Memorial Day Car Troubles!

Mom invited us out to her house for Memorial Day Dinner. She was going to grill steaks and chicken. YUM. So, since my van has a leak in the cooling system, I filled up the radiator before we left. We should have been good to go! OOPS.... wrong!

The van still overheated as we got on the highway! Dammit!! So, we pulled off and waited for it to cool. It did, and I took off again. SH**!! Not even three blocks and the damn thing hits the red zone on the temp gauge!! UGH! Fine, we'll just get it home and take the Jeep. We finally made it home. I went to park the van at the curb instead of the driveway (so I could get the jeep out of the garage) and the damn thing died on me! WTH!!! I have absolutely no idea what's wrong with that thing.

We'll make it with the Jeep.
OOPS..... wrong again!!

I jump in the jeep, and start out on the highway, being sure not to over-exceed a safe speed limit for the auto in need of a new front end and alignment job. (Keep in mind that the Jeep is an '89 and has over 250,000 miles on it. AND it still runs GREAT!) Everything is going great. We're on our way. We make it from my house to Hunter's Ridge, and I'm coming out of a curve when the whole thing starts to shimmy out of control!! OMG!! I hold the steering wheel for dear life and gently break, all the while I have one arm outstretched in front of Alex should the worse happen. <Deep Breath>

We come out of the curve just fine. I slow down again, realizing that I had unconsciously pushed the poor SUV to a whopping 65 mph! So, off we go again. (Call me crazy!) We are going along just fine, until....... we hit a freakin rift in the road (somewhat like a small speed bump on the highway) and we shimmy once again, shaking everything loose in the whole damn vehicle!! DAMMIT!! < Breathe>

Ok.... time to do the smart thing. We weren't that far away from home. And we'd just passed one of those sections in the highway that cops use to do a U-turn. I slowly reverse until I can turn around in this section. We head back home. Now, being more than a little jostled and nervous, I keep the speed between 45 and 55 mph. Big deal if we were on the highway. Our lives seemed to be at stake here! Fortunately, the last shimmy that occurred on the way HOME did not happen on the Westgate Bridge! In fact, it happened just before we got onto it. UGH!!!

Now, we finally do make it home, safe and sound. The Jeep is fine for driving in town. In fact, I've driven it since the "shimmy incident" and it's just fine. Tomorrow I'm supposed to take the van into the shop for an esitmate. I hope it's nothing serious, or extremely expensive.

Happy Memorial Day! Drive SAFELY!!