This past weekend was quite the little adventure for me. There were parts that were AMAZING. And then there were parts that make me cringe when I think of them. But it was definitely an adventure.
My bestie, Koby, and I headed to Denver to see the Atlanta Braves take on the Colorado Rockies. Koby is a huuuuuuuge Braves fan, which makes me a fan by association (but I am now a real fan and have done my research to back it up). I had to get up at 4:15 AM on Saturday morning (should be illegal). We left at 5:30 to pick up a cat that we were dropping off at a friend's parents' house in Colorado. The cat was supposed to be drugged and sleep the whole way - it did not. In fact, there was one time she got out of her carrier and almost jumped on my head while I was driving. Scared the shiz out of me. But I'm sure it gave the other drivers on the road a nice little show to watch.
*Side note: the cat's name is Astrid. Every time I hear that name, I think of the episode of The Office when Jan has her baby and names it Astrid. But Michael thinks she names her Ass-turd. That is what I called the cat the whole way to it's home.
After the longest drive ever, we finally made it to Denver and got ready for the game. We left significantly early to make sure we could watch warm ups. We did. Parking cost me 20 effing dollars. Not so cool. At the game, I found my looooooovely friend, Nate (he is the coolest and I miss him). The couple sitting next to me were from Blackfoot, Idaho so we had a nice little chat about that. The two guys sitting next to Koby were friendly but I couldn't stand to look at them because they had chew all up in their teeth and kept spitting all over the ground. I almost threw up.
The game was way fun. The Braves came back from being down by 5 and won 13-9. We had a rain/hail delay for like an hour and half. And it was FREEZING. The rain wasn't supposed to move in until Sunday morning or something, so we were both in shorts and flip flops. I thought I might die from hypothermia. But I didn't.
Besties at the Braves game!
Found Nate! Love him. So glad I got to see him.
3 of the coolest people at the game!
Chipper Jones! Love some baseball booty!
After the game, we went on a little adventure to find something to eat. We FINALLY found an Applebees. I was surprised to see how many restaurants were closed at 11:30...we weren't even in Utah!
Sunday morning, we woke up after sleeping in (much needed and deserved). Koby and I went and picked up Nate and Kenny to take them to the airport, then we headed on our way. This is where the trouble started. We stopped to fill up my car and I noticed that my battery light came on. So I called my dad and he sent me to an auto store to have the battery checked out. Welp, it wasn't the battery...it was the alternator. Definitely not what I wanted to hear. It was a Sunday afternoon and I couldn't find a mechanic to fix it for me. I talked to one mechanic who was sooooooo nice. He said that the alternator wasn't all the way out and there was a chance I could make it home or a chance I could make it 5 miles down the road. After talking to my dad, we decided to risk it and get a little closer to home...BAD IDEA.
We had been driving for almost an hour when all of my gages went off. I was afraid I would lose my steering, so I pulled off on the nearest exit. We were about 30 miles outside of Cheyenne and had to call a wrecker to come tow us into town. He took us to a hotel then dropped off my car at the Ford dealership...another bad idea. We stayed at this crazy ghetto Motel 6 with some creeper neighbors and ordered some awful Chinese food. I made sure my boss at work knew I wouldn't be in the next day.
Koby was trying to keep me positive...it wasn't working so well. Poor Walter. :)
The next morning, at 7:21, I get a phone call from the dealership asking me what was wrong. I wasn't upset because I thought they would be done in a couple of hours. WRONG. At 11:45, I called and they hadn't even started on anything. Checkout for our hotel was noon. So we had to go sit at the dealership. They told me it was going to be 800 effing dollars to fix and that they couldn't fix it until the next morning. I almost crapped my pants. My dad was pissed that they hadn't done anything and were going to charge so much, so he had us towed to another mechanic. Then freaking Ford charged me over a hundred dollars to "diagnose" the problem - the problem that had already been diagnosed and I had told them what to do to fix it. I was a mess. Fortunately, the other mechanic place was so nice and worked really hard to make sure we could leave that day. But after all of the towing, having Ford rape me of all of my money, the hotel, and getting the other mechanic paid, it still cost me about $900. I sure don't have that kind of extra money. I was way upset about it because the mechanic outside of Denver was only charging me about $350. I'm trying not to think about it... :)
We finally left the awful town of Cheyenne at 3:30 that afternoon. And got home at 10 pm that night. It was sooooooo nice to sleep in my own bed again and not have to pay to stay somewhere. And know that if anything goes wrong with my car, I have someone here who can fix it without stripping me of my life savings and my credit score.
All in all, it was quite the adventure. I could have used an extra day of relaxation...one that didn't cost me almost a thousand dollars plus my pay from work. But that's life. I'm suuuuuuper glad I was there with Koby. She helped me keep sane.
Moral of the story - always make sure you have $900 just laying around in case of car problems. :)
