just keep going. We pulled into the first gas station in town and as we did the oil light came on and stayed on for good.  Just in time. Whew!

I got out of the van and immediately noticed a trail of oil behind the van. When I looked under the van it was dripping out the bottom. There was also oil splattered all over the back of the van. We were 4 hours from home and 5 hours from Cody (he was working in Pocatello for the day), but I didn't know what else do to so I called him. His first words were "Are you f***ing kidding me?" (which he NEVER says in front of me and he said it loud enough the entire van heard) followed by "Let me call you back". 

He made a few other calls to figure out what to do. It turns out we have 2 types of roadside assistance. The one through KIA would tow us to the nearest KIA dealership which was Casper, 2 hours away and 6 hours from Idaho Falls. Either way it wouldn't do us any good because Lindsey had to be to work Sunday night and me Monday morning and it was 3pm on a Friday afternoon. Our roadside through our insurance would tow us to the nearest mechanic shop, which also did us no good for the same reasons. 

I changed the back window of the van to read "Casper or Busted!!" and we grabbed some snacks from the convenient store.  After being on the phone with Cody, the insurance, roadside etc we had three options:

1- Sit and wait for Cody to come and get us and the van and skip our girls weekend in Casper

NO WAY! We didn't come this far to turn around and go home

2- Have Chelsea come and get us and bring us back to Riverton on Sunday and the husbands would meet us there to take us and the van home

We had dinner reservations and movie tickets for that night and it would be a 4 hour round trip for Chelsea and we wouldn't make either

3-Rent a car, continue on to Casper and meet the boys in Riverton on Sunday.

BINGO!! It was $160 to drive a car one way to Casper or $150 to rent it for the weekend or we could rent a truck for the entire weekend for $100 because they were having a sale, truck it is. The rental place was on the other side of town in the airport, but luck for us they employee just locked up for a few minutes and came and picked us up. EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH RIGHT HERE FOLKS!

Here we are in our truck rental back on the road to Casper : )

Lindsey worked the night before so she was super tired

My family still had Fat FRYday without me at Dairy Queen and sent me a picture.

Sarah, Chelsea, me and Jessica at the movie. I promise my hand is not touching her boob!! It just looks that way, honest! The theater had the BEST seats, we each had our own recliner. 

That night we had dinner at "J's" where we met a bunch of Chelsea's new WY friends, watched Pitch Perfect 2, then headed back to Chelsea's for dessert, played games and talked until 2am.

Facetiming with my family. Chloe and Jackson (Chelsea and I's betrothed children) were talking to each other and being so cute!!

Loaded up on some liquid to go shopping!! I was the only one with water, everyone else had Rockstars. We went to GAP outlet, Hobby Lobby, Marshall's and Ross. We had lunch at the Flat Iron and I am still craving more of their fries covered in roast beef and brown gravy. Later that night we of course had to go to Target because...well it's Target!

We were complete dorks and all got matching sweatshirts at the GAP outlet. This is our truck we rented and Chelsea is apparently giving herself a breast exam! LOL!

Our matching sweatshirts

My girls!

Lindsey, me, Jessica and Chelsea

Saturday night after Chelsea went to bed Jessica and I decorated Chelsea's house

It's so much prettier (and more water proof) than toilet paper.

We headed back to Riverton Sunday morning after breakfast. The hubby's met us at the airport so we could drop off the truck and then we headed over to load the van on the car dolly they brought with them, except there was one little BIG problem...the van didn't fit on the dolly, it was too wide! Who knew that it wasn't a one size fits all?!?! We called the Uhaul place that was just down the street to rent a different one or a trailer, but they closed at noon, it was 12:05!! Our knights in shining armor were starting to look more like monkeys on donkeys, totally kidding none of it was there fault but we had to say something to lighten the mood.  We went and had a nice big lunch to fill our bellies and talked about a plan B, C, D, etc. We were also on a time crunch because Lindsey had to be to work at 7 and we were 4 hours from home. 

We finally decided that we were just going to have to leave the van there but we took it to the Walmart across the street. Chelsea's husband Rod (the store manager at the Casper Walmart) called the store manager at the Riverton Walmart and asked him not to tow our van, we would be back to get it. 

We snugly fit all 6 of us in the truck (which was luckily 6 passenger) and headed home. We pulled into Lindsey's driveway at 6:37 so she had a whopping 23 minutes to change, grab her things and get to work. 

UPDATE: We ended up mailing a key to the Ford dealership in Riverton. We sent it on Monday and the pony express got it to them on Thursday morning. Finally on Friday afternoon around 3 they called to verify they were picking up the right van from the Walmart parking lot.

It ended up being the rear main seal which luckily was covered by our KIA warranty so we only had to pay the $50 deductible. It was a $20 part but the labor was over $1000 because they had to tear it apart to get to it. 

We went the following Saturday (15 days after the incident) to pick it up after they told us it was done. We told them we would be there at noon, but ended up not getting there until 1 pm and then had to wait almost another hour for them to get it there. It was at their Chevy dealership getting washed and an alignment. 

We were so glad when we finally pulled Van Dam (short for Jean Claude Van Damme, because after we bought a mini van Cody said, "We own a VAN...DAMN" so it was named Jean Claude, but it just became easier to call it Van Dam) into the driveway of our house over 2 weeks later. 

I had been driving Cody's truck and he had been driving his 14 passenger work van in the meantime. He even had a kid ask him which daycare he worked at because he was driving the "daycare bus".

May 15-17, 2015