I drove home from Utah to Texas for the first time by myself. In the past either my mom or mother-in law would come, so I was a little worried to do it alone. Mostly because I thought I’d get drowsy or bored, being on the road for that long. So I just decided to take small breaks along the way to help.
First stop Moab for lunch!
Got to see the Williams Arch! This is just right off the highway so it was super easy to get to while on the road and it doesn’t take too much time away from the drive. Loved getting out to stretch our legs, although Logan started to run along the rim which scared me half to death!
Brad is someone who doesn’t like to take many stops. The less stops the faster we get there. Which I do agree, but I have also been wanting to stop at some of these places for fun or for the photo opp and this road trip gave us that opportunity. I’ve been wanting to stop at a Utah state line welcome sign for ages. And this shot of Tanner is my fave! While waiting for his brothers to get out of the car to take a picture, he was using the old honk signal for the truckers and was soo excited when the truck actually honked. Glad I was already preparing to take a picture anyway and got this genuinely happy reaction from him.
The real photo opp. Tanner doesn't look nearly as excited.
Our trip was divided into 2 days. The first leg of our journey was to make it to Albuquerque, New Mexico a 12 hour drive from Layton, Utah. About two hours away from Albuquerque in the middle of an Indian Reservation my a "replace battery" light popped up and the my van just shut down. Literally. All the electronics turned off and the gas pedal to my car wasn't working. It would rev the engine, and my car would just lerch. I started going only 20 miles an hour. I started panicking. Luckily being in the middle of nowhere on an Indian Reservation the roads weren't very busy and I wasn't in danger of being hit. Unfortunately having my car break down in the middle of nowhere on an Indian Reservation there wasn't anyone or anything nearby for help. We had passed a gas station a mile back, the only thing around for miles, so I turned the car around and rolled into the gas station where my car officially died. I asked the gas station attendant for help and she rolled her eyes and me and told me to call a cab. Thankfully I had cell phone service and was able to contact my insurance and was able to get a tow truck using our road side assistance, but I did have to call a cab to come pick us up as there was not room for 4 of us in the tow truck. The cab company “since that is a far drive you will have to prepay.” fine, i don’t care take my money, just get me to a hotel!
Once the tow truck arrived he said I was lucky to be close to the gas station and somewhat close (45 minutes) to the nearest city (Farmington, NM) because the next closest thing heading south in the direction we were heading, was the Indian Council and that was still an hour away. So we had to back track and the tow truck took our van to the Honda car dealership in Farmington and we got a taxi and spent the night in a hotel.
Having driven through many Indian Reservations over the years, having the car break down/run out of gas has been a worst nightmare scenario of mine. Maybe that’s the real reason I haven’t wanted to drive by myself.
How we feel about having our car die and waiting for the taxi.
After spending the night in a hotel we made it to the Honda car dealership where my car had been towed to. They hadn't even looked at it yet. So we waited. Then they finally told us that it was my car alternator that had gone bad, but they don't have that part, its on back order for another month. I don't have a month to wait. I just want to get home. Well we normally get our parts from Napa Auto, but they are also out of stock and won't get it for another 2-3 days. I almost broke down crying. I told him I have nowhere to go, I’m stranded, my kids are in the lobby waiting I don't have 2-3 days to wait! Well... we can see if Auto Zone has it but we don't like using them because they are inferior. I wanted to scream at this guy. Brad was calling around other auto shops to see if they could help. One guy said that he couldn’t believe how the dealership was treating me, he said that even though he is swamped he would drop everything to help a mother of 3 who is stranded. He also said that they use Auto Zone parts and can’t believe that the dealership would say they are inferior. So we told the dealership we wanted the auto zone part and they reluctantly got it . After waiting all day we finally got the car fixed!
Here we are waiting….
And waiting….
We were there till 4:30. It was a long day. At least they had a car and drove us to get lunch. We were finally back on the road and drove 5 hours to Armorillo, TX to make up for lost time.
The next morning my battery light came on. You better believe I was thinking some bad words in my head. Before I left the dealership the said they checked my battery and told me it was holding a charge. So I took it to AutoZone because I had a warranty on my battery and they said that batteries die fast if the alternator goes bad. So I got it replaced and again we were back on the road. We drove all day to Dallas so we could visit Ryan and Sasha in their new place! They had just moved to Dallas a couple weeks before and we were excited to welcome them to Texas (and to swim in their new pool). It was just what we needed after a crappy few days.
We loved seeing Ryan and family, but we were so ready to come home. We missed Brad and our beds. There’s no place like home. Someone asked me if I’ll drive home next year and I said it was too soon 😆I might be a little traumatized. But I did it, the boys were champs and I’ll hopefully be getting a new car soon 😉!
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