Exciting Fall Weekend - Part 2

(Tag Team Post by both Kenz and Ryan! Enjoy!)

So, I know that last Friday was already more than a week ago, but I'm still trying to catch up on my exciting fall weekend (there are three parts, one more to come).

Anyway, last Friday, Ryan and I agreed to drive to Murray to take my little brother shopping. We made the plans, and headed out the door. The car had less than a quarter tank of gas, and we knew that we needed to get gas; we made plans to stop in Lehi at the latest to fill up.

Unfortunately, Lehi was too far away. As we approached American Fork, we were driving in the HOV lane. I didn't even notice that the car was slowing down until Ryan said something like, "I can't control the car." What?! What does that mean? He said he couldn't accelerate, the power steering was gone, and basically the car had seized. We were in the middle of traffic driving 70-80mph!

So, we did some quick thinking. I threw on the hazard lights, rolled down my window, and started waving to other drivers that we were going to be changing lanes--4 lanes of traffic. We were slowing down a lot, and we made it to the shoulder, but about 10 feet after we did, the shoulder ended and we had to get back into traffic! At this point we were just barely making it over a small hill on the freeway at about 20mph, but it worked out well because as we reached the top of the hill, gravity pulled us down and we picked up a little speed. Enough momentum to get us here:

Exit 278 in American Fork

We coasted around the exit, and pulled a california roll at the stop sign (luckily there wasn't a lot of traffic on the main road in American Fork). At this point the car was basically idling, and we made it into a construction zone right next to Costa Vida before the car couldn't go any more... (tag, Ryan's it!)

I don't know how I got stuck writing the rest of this. I guess it's all in the name of creativity and getting more blog posts in for September. It's the record-setting month for blog posts.

So, the rest of the story. We left Nate with the car and walked to the gas station. On the way there were at least two pervs who were cat calling at my wife, but we bought a really cool little gas can with a gallon of gas. The lady at the counter totally knew what we were there for when we bought the can.

It was the coolest gas can ever. This is an exact replica.

Well, we walked back to the car, emptied the gas can, turned the key, and...nothing happened. I wanted to push the car out of the construction zone, the other two were determined that it wasn't going to happen, and I was determined that it was going to happen.

Well, it turned out that while we were all in the attitude of our conflicting determinations, a guy and his wife pulled up and asked if they could help. We explained the situation, that we were not really stuck on the little dirt hill, but that we couldn't get the car to start after what we thought had been caused by running out of gas. He asked if he could try something, and turned the key quickly twice and TA DA! The car worked! It was magic; and music to our ears. That was the coolest trick ever.

After thanking the guy and his wife, we drove along the backroads home. Along the way we filled up the tank, and didn't venture very far for the next couple of weeks. We finally got up the courage and left Utah County the other day to go to Farmington.

We took a full gas can in the trunk, just in case.