About 4 months ago, my mom asked me to come to Centreville for the annual Ladies' Brunch at the church. I agreed and planned the personal day for January 8, so I wouldn't have to drive all night to get to Centreville. Little did I know that I would be dealing with a snow day on January 7. I got everything under control, and we got up at 8:00 that Friday morning and started getting ready for the trip. We had everything packed and in the car by 10:00. We dropped Matt's truck at Gateway on the way out of town, so we could get it looked at. His check engine light had been on for a few weeks, so we wanted to make sure it was ok.
We got on the interstate and headed to south Mississippi. By the time we got to the Whitten Road exit, the Yukon's check engine light came on. We used my phone to find the nearest Gateway, and we headed there.
Once at Gateway, we all got out of the car including Brodie, the dog. We sat in the waiting area while they checked everything out. My intake valve was swelling and contracting due to the cold weather. It was about 8 degrees on this morning, so that was understandable. The guy told us that everything should be fine for the trip. He said that the light would go off once it warmed up a little. So we got back on the road at about 11:00.
We made it to Matt's parents' house with little to report. We ate a late lunch and got back on the road. I called my parents to let them know we should be in Centreville by dinner time. We got back on the interstate and got a good start. Then we stopped in south Jackson to get gas. Once we got filled up, we got back on the interstate headed south.
Then it started...
The Yukon was revving pretty bad, but we thought it was just the cruise control acting up. After a couple of miles, we decided that it wasn't changing gears at all. We decided to pull over at the next exit (Crystal Springs). We pulled over and stopped at a little rinky dink service station. The attendant informed Matt that he couldn't do anything and that we should head back towards Jackson to a dealership. Keep in mind that it is 4:00 on Friday afternoon by now. :(
We headed slowly back towards Terry to stop at the nearest GM dealership. We got there at about 4:30. We told them what was going on, so a service guy got in and drove the Yukon with Matt, Trent, Jack, and Brodie in tow. He got back and told us that it was a 50/50 chance that our transmission was out. We considered that better than we expected.
First, he checked the transmission fluid. It was low, so he went about putting a gallon and a quart of transmission fluid into the Yukon. He couldn't believe it was so low. I asked him to show me what the fluid looked like. Once I saw it, I said, "That's the stuff that leaked out when I hit the deer."
Service man, "You hit a deer? When?"
So we went about telling the whole story of my hitting the deer on the way to school. He said that it looked like the repair shop didn't refill my transmission fluid when they repaired my car. He took it for another drive and returned to tell me my transmission was officially kaput.
What to do now?
We called my parents to tell them the bad news, so they started to come and get us. We called Matt's parents and told them the predicament we were in, and they offered to let us use their minivan to get to Centreville.
So we commenced to unpacking the Yukon because it was going to spend some time in Terry. By the time Matt's parents got to Terry with the minivan and we got it unloaded with their stuff and reloaded with ours, it was past 6:00.
We finally got on the road again and realized we needed gas. We stopped at the Texaco in Terry, and Matt filled up the van while I went inside to get some food. We had officially been in the car or a repair shop for over 8 hours now. While in the Texaco, Matt reached in the ice chest to get a Diet Mountain Dew. He took the ice cube off the top and rolled down the window to throw it out.
Guess what...
The window wouldn't roll back up. Does that really surprise you? It did NOT surprise us by this point. Matt called his mom who informed us that it was broken and he just needed to play with it for awhile to get it up.
Now this wouldn't be a big deal to do while driving if it wasn't 20 degrees outside with two kids in the backseat! So we sat at the gas station for about 20 minutes until Matt finally got it rolled up.
So for the rest of the trip, we just kept our mouths shut as to not jinx anything else. The kids cried for an hour and finally fell asleep in McComb. We found a radio station playing 80's and 90's music, and we just sang and laughed the rest of the way to my parents' house.
We arrived at about 8:45 - about 11 hours after our departure time in Lakeland. There were other bumps along the way while in C'ville, but I am going to quit while I am ahead.
We enjoyed seeing the family, and we made it safely back to Lakeland on Sunday in my parents' car. They let us borrow it until the Yukon was fixed. Luckily, insurance and the shop fixed it for no charge to us. Unless you count this awful road trip, and I consider that payment enough, don't you?
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