Two canadians, a swede, the housband, and me.

Last week, I went to Elko, Nevada for the week with my housband.  It was a great week--I made a lot of flowers, visited cute little shops, got to know the place a little, and spent a lot of time with my housband.

(PS:
Dearest Elko, I'm sorry about all the things I said about you and all the continued negativity over the years; you weren't so bad, plus your sagebrush is actually kind of pretty and smells a bit like lavender.  I guess you're not the Armpit of America like I suspected.

Signed, sincerely,

ME)

ANYway, things went well during the week and I really enjoyed myself.  On Thursday night, we were heading back to Logan, having a grand old time, when we were almost run off the road by a semi, and my only reaction was to scream, which, obviously, didn't help the problem.  I just couldn't stop.  It was the weirdest thing; an out of body experience.  Eventually I realized I was screaming but didn't/couldn't stop myself... very odd.

I had a bit of an emotional breakdown after that because I laughed so hard I cried, and then I couldn't stop crying for a little while.  I have traveling anxiety due to previous accidents, and this certainly didn't help.

Soon after that, we were heading up around the hill to Pequop.  PEQUOP!  I WILL NEVER FORGET YOU!  IN THE WORST WAY!  We were rocking out to some Gaga when a peculiar ticking sound began to freak us both out.  Being the bright people we are, we turned off the AC, turned down the music and tried to listen to what was happening.  This particular tick had been happening for a little while, and we made plans to take the car to a mechanic upon our arrival home.

Until the tick got louder, and LOUDER, and LOUDER.

And then.... smoke.

We made it up the hill most of the way to a rest stop which was magically there, and Pedro* pushed it up the hill to its resting spot.

There at the rest area, we see a couple Canadian tourists and their Swedish friend.  We had no idea what to do.  They said they were going to Wendover, and while talking on the phone to my dad, Pedro asked me to ask them if we could catch a ride.  In the meantime, we saw another guy at the rest stop--I asked him if he was headed to Salt Lake, he said yes, I asked if we could catch a ride with him, but he said he doesn't give rides to strangers. Fair enough.  There WAS a prison a while back with road signs which read "NO HITCHIKING."

So we put all our stuff in the trunk of my now dead car so as to discourage people from breaking in, grab the most valuable stuff (like my 10,000 cameras--I am incapable of packing light), and head out with the Canadians and Swede.  Honestly, they were a total blessing.  SUCH nice people, so kind to give us a ride, and I wasn't nervous AT ALL that they would kill us.  Ha.

So then we rode to Wendover, where we thanked the Canadians and Swede and told them goodbye.  Pedro's mother picked us up in Wendover, and we finally got home at around 1:30 in the morning, totally exhausted.

The next day, we borrowed a truck, rented a trailer, and went back to PEQUOP.  I had so much anxiety that my car would be:

1. Towed by highway patrol
A. Broken into
III. Broken into, and all my stuff stolen (including my laptop, which I forgot to use my brain and neglected to pack in the stuffed Canadian car.... whoops.)

BUT, there it was.  Totally in tact, safe, whole, with a bum engine.  We tugged it all the way back home.

There's all my photos from the day trip we took to fetch my car.  We weren't really going 110 miles per hour--the speedometer was broken, but we like to pretend we're hardcore like that.  Also, we both kept thinking there was a jerk car tailing us, until we'd individually realize that it was just my car on the trailer behind us.

It was honestly a nice drive--just too bad it had to be because my engine semi blew up.

And yes, the engine is dead.  It turns on, it drives a little, but it's not driveable.  Today, my father-in-law found a new engine with a friend for $900... so... happy birthday to me?

Kind of a craptastic weekend.  I hope yours was better.  I spent most of today really frustrated, but I've decided to turn the corner and turn my frown upside down.  Life can be annoying, I guess, but I need to move on and accept that sometimes, crap happens.



*I just decided, just now, that I'm tired of not writing my husband's name.  No, it's not really Pedro.  No, he's not Mexican or hispanic.  I just like that name.  He's asked me not to write his name on el blog here, so I will grant him that wish, but I will now call him Pedro in return.  Cool.