Adam and I left Saturday at around 11:30 am to go to
Huzzah Valley to go camping and lazy rafting. We got all of our gear loaded up in my parents' spare van, and we headed out. Everything was fine and dandy. We made it to Terre Haute, IN at around 1:00 pm. We were on schedule for the most part. Once we crossed the Illinois border, all hell broke loose.
We got about 20 miles past the Indiana/Illinois border and the van started rumbling. Adam said the muffler had fallen off. Great. We got out of the van to assess the damage. I walked around to the front of the van, the engine was steaming, and I saw anti-freeze all over the grille of the car. Great. Just great. We drove for about 2 more miles and hit a rest stop. We had no idea what to do. We were in the middle of bumblefuck Illinois with litte cash on us.
I tried to call my parents thinking maybe they had some sort of solution. They had nothing. Adam went and told the attendant at the rest stop what was going on. We really had no idea where exactly we were in Illinois. All we knew is that our van was broken down, we had a crying dog in the back, and we were at least 2 hours from being in Indianapolis.
The attendant tried desperately to reach a garage that would be open on a holiday weekend. She called two, but no one answered. She called the third garage, and got an answer. We were told that he would come out with a radiator hose in a few minutes, and the mechanic would look at the muffler. We sat around for about 20 minutes wondering where the hell this guy was coming from. He called the rest stop back, and told the attendant to tell us that he would be sending out a tow truck. Great. More money to add onto whatever damage that needed to be fixed on the van.
About 10 minutes later, the tow truck showed up, loaded up our van, and we got inside. The guy took us to
Marshall, IL. I remembered that place as a kid. My grandmother's neighbor would drive over the Illinois border to Marshall to get Illinois Power Ball Tickets.
We went into the rural portion of Marshall to this tiny garage, which is what I was hoping. I knew that if we were taken to some chain mechanic garage, that we would probably be stuck there over night and be paying an arm and a leg for the work.
About 5 hours later, our van was fixed. We hung out with some of the garage owners friends, and they took a fond liking to Madison. By that time, Adam and I were grumpy and ready to have already been to St. Louis, to say the very least.
The mechanic put anti-freeze and water into the radiator and let the car run for 30 minutes. Adam was trying to get an idea as to how much all of this was going to cost us. The mechanic told Adam that he'd let us know when he knew everything was working right. Great. I was starting to get the feeling we were going to be stuck in rural Marshall, IL over night sleeping in a broken down van and eating lunchmeat sandwiches for breakfast.
The mechanic, "Wild" Bill (that's what everyone called him), told Adam that it would cost us $203 for fixing the van. Awesome. I guess that's not as much as an arm and a leg. He took us to his "buddy's" garage to pay with a credit card. The garage was the towing service that towed us there. We thought he had included the price of the towing with what he told us. We were wrong. The tow was $75 + $8 surcharge for adding Wild Bill's bill to his. *Grumble* So, now we're up to around $280. At this point, we weren't really sure if we should turn back around and head home, or head out to Huzzah Valley.
We basically said fuck it and headed out to Huzzah Valley. We paid for this "vacation", and by god, we're going to get there. It was almost 6:30 pm at this point. We would have already been at the campsite making S'mores by then. We got to St. Louis at around 10:00 pm. We called a friend of ours that was headed out as well to find out our campsite number. We weren't aware at the time that he was actually in the process of moving to St. Louis, and then going camping. Wes and his wife said if we weren't west of St. Louis, that they would meet us in a suburb just outside of 270 which goes around the city. By then, Adam and I were ready to caravan anyway. We needed gas and I had forgotten all of the breads that we bought for the trip. We met Wes at around 10:30 pm at a gas station near Six Flags St. Louis.
We meet up and head out to Huzzah Valley. We got to Steelville, MO at around 11:45 pm on Saturday.
I'll post more about the trip when I get home from school. There's plenty more drama that happened after we arrived. Well, moreso when we left to head home yesterday.
