Super Van Down

Like the bad kind…Poor Supervan…

So I know I have a lot to recap, some fun things having been going on prior to the demise of Supervan. For now though I’m going to fill you in on the chaos. Priorities!

Saturday after the race (that the kids wrecked!) we left the beautiful Ashland, Oregon and headed toward Redwood Forest National Park. From the get go the van was feeling a little funky, but in true “we are homeless lets just go for it/live dangerously fashion” I told Seth to keep rolling. Around 9pm we were in the middle of the forest and things seemed a little funkier, plus we needed to sleep, so we pulled off at an information center. Upon opening the hood we were greeted with black liquid, everywhere… Awesome…

Before we left for our summer homeless adventure I made a point of getting premier membership AAA. I thought “Hey, if shit hits the fan we will be covered. 200 miles free towing is perfect no mater where we are!” Ha… I think I jinxed us! So silly me assumed that would also mean all my people could get to where the van was headed. Alas, as in any good chaos story, I was wrong. The tow truck would only take two people and they wouldn’t cover transportation for any of the rest of us. So, Seth and Tea headed with the tow truck for a two hour drive (sounds a little Gilligan’s Island-ish to me) and Tajh, Tay, Tru, Ten, and I sat at the information center and waited.

Bye bye Super Van

My phone was almost fully charged when they left but between it being an iPhone that doesn’t hold a charge, and my +1 texting me to find out what was going in, it ended up dying a little over three hours in. At this point I knew: 1) Sitting around with four kids and no caffeine sucks 2) My previous/present injury hurts so hiking anywhere was not an option 3) This two hour trip turned into three and Seth was just now in Eureka with no ETA on return, and 4) I needed a nap!

I took this time to teach the little 2 to play baseball… clearly they still need some work…

Funny thing is, the information center closed at 5:00pm. So basically it was just people stopping to us the restroom and then this random lady off to the side with four children. Only one person questioned this and asked if we needed help. This Mom, Dad, and teenager daughter sat at a picnic table nearby and ate dinner as we did the same. They packed everything up and drove over to the bathroom in the 1980’s beat up Suburban. As I’m cleaning a kid I see the Mom walking back over to me. When she gets closer I hear “Excuse me Ma’am, you aren’t stranded here with your children are you”? I explained my situation and thanked her greatly. Just one of those random moments you remember there are good people in the world.

Back to this waiting thing. Eventually, who knows what time, I get Tru to sleep in my arms. It’s really getting cold at this point and as I sit in the grass holding him the mosquito’s are swarming around us. Almost seven hours later I see the glow of a stark white rental minivan. Never have I been so happy! We got everyone in the rental van and headed back toward Eureka. We were all able to sleep in the van so we spent the night in a pull-off by the ocean, a great place to wake up to!

We all fit! Kinda…

Our poor Supervan needs a new transmission. Of course it would be something serious, gotta keep things crazy, right? So now we sit in Eureka waiting. Hopefully it will be done tomorrow night and we can get on with our adventures. We have places to go Supervan!

Sad sad Lady she is. See you soon Super Van!