The too long TREK home.....

Our trip home was a beautiful drive, here are some pictures of the scenery!!!Most of the way, except between LaGrande, and Pendleton the roads

were fairly clear, it was very nice!


What we were headed for!
This is where it started to get bad, just because of the drifts in the road,

it wasn't even snowing the wind just wouldn't quit blowing!



The sun was shining through the clouds just as our

car was beginning to act up!







This was the gorgeous reflection off of the mountain

coming out of the Blue Mountain Pass

We had quite the adventure coming home!!! Now that everything is fixed, we're doing much better, but life sure sucked for a while! The oil light in my car had come on intermittenly while we were at my parents, but we would add a little bit of oil, and it would go off. So we just hoped it would make it back to Spokane to have it looked at. We made it into LaGrande, OR, and decided to add a bit more oil, but as we were pulling out of LaGrande, the oil light came on and stayed on, we were in the middle of the Blue Mountain pass when we decided we probably should have had it looked at before we left, but at that point, we couldn't just stop. As we were coming out of the pass, the engine failure light came on and we started to lose power in the car, so Garry pulled over and turned the car off, we decided to try to make it into Pendleton, because we were less than 2mi. away at this point. The car wouldn't start, but we were still in a bit of a downward incline, so he popped the clutch and got it going. We slowly made it into Pendleton, and pulled into the first gas station that was accessible. Trying to decide what to do, being still more than 3 hours away from home on a late Sunday afternoon, we made some calls and decided the best scenario would be to park it over night, get a hotel, and have it towed into Kennewick where the closest dealer was located. We found a cheap hotel that was nearby and on Monday morning we called to get a tow truck. Garry ended up riding with the tow truck driver, and Carson and I stayed at the hotel until Garry's dad could come get us that afternoon. When we all met up in Kennewick at the dealership, they told us that they were so backed up they wouldn't be able to even look at the car until Wednesday, because they were closed New Years day.....ARGHHHH So, we all loaded up in Garry's dad's car and came back to Spokane. When the dealer finally called back, they told us, the timing chain came off because of some other wire that broke, blah, blah, blah, and they told us it was unrelated to the timing belt we had had replaced only two weeks before we left. grrrrrrr.............. So we make arrangements to get the car back because Garry started school on the 2nd, and we couldn't just run down to the tri-cities to get it, and he also tells us, that we shouldn't leave the dealership with the breaks in the shape they're in, so we decide to just have them fixed while we are there. So Saturday a week later, he went to Pasco on a Greyhound bus to pick up the stupid car. I told him I would rather drive it off a cliff than fix it, but alas that is not an option.

So in other words, I love my Volkwagon, however, I will never buy another one, and I would never recommend one to a friend simply because they cost too much to fix!

Carson was so patient while we were trying to decide what to do with the car.

After we checked into the hotel, we were trying to find a close place that we could walk to for dinner, and Garry was looking in the phone book, while I was looking online, and Carson decided he was going to be Daddy's big helper, it was pretty cute!

We had to leave the carseat with us at the hotel, so we could ride with Garry's dad back to Spokane, and Carson picked it up to put it on the bed all by himself, and then buckled himself in, I wish that he could do this when he was in the car!