Driving through the Willamette Valley and breaking down in Grant's Pass, Oregon

Yeah, so the Willamette Valley is gorgeous to tool through, but try REALLY hard not to break down in Grant's Pass...there's not much to do there. Trust me.

Easy St is off to the right...



There are several Weeds in OR, this here is the way to "Central Weed."



Right about at Grant's Pass, the car started doing some funny stuff, like puttering the way a car does when it's running out of gas. I didn't want to push it and end up damaging it worse, so we pulled into a Holiday Inn parking lot and called up AAA and got our SECOND tow of the trip (the first being in Durango, if you'll recall, Dear Reader).





Grant's Pass -- "It's the Climate!"

Car Trouble in Durango!

This is the first episode of trouble and required a new coolant system and timing belt kit (all installed by the awesome crew at Animus Automotive, they were the best mechanics I've ever had and I'd certainly recommend them if you're in the Durango area).

We left Durango for Boulder, but didn't quite make it to the top of the first pass (of three total) before the coolant pump quit and the coolant overheated and came spewing out of an emergency release valve in a steamy cloud. I let the car cool back down for about 40 minutes and then, I kid you not, coasted the car almost all the way back to Durango, it was a good 40 miles down that mountain. When we hit Durango things flattened out and I had to press on the gas. The car almost overheated again and started beeping just as I pulled it into a parking spot downtown, SCORE!

We ended up getting an SUV for a bit over $20 a day while the car was being worked on, not bad. There's so much to do in the Durango area that even though we stayed several days longer than planned we couldn't do everything we wanted to!

The massive road trip vehicle has been obtained!

Thanks to Greg from G_T, who gave me a sweet deal on his 1999 Audi A4 V6 Quattro! It should serve us well on our trip. It's got heated leather seats, Sirius satellite radio, a CD changer and subwoofer, and a sunroof. That's all you can ask for in a car...other than that it also get you from place to place without incident, that is (I joined AAA just in case that becomes a problem).