Our mini-van was having problems before hand. The transmission was going out, and it would have cost more than the car was worth to have it fixed. We also had some problems with the radiator overheating so I wondered if my trip down to UCLA and back would be the cars last. [The head gasket blew cause it is old.. so not my fault then.]. Now’s the time I say “and I have a story unlike any you have heard before” (whether that is actually the case or not is up to you).
Utsav finished his two finals friday morning and gave me a call asking when I wanted to leave. I really didn’t care, so we decided to leave right then. We threw a few clothes into some bags and headed north on 405. Everything seemed normal. The car was having trouble accelerating, as we drove up the grapevine, but it didnt seem too problematic. Utsav was slipping in and out of consciousness (because he had one final the day before, no sleep that night, and then his two finals this day) and I was feeling fine, ready for the long drive home.
It may have all started when I ran over a blown out tire that had been ripped in half. I didn’t have enough time to react to get around it, so I just drove right over hoping for the best. There were no immediate problems except for the strong smell of tires coming in through the vents for the next couple of minutes. But a little while later (maybe about 10 mins or so, or longer? I can’t remember) I noticed the check engine light turned on. Then I noticed the temperature gauge said the heat of the engine was off the top. It looked like I was close to an exit (map, right past Buttonwillow Rd. on I-5), so I figured I would just pull off and we could figure out what happened. But there was no off ramp going north, so I just pulled off to the side of the road and woke Utsav up.
He was the first to notice the smoke coming out from under the hood. As I got to the side, I turned off the engine quickly to let it cool down. I called my house to tell them that the car had overheated, so they could figure out what they needed to do. Utsav and I got out of the car to look under the hood. there was radiator fluid splashed everywhere. The engine had gotten so hot that all of the radiator fluid had expanded and come out. We also noticed that the level of the engine oil was below “low”. We were on our own so we decided to see if we could do anything ourselves.
The car had cooled down a bit by now, we decided to see if we could get the engine to start. we cranked it a bit, but it wouldn’t go all the way. Utsav and I only have minimal knowledge about cars, so we thought it probably wouldn’t hurt to try getting the engine to start while it was in neutral (and I was behind it pushing… haha). After about thirty seconds of that I thought it probably didn’t make any difference for the car to be in park or in neutral, because it was an automatic. If the car had been manual… maybe it could have made a difference. After we tried that, I thought to myself that it kind of sounded like the battery was dead. I realized I had just spent the whole morning listening to music in the car (with the headlights on… I didn’t know haha.) which could have possibly drained the battery, although we had just driven for an hour and a half or so. but then again, we were trying to get the engine to start over and over which can take a lot of battery power. So maybe there was a problem with the battery. But we also didn’t have any jumper cables. So I thought we might as well try to wave someone down to see if they could help us. I walked a bit up traffic from the car to try. I could see everyones heads turn to look at me as they passed, but no one seemed to want to stop. Finally an nice woman stopped to try and help. She had water, so we added some to the radiator. She also had jumper cables. We tried but to no avail. The car sounded exactly the same as we started it.
We decided to try calling AAA. It was about now that my phone died, so I just threw it in the back of the car. Utsav called to see what they could do for us. Apparently AAA couldn’t do anything unless my dad was there. The membership is for him, and it doesn’t cover me so there was nothing we could do alone. He had to come down to pick us up anyways so he started the drive down from the bay area to get us.
We just had to wait or walk to the nearest town. We figured we could try to get help one more time, and if it didn’t work we would just walk. I went back to my spot to try and get peoples attention. Utsav got on top of the car and did what looked to me like a little jig (I dont really know haha). We got a few truckers to honk their horns and then finally another car stopped. This time we pretty much struck gold. One of the people was a Mexican mechanic who was really able to help us. We filled the radiator completely full with water from one of those big gatorade coolers (the kind they have a soccer games, or track, etc.) and tried jumping it, but in the end we were able to determine that it was a problem with the engine. Utsav and I thanked them for helping us and decided to walk to the next town.
To be safe we decided to put some stuff in the dash and lock it up. I had never locked that before so I didn’t quite know how it worked but I thought it was a good idea. We got the stuff we wanted to keep safe inside, I turned the key, and it broke off in the lock! So much for that plan. We also wanted to leave a note on the car incase police came by and decided to have it towed. I started with “Our car overheated. We have arrainged [I spelled it wrong on the note cause I can’t spell!] to have it towed.” I wanted to leave a phone number but since mine was dead we put Utsav’s. “Please call Utsav at …”. I didn’t want to have just Utsav’s name on the note because it really wasn’t his car so I changed it to “Please call Utsav and Cameron at…” After I added my name I realized just how much this made it sound like we were a gay couple, but it was too late. We left the note and headed south to the nearest town.
We were on the side of the road that was going north and we figured we would hitchhike south to the nearest exit with food. But first we needed to cross the freeway (something neither of us has done before) and on I-5 people speed along at speeds of over 80 mph at some times. We waited for a break ran across and then started to walk south. By this time it was starting to get dark and cooler. We ended up walking for an hour or more (we found two license plates and a bmw hood ornament) when finally someone stopped to give us a ride. It was the first time either of us had hitched a ride so we didn’t really know what to do, but the guy was fairly nice, and we didn’t really have to drive far. We just had him drop us off at the Denny’s where we would wait for my parents.
We both ordered one of the special 5.99 breakfasts and a milkshake. We figured we would be there for a while so we might as well get some stuff to eat. We got our milkshakes and somehow got into the topic of a website that we had both independently wanted to make. (keep watching for updates on this topic. hopefully we will end up making something worth using.) It made me wonder. If we hadn’t left at the exact time when we did, we wouldn’t have hit the tire, which may (or may not) have made us overheat, and get stuck in the middle of no where. If circumstances had been different I would not be writing this right now. I would have gotten home last night, and done something else rather than being stuck on the side of I-5. Who knew thats how my night was going to end.
We got our food, ate it and then went outside to keep waiting. We saw two cats, and tried to pet them for a while. One was a very curious kitty, and the other seemed to be its mom. They were very cute walking around together. Utsav then recognized the gas station across the street. He remembered there was a small arcade in the back (and we both happened to have 2 quarters each!). We crossed the street and went in.
There were a few interesting games, Street Fighter 3rd Strike, Priority One, Jurassic Park III, a few touch screen games, etc. We only had two quarters each, but luckily most games only needed one. We played this shooting game first, but we both got killed very quickly. It was hard to shoot the monsters. None of the other games looked very appealing, except for possibly Priority One. In Priority One the object is to drive your emergency vehicle to the scene as fast as possible. So if you are a police car you have to drive to the scene of the crime as fast as possible, etc. And from the look of the demos, you got extra points for the amount of damage you caused on your way there. The vehicle seemed to go through anything, other cars, poles, busses, and even walls. I put in a quarter, but it didn’t register. Luckly they were kind enough at the front to give me another, but I wasn’t sure if I should try to play the game again, and have it eat my money. We went over to the touch screen games to see what they were. We ended up just making a beat by pressing the different parts of the screen which caused it to make different sounds. I got my courage up and decided to try Priority One again. This time it worked! I chose the police car, and it was actually quite enjoyable to drive really fast, and run into things. Utsav played a game as the Bio-Hazard truck. By the time we were done playing my mom had gotten to where we were so we went outside to see them.
We drove back to the van. A little before we got on the freeway, we noticed a tow truck in front of us. My dad had already called AAA and arraigned for a tow truck to come get the van. We figured the one we were behind was the one that was going to take our van to a shop somewhere. We pulled off to the side where the van was, and watched as it was pulled onto the back of the tow truck. The tow truck brought the van to the nearest shop (north of where we were. We got our stuff out of the car and tried to decide what we should do next. Guess where we decided to stop to think… Dennys.. haha. It wasn’t the same Dennys that Utsav and I were at before, but it was still Dennys.
Utsav and I had already eaten, but we decided to get the carmel apple dessert and the peanut butter pie thing. They both tasted really good. As far as what to do next was concerned, we had a few choices. We could stay until tomorrow morning and wait to see if the car could be fixed or not. We could try to drive all the way home that night. Or we could drive part way that night, and the rest in the morning. We opted for the last one. My mom was getting tired of driving so I drove for about an hour before we stopped to get a room. It was a very nice room for the price. We got settled in, and went to sleep.
In the morning we got ready, got our stuff in the car, had some breakfast and started the drive the rest of the way home. It wasn’t that much longer, and we had some really interesting conversations.
Besides the fact that the car is probably gone, I had a really great time. I knew I liked Utsav but I didn’t know until yesterday just how much we have in common. Plus we both got to do so many things that we had never done before. We Broke down on the side of the road, waved down help (twice), crossed I-5, hitchhiked, and much more.
Oh and one more thing. If you are ever driving along and you see someone on the side of the road who looks like they need help, stop and see what you can do. It doesn’t take much effort on your part and you could really be helping someone out. Think about what it would be like if it was you on the side of the road instead.
If you want to see a map of the area we were in, I got directions from Where we broke down, to Dennys, to Dennys.
