Road Trip - Day 4

Yikes! What a day of driving we had. First, we noticed that the "low coolant" was coming on sporadically in the early morning part of our journey, leaving Laramie, WY. Odd, since we just had our 90K tune-up (presumably refilling the coolant in the process?) just a few weeks ago. We weren't sure what to do. When we got to Little America, we saw that they had a mechanic onsite so we checked to see how long a coolant fill and oil change (due for that too) would take. He said it would be 1.5 hours before they could even start on it. Sigh. Praying, we rolled on.

We saw buffalo today, roaming the Wyoming plains. So much plains, so few buffalo. Seems a bit of a waste, all that un-buffaloed land. They were fun to see; they were running! Stark contrast to the clumps of cows we saw, standing or laying about. Easier to control, I guess.

I made some calls as we approached Provo, UT, trying to find a Chevy dealer who could service our Cavalier. Found one, navigated our way to him. They fixed us up in about 40 minutes for $32. Nice! Brent Brown Auto in Provo ... great service.

We got a free carwash with the oil change so we went for it. I had commented already on the great varieties of bug represented on the body of the vehicle. Never having gone through an automatic carwash before, we knew it might be problematic with the convertible top. See how little our brains work after 10 hours of driving? We took a chance. We lost.

As the sprayer (it was touchless) came around the sides and over the top, water began to stream in at the tops of the windows. We yelped and buckled away from the flow, I over my laptop, stupidly placed in my lap. I may never truly know the feeling of "Save my baby!" but I got a taste of it in those moments. Rob laughed at me each time the sprayer came around my side and I lunged forward once more, wrapped around my technoffspring. Finally, after the wax and all, we pulled out and into a parking space to survey the damage. I think I successfully shielded "the Untzer" (that's my Toshiba Tecra M3's name) from all water damage. We were soaked ourselves though; Rob on his left and I on my right. For the rest of the trip to the hotel, little streams would come in unexpectedly. Well, I did see a pattern. It happened whenever we turned or stopped suddenly. We must have looked silly coming in half wet on a hot, sunny day (it's 88 out there, right now).

We're at the Sleep Inn tonight, here in Provo, waiting for pizza. Finally; wireless internet access!