So the plus side of all of what has happened so far is that I got to see my first newborn calf. I managed to avoid the birthing process (I wasn't ready for that) but did get to see it within an hour of it being born.
We left relatively early on Tuesday morning loaded with our cheese sandwiches, pop and brownies to get us further on the road. The weather wasn't awful, although the potholes were somewhat horrendous, and we were just excited to be on our way. We saw the sign right before St. Regis, MT to check the weather stations for Lookout and Fourth of July Passes and realized our radio had stopped working. And all of the gauges dropped down to nothing. And there
wasn't any lights, windshield wipers, etc. So we quickly took the exit (turn signal not working), had to restart the car while driving 3 times (thank you driver's ed for that review) and barely drug into the gas station in St. Regis before breaking down completely. I just sat there and stared at the car. I am pretty sure Patrick asked me what I wanted to do next and all I did was sit there and stare at the car.
Let me give you a little background: When it comes to travel, I manage to miss buses, trains, planes, have cars break down, planes be delayed, lose luggage, etc. My travel karma is quite low, and the cause is somewhat unknown (I am a responsible and frequent traveler and always come prepared...). Patrick and I have gone to Chicago and Vancouver together and never had this bad luck come up. So Patrick got to experience what my adventures usually include. I have learned to live with this but this time was unexpected and extremely inconvenient. So there's the background.
Also, St. Regis is 71.6 miles from Missoula. We didn't make it far.
We had AAA tow us to Superior to Carl's (thank you Mom) and found out, as expected, it was the alternator. Carl's is a great place to take your car if you are ever stuck near the area, he's honest and a generally nice guy. Carl didn't have the part at his shop and so had to order it from Napa in Spokane. Too bad we couldn't have just towed it there and gotten a few hours closer. So we called Ken and Sue and they came and got us and took us out to dinner.
03.02.2011 Wednesday
We figured it would take a few hours to get the part and a few hours to install it in our PT Cruiser (gotta love small town MT, slow going and friendly). We made breakfast, went to the Book Exchange in Missoula, looked over some Ireland photos and books with Sue before we got the call at 2 that our car was done. We figured it would take an hour to get to Superior, 30 minutes to get the car ready and another few hours to get part way to Spokane so we decided we would just get it in the morning. We got some quality time with Ken and Sue, which is always appreciated.
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