Exactly one year ago we were driving up to GA for Shane'e family reunion. When we got to about Auburn, our van "exploded" and completely died. There was no doubt it was the transmission. We had to wait forever for a tow truck THEN we had to rent a car from Enterprise to drive the remaining 4 hours to GA. Oh, yea, and you may recall that the ONLY car they had available for us to rent was a DOGE RAM EXTENDED CAB TRUCK!??!? Oh, it's coming back to you now....yea, I thought it might with that reminder. A mechanic looked at the van for 3 straight days and found NOTHING wrong with it. He was baffled. It was running fine to him and all the tests came back fine. SO, we ended up driving the DODGE RAM back to Auburn a few days later, picking up our van and driving it back to Mobile with no problems and have had no problems since then. This past Christmas we drove back up to GA and everything was fine. SOOOOOO, it was time (ONE YEAR LATER EXACTLY) to drive back up for Shane's family reunion the last weekend in July. We joked about it the night before we left...."yea, maybe we won't end up in a Dodge Ram this time"...."yea, that was AWESOME"....even some of my friends were joking with us about how crazy that was and how they hoped it happened again. I mean, but SERIOUSLY, there is NO WAY it would happen again, right?!?!? I mean, it was EXACTLY one year later, driving to the SAME event, in the SWELTERING heat. It just WOULDN"T happen again. That would be impossible.
When we passed Auburn and the location our van exploded last year, Shane said, "welp, atleast we made it farther than last year! haha." I agreed and laughed. I don't need to remind you the girls DO NOT travel well. Like, after 5 minutes in the car they are already whining about wanting to be there and wanting to get out and having to pee every 2 seconds and screaming their heads off for who knows what. Anyways, we turn a corner on I-85 and see the "willy big buildings" of downtown Atlanta. Shane says, "look girls! It's the big buildings! That means we don't have much longer to Gigi's house!" (realistically about and an hour and a half left, but hey that is WAY closer than we had been). They screamed in excitement. We were actually making decent time and perhaps will actually avoid rush hour this time. Shane presses down on the accelerator to cross over the 6 lanes of traffic and then we hear it....the sound of a motor accelerating massively as the van proceeds to drastically slow down and go nowhere....smoke proceeds to rush out of the hood....THIS.IS.NOT.HAPPENING. We knew immediately what was taking place because it was EXACTLY the same thing that happened ONE year ago. Explosion. Except this time we were in 6 lanes of downtown Atlanta traffice. SWEEEEEET. Shane miraculously makes it to the edge of the right lane and begins looking for an exit if possible or somewhere to pull off. I was def. NOT in my best frame of mind at this particular moment :). We make it to the next exit which happened to be the Braves Stadium exit (not so much the BEST area of town....but hey, we will take what we can get :). We coast off the interstate and come to a stop in front of a Comfort Inn. Yes, that was providential. I mean it was RIGHT next to the interstate. What are the chances of that?? We get out and push it to the parking lot. Smoke is everywhere. Thankfully the girls and I were able to go inside the lobby of the hotel b/c if not we would have standing in the 100+ degree weather for the next....you ready??....3 HOURS. Yep, I'm serious. That is how long it took the tow truck to get there and that is how long it took Shane's mom to drive down and pick us up due to horrible Atlanta traffic. C.R.A.Z.Y. We had to get it towed all the way up to Habersham so a guy that was recommended us to could try to fix it OR atleast find out the problem this time. I mean, we were def. convinced that the transmission was for sure gone this time.
The huge, hot, loud, traffic-filled interstate we looked at for 3 hours :)
The sexy van waiting for the tow truck...
Our belongings....atleast we had something to pile it on this year....last year, we had to dump everything on the ground at a gas station while we waited for Enterprise to come get us. Awesome.
Bye-Bye Sexy van....
Well, the good- I mean GREAT-news is that our transmission was still intact. The mechanic actually found out that there was a defective cooling system in the transmission- thus when the transmission fluid got REALLY hot (like say, on really LONG trips, in really HOT weather), then the transmission fluid boiled up and popped the top off the transmission fluid tank and all the fluid spews out on everything (causing massive smoke) and then when the fluid is all gone, the transmission automatically shuts down to prevent burning up the transmission. However, if you keep going too much longer, it will burn it up anyways. SOOOO, basically that is what happened last year and then AGAIN this year. So, instead of $1000's for a new transmission, we only had to pay a couple of $100 for a new cooling system. PRAISE THE LORD. Well, there ya have it folks. I guess the one good thing is- we didn't have to drive a DODGE RAM extended cab this time! ha!
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