Our annual trip to Canada was cut short because Hadley had Young Women Girl’s Camp mid-July and then BYU volleyball camp the first week of August. My brother Jade got married so our time in Calgary was frenzied helping with the flowers and wedding prep, and we only had five nights at Lake Okanagan in Vernon before driving back to Utah with my nephews, who hung out with us for a week while my brother was on his honeymoon. It was a craaaaazy two weeks!

The drive from Denver to Calgary is 19 hours so the kids and I would always break it down into two days. Now that we’re in Utah. the drive is a 13-hour shot straight up I-15 so I figured would could do it in one long day. Jamie would fly up to meet us later in the week.

My Honda Pilot is a 2003 and our plan was to get a new vehicle last year…and then we moved and are stilling dealing with the never-ending expenses. Fortunately, my car has worked great all these years and we hoped it would hang on a little while longer.

Prior to the road trip, I took the Honda Pilot in to get the oil changed. The kids and I were eight hours into the drive, just 30 minutes past Great Falls, and all was going well.

Until we started going up a hill when the transmission light turned on, and there was a strange smell. I pulled over and called Jamie, who called various auto repair shops in Great Falls. It was 4:30 p.m. on a Sunday night and most of them were closed so he instructed us to spend the night in Great Falls and take the car into the dealership in the morning. 

So, that’s what we did. After a memorable evening in the Super 8 on the seedy part of town, I took the car in and they gave their diagnosis: The place where I got my oil changed had either overfilled the transmission fluid or put in the wrong stuff. It had spilled and burned up the entire underbelly of the car. They drained  and replaced the fluid but were unable to tell me if more serious damage had been done. They gave us about a 50-50 chance of making it. SWELL.

The kids and I started driving. We joked as passed the place we had pulled over the day prior when, not even 100 feet beyond that point, ANOTHER WARNING LIGHT LIT UP ON THE DASHBOARD, this time for the four-wheel drive. I pulled over. The kids asked what was going on and I explained there was a different problem. Bode, ever the optimist, observed,

“Well, at least we made it farther than last time.”

We would make it to Calgary but when en route to B.C. the week after that, the car started smoking in Banff. We eeked our way to Vernon where we became acquainted with yet another Honda dealership that charged us $1,700 in labor to replace a plug (they had to dismantle the entire engine to put it in). On a wing and lots of prayers, we made it home to Utah with my nephews in tow.

So, what’s the status of the car? We’re not sure.  It’s only worth about $5,000 so we really don’t want to dump another $2,000 into it when we’re planning on selling it but we can’t yet afford to buy another car. So we wait. And hope and pray it can hang on just a little while longer, just like the rest of us.

My brother Jade arrived with his boys late last night. We always look forward to their arrival with two exceptions: 1) We get booted from his dark, cool room in the basement for our stuffy. 2) Cousin Jaxson. Don’t get me wrong, we love cousin Jax but he’s a hilarious kid with a quirky, unfiltered personality and has about five things he’ll eat in this world.

My childhood bedroom is the loudest and stuffiest in the house so I heard them when they arrived around midnight.

Then, after a near sleepless night, I heard something that sounded suspiciously like the Wii next to my head. Sure enough, Cousin Jax (on East Coast Time) was up before the crack of dawn playing video games in the family room. So I did what any loving aunt would do: I gave him a hug and punched him in the face.

The good news of my early wake-up? I went on a killer bike ride.

Fish Creek

Upon my return the whole clan was awake so the kids went on rides in my parent’s golf cart. An hour later, the cops pulled up to our house.

Oh, hell.

I was the only adult in the near vicinity so I had to deal with it. I saw them walk up the door and waited. And waited. A false alarm?

And then the knock came.

“Ma’am?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve had a complaint from a neighbor about a certain golf cart being driven by two boys through the gully.”

“The Gully” Venue of my childhood and now, the cops

They didn’t bother to ask if we had a golf cart; the evidence was parked right in front or our house. The delay at the door was probably due to them checking the engine to see if it was warm.

Truth be told, the cops were really cool about it and said they wouldn’t even be there had the neighbor not called to complain. Talk about a killjoy ruining the kids’ summer fun!

My brother’s observation when I posted our experience on Facebook?

We have been in Canada for 9 hours mostly sleeping and we already brought the cops here for driving the golf kart recklessly.

The coincidence? Just two days ago, I posted this picture on Instagram on Bode’s birthday talking about him narrowly missing running into our car while driving with Grandpa.

Turns out he’ll be needing that Get Out of Jail Free Pass sooner than later.