Yosemite 2007 - Off With A Bang

Remember the last post of the garden - all nice and dug up, ready for planting. Well in the course of about a week I had gotten it planted and then came the weeds. Lots and lots of weeds. We get two major weeds that try to take over the garden, thistle weed and this vining type of weed that wraps it self over everything. On Wednesday I decided to clean things up so when we came home from vacation it wouldn't be a lost cause already. So I attacked all the thistles and all the vining weeds. In my zest to get things right I pulled up everything I didn't plant and on Thursday morning I realized that I might have gotten into some poison ivy. I woke up with a dime size itchy spot on my right leg and over the course of several hours it grew to the size of my kneecap and other spots started to show up. I went to Redi-Med on Thursday night when I was sure this was an allergic reaction because I know once it gets started with me, it gets worse for many days before it gets better. They gave me a shot in the butt of steroids and said that should help things out. A nice way to start a vacation I thought.

Then came time to leave last Friday. We packed up the van with all our gear and headed out on 469 to spend the night in Indy and then fly out to San Francisco on Saturday morning and drive to the campground in Yosemite National Park. We just got up to cruising speed; 70mph and got the cruise control set, when all of a sudden we heard a big bang. I looked to see if I had hit something in the road and there was nothing and when I stepped on the gas, we went nowhere. Our newly rebuilt transmission had blown. We called AAA for a tow truck and lucky for us we were near Jody's house and she saved the day, driving Bob, Becky & Jenny back to our house to get Becky's SUV while John and I unloaded our van and watched the tow truck guy load up the van. He was very friendly and actually stayed with us on the side of the road for an extra half hour after he had loaded up the van, so we wouldn't be by ourselves waiting for our new wheels to arrive. We all gave Jody a thumbs up and continued our journey down the road and made it to Indy uneventfully.

John and Jenny are out exploring the area off the road, Bob and Becky are surveying our options, while I'm in the van calling AAA.


Jody comes to save the day!


Our van gets its second tow truck ride in a week's time.


Here I'm waiting for Becky's SUV to arrive to take over driving duties to Indy.

(photo credits to John L'ski who found this little side trip just as important part of our vacation to document as the planned portion)