car trouble

Paul got a new job and starts tomorrow, 7 December. His last day at the old job was Thursday, 3 December. We decided to take advantage of a much needed and very rare long weekend to go to Breckenridge and enjoy a couple of days in the condo of our friends. The slopes have only been open for a few weeks and most of them are still closed, but Paul's got a season pass and has been itching to break it in. I have no desire to ski at eight months pregnant but am quite happy hanging out in the condo.

Friday morning started clear and sunny, although cold. Tim 'helped' us pack our stuff into the car but mostly ran around the TV room in excitement. He loves to go places. We set off feeling smug as we enjoyed empty roads; everyone else was at work. Our car, a Subaru Outback which we bought very used a little over a year ago, has been a real work horse for us, but all of that came to an abrupt halt just as we entered the Eisenhower tunnel when the temperature gauge went as far into the red as it can go. We pulled over just outside the tunnel and let it cool then babied it down the mountain and to a Grease Monkey in Silverthorne. They sent us to a garage next door who sent us to the Subaru dealership. It would be hours before they could look at it, but they supplied us with a driver and a ride to our condo thirty minutes away. Paul got in a couple of hours of skiing, and Tim and I enjoyed eggnog and the fire.

not a lot of snow on the slopes, but enough to make it worth the trip

We got the call just before dinner that the diagnostic reading suggested a coolant leak into one of the cylinders but that they wouldn't know for sure until they took it all apart, something that would take at least six days. You can imagine the light-sucking, joy-killing moments that we had just after that call.

Mom and Dad to the rescue. Saturday morning, they rented a tow dolly in Fort Collins. Their Subaru isn't big enough to tow our Subaru, but Dad's SSR truck is. Unfortunately, it only holds two people, so he drove it and Mom drove their Subaru. Paul hit the slopes at 09:00 and got in a few hours of skiing. Two bull moose ate their lunch just outside our condo. Can't beat that!

the moose as seen from our living room window

the moose were so uninterested in people that paul was able to walk across the ski run to the edge of the vegetation for this shot

By 13:30, we were all at the Subaru dealership loading our car onto the dolly and feeling like things were in control. As Dad and Paul strapped the front tires down, an employee of the dealership happened by and told us that because our car was an all-wheel drive, we couldn't tow it with the rear wheels down. Our car manual confirmed this when we looked it up and again the light-sucking, joy-killing moments returned. The employee was helpful and gave us the phone number to a rental place, which we called and which luckily had a car trailer for rent. Even better, they were located across the street from the dealership.

Three hours later, at about the time that the lifts closed for the day, we pulled onto I70 and entered the Eisenhower tunnel just as the sun set. Paul and Dad towed our car in Dad's truck, and Mom, Tim and I towed the empty tow dolly in their Subaru. The rental agent in Silverthorne was willing to let us leave the tow dolly there, but the man Dad rented it from in Fort Collins, Eddie, was not cooperative on the phone. Dad described him as a man having only one visible tooth. It was a slow but uneventful drive home. As we went to bed Saturday night, the snow was coming down heavily. The skiing on Sunday will be the best yet this year, but driving home in it would be stressful, no impossible, so it's better we're here.

This morning the snow is falling just as heavily as it was last night. It's difficult to distinguish where front yards stop and streets begin, as there's been no traffic on foot or car to give the eye some sense of dimension. Paul got up early, and while Timothy and I slept, he shoveled the walk and left to return the rental equipment and leave our car at the shop to be discovered and torn apart on Monday. Hopefully, the news will be better than the worst case scenario we were given in Silverthorne.

our car on the trailer behind dad's truck in front of their house sunday morning

What is it about the end of my pregnancies and car troubles?

The up side is that Paul is no longer employed at that train wreck of a company that was slowly sucking the life out him, he's looking forward to a new start at a new place tomorrow, Paul got to break in his season ski pass, we saw two moose up close and from the comfort of the living room, it's only Sunday morning and we feel like we've been away from home for a week so the weekend seems elongated, it's snowing too hard to do anything other than sip cocoa and watch it fall, so after running our errands in the morning, we have a great excuse to cuddle up in our cozy house and enjoy the day.