Tour of Texas

Every once in a while, Leah and I try to get away for at least one night, and with four kids, that only happens once or twice a year. This past weekend was one of those weekends, and we were planning to be away for two nights. Leah actually was planning to surprise me with a getaway to Austin, but she wanted to put in a round of golf and didn't know where I would want to play, so she ended up having to tell me beforehand so I could set a tee time. Regardless, it was a very nice idea and a sweet gesture to set up a surprise trip.

Since Leah has to work on Sunday mornings, our two nights away were Thursday and Friday. Aunt Sis and a couple of friends of ours would watch the kids and help get them back and forth to school while we were away, and then Aunt Sis planned to take the girls to my mom's Friday night. More on that later.

I took off Thursday and Friday and Leah and I left for Austin Thursday morning. We had a nice, easy drive down and got to our hotel in the mid-afternoon. We were staying at the top of the downtown Hilton. Leah had set us up on the Executive floor with the "Romance Package." Basically, that meant that we had some extra amenities on our floor like breakfast, drinks, and evening appetizers in the lounge, we got free breakfast in bed or a dinner at the restaurant downstairs, and we got chocolate covered strawberries and champagne in our room. It was pretty cool since we had never done anything like that before.

Since our hotel was downtown, we walked around down there a bit Thursday afternoon while we were trying to decide what to do for dinner. Finally, we settled on going to get barbecue on the other side of town. It was really good barbecue, though. We ate at The County Line, which is situated on a hill on the west side of Austin and has a great view from the patio at sunset. So we got a good view and even better food. What a deal!

The next day, we went to play golf. Leah did really well on the few holes that she played, but I think she had more fun driving the cart around and watching me. I played fairly well, but it wasn't the best course I've ever played on. The ground was really hard and the greens were pretty rough. Regardless, it was a well spent four hours.

We had our dinner at the hotel that night, and like most other hotels, the food was just okay. It was nothing compared to The County Line. Afterward, we just went back to our room and, like most other couples with kids dream of doing, enjoyed a television show without screaming kids in the background. We were both pretty worn out after being out in the heat all day at the golf course.

Saturday morning, we got up, checked out of the hotel, and started on journey home with intentions of shopping at the outlet mall in Roundrock after lunch. As we headed to the mall, we got a call from Aunt Sis. Remember that she had taken the girls to see Mom and was supposed to be headed home at the same time. She was calling to say that they had gotten on the road and had made it all the way to I-20 and a little past Marshall when they stopped at a rest area to rearrange the children. After everyone was situated, they tried to get back on the road, but they couldn't get the van to start.

We arranged for Mom to pick up Aunt Sis and the girls and take them back to her house, Leah and I diverted onto highway 79 and set out across Texas to meet Aunt Sis and the kids at Mom's house, and Jeffrey was alerted to meet us at the rest area later that evening to see if the two of us could get the van going. Six hours and one stop at Wal-Mart later (I didn't have a car charger for my phone) we finally arrived at Mom's. The plan, at that point, was for Leah and the girls to take me back to the rest area where Jeffrey would meet me, Leah and Aunt Sis would head home with the girls so they could be at church the next morning, and Jeffrey and I would figure out something to do with the van.

It was about 10pm by the time Leah headed for home, and Jeffrey and I couldn't get the van to do anything. The two of us just went back to his new house in Bossier to rest and regroup before trying to tackle the next problem: how to get the van fixed or back to Sachse. My idea was to rent a car trailer and truck from U-Haul and just tow the car back to Sachse on a one-way rental. U-Haul had a slightly different plan.

I went into the U-Haul place by Jeffrey's house early Sunday morning and told them the plan. They said that they couldn't rent me the car dolly (two wheels up) because a Windstar is too wide for that. I would have to rent the full car trailer (four wheels up). Further, they said that they couldn't rent me an F-150 because it wouldn't be able to pull a Windstar. As a matter of fact, they said that the smallest thing that they could rent me that would pull it was a 14 foot moving van.

We went down that road a little way until I figured out that I was going to have to pay for two days of rental time to do a one-way deal, and they had no way to make it just one day. Ridiculous. I didn't want to pay for more than double the time that I needed and the total cost for that whole deal was going to be about $400. Of course, that was still less expensive than trying to get a wrecker to take it to Dallas, and it would be more convenient than waiting in Marhsall for someone to fix it on Monday. Regardless, I figured that there still had to be a better way.

As it turned out, while I was explaining the situation to Leah, a man at our church overheard the conversation and offered to bring his F-250 to me and pull the van home. All we needed to do was get the trailer. Well, the U-Haul lady where I was said that an F-250 couldn't pull it either. Jeffrey and I just laughed at her and informed her that either the computer was wrong or she was reading it wrong because an F-250 wouldn't even know it was back there. No big deal, though, because we weren't going to rent the trailer from her anyway.

I got Leah to rent a trailer from a U-Haul place in McKinney on an in-town deal so we wouldn't have to pay for two days, and our friend Don brought the trailer to me behind his F-250. Now, there was only one problem left to solve. We needed a way to get the van on the trailer. Since it wasn't running, we couldn't drive it up there, and there is no way that three guys would be able to push it up there. I had already asked the U-Haul lady that I had been talking to if we could get a trailer with a winch on it, and she said that U-Haul didn't have anything like that at all. I guess they figure that people only ever put cars that are running on trailers.

Thankfully, Jeffrey knows a guy in Bossier that had a come-along and some chain we could use. Problem solved. All we had to do at that point was wait for Don to get to Marshall. Once he got there, we hooked everything up and pulled the van up on the trailer. Of course, that took some time. The come-along didn't move very far on each turn and we had to reset it and do it again a couple of times to get the van all the way up, but we finally made it, and Don and I were on the road to Sachse.

Once we got around my house, I directed Don to the mechanics, and we dumped the van in the parking lot for them to look at today. Getting if off of that trailer sure was easier that putting it on. We just had to push a little and she rolled right off. Now, the mechanics are working on it, and they just called to report that that offending part is a fuel pump sensor. Of course, it's only a couple of hundred dollars for a part that's probably smaller than my little toe, but isn't that always the way it goes with car repairs?

So after all of that my four hour trip home from Austin ended up taking closer to thirty. I am so glad to be home!