London Adventure Attempt 2

Its always nice to start a blog with a pic of our little man! check out his new shades!!!!

Our car hadn't overheated since that first trip to London and we were just adding water and constantly watching the temperature gauge. We kept telling each other, we need to take this to a mechanic, we need to take this to a mechanic but we never did. A week went by and it was the 4th of July. We decided we would try London again and then come back in the evening in time for the fireworks on one of the bases. We decided to get subway breakfast sandwiches for the road. I went in and Matt stayed in the car with Ty. When I came back Matt asked if I'd brought any aloe vera. I said no, why? He had tried to top off the water and had opened the radiator cap and a "volcano" of hot water and steam shot out at him and burned his hand. (The cap wasn't very hot at all and it still did that)We both didn't think much of it, just that it was strange and so we started our journey. (just an FYI if you hadn't already figured it out, Matt and I know nothing about cars)

It was a beautiful sunny day at about 10am when we started out. Luckily it was only supposed to get to the high 70's which is perfect. We drove about 20 minutes and Matt noticed that the temperature gauge had shot up way above the red. We were both confused by this since Matt had just topped off the water. We started looking for exits to a mechanic but we live in a very rural area and no exits were close. The car started shaking maybe 2 or 3 minutes after we noticed the temperature and it literally died on the carriage way. Luckily we were both praying that we would make it off the road cause we were able to coast onto the emergency shoulder (which is every few miles or so). When we opened the hood smoke came out, first bad sign. Matt called his dad (it was 3am there, sorry!) and he suggested just waiting it out and so we waited on the side of the road for about an hour before the temperature got down to cool and the car would start again.

Here is our dumb car!!!!!

We figured the car would make it to Cambridge which was the next exit 6 miles away. We drove for 30 seconds and the heat gauge started rapidly rising and I urged Matt to pull off onto the next emergency shoulder. We made it to the shoulder and I told Matt that we needed to get someone to tow us and start working on this car. He thought if we waited it out we would eventually make it there. After we'd waited for 30 minutes and the gauge hadn't gone down Matt thought since the car hadn't died maybe he could make it further. When he tried to start the car it was completely dead. So we started calling mechanics but they all said, if you can drive it over here we can take a look at it. Well, we needed someone to tow us. Matt remembered about our roadside assistance through USAA (our insurance), so he called them. They got a man to come and pick us up an hour later. We found a mechanic in Lakenheath Village that is literally 3 blocks from our house. The car got picked up and by the time we made it to the mechanic it was 2pm. We wasted 4 hours of our day on that dumb car.

The mechanic said he would do a vapor test to make sure it wasn't the head gasket and call us later that day. We walked home and ate lunch and waited for our rental car to be delivered. We were pooped.

We were so depressed about our day that we scrapped our fireworks plans and got food for our little 4th of July celebration at home. We started a prison break marathon and though it pains me to say it, I really like that show. It's so intense ALL the time. I HATE T-Bag, but he says some funny things. I think my favorite character besides the usual is Haywire, just cause he's so wacky. The mechanic called and told us that it was the head gasket and the car had to be scrapped. We were super depressed since we'd only had the car for 2 weeks. We truly bought ourselves a lemon.

Matt emailed a scrap yard and they said they would give him 100 pounds for it, the mechanic said he would scrap it for Matt and give him 120 pounds. Matt thought sure, then he didnt have to move it. Luckily one of the employees pulled Matt aside and told him that he knew of a place that would pay us a lot more than that for our car. Matt called them and they said they would give us 230 pounds so almost double! They picked up the car and scrapped it for us.

Our car being towed away, its the one on the top. We were just driving around looking for a new car and we randomly saw it.

You definitely can't say our life here has been boring! It's crazy that every time something lame happens Heavenly Father blesses us throughout and after. So it seems like trips to London are doomed to fail. Where will we attempt to go next? Hopefully 3 times the charm!!