BEET RED!

Devan and I decided to try to get to see some of my family over the break and also some of his family. We first wanted to see Melissa in Boise, and then go and see his family in Star Valley and help more on the house etc. We had our trip planned...Friday I'd leave from work and go home and pack. Then once I packed, we'd head out to Star Valley which was only 6 hours away from Laramie. Then we would stay the night in Star Valley Friday night and leave for Boise Saturday morning! We wanted to break the trip up a bit since it was really long. We took my Ford Taurus since the radio in Dev's Subaru is broken and I can't survive without music for that long. We set out for Star Valley...Dev drives because I was going to drive Saturday the rest of the way to Boise. We stopped for gas in Cokeville and then headed the rest of the way to Star Valley. Saturday morning: ate breakfast, brushed teeth, packed, and said bye to Dev's family. We got in the car, and I went to the driver's seat. It was pretty cold outside so I had to be an extra careful driver. I pulled out of the long driveway, put the car in drive, and headed down the road. As I was making a right turn to go up a hill, I started to push on the gas. The car went into first gear...yes...the car tried to go into second gear.... err.... nope! Decided to pretend to be in neutral and coast for a minute... I start to freak out cuz I think I might be sliding on ice or something, but realise there isn't any on the road... I turn to Devan and start panicking.... "Why is my car acting funny?" Dev, "I dunno, but it seems to be acting like it did last night at Cokeville" Uhhh, what?! I had no idea it acted up in Cokeville because Devan forgot to share this little tidbit of info with me. Soooo we had to pull over on the side of the road while I called up my wonderful father who knows a lot about cars. He's pretty much my go-to-guy for car problems because he's had to fix all of the crappy cars we've had in the past with my family. :) He tells me it's not a good sign...sounds like the transmission is bad. So I check the transmission fluid....not that bad really, but I take it to town to get some put in it anyway.

To shorten this part of the story, we make it to Boise okay, but the car is whining and begging to be put down the whole trip!!! The faster I went (65-80mph) the more my car protested. I'm starting to get a funny feeling that this car might be on it's last leg. We get to Boise saturday and we don't drive it all weekend. We decide Monday morning to take it to a mechanic and see if it's really the transmission that is in trouble and see how much the cost would be. Transmissions are ridiculously expensive, so we knew if it WAS the tranny, then we'd be buying a new car.

Here, let me paint you a lovely picture of how this part went....

I get in my car with Devan. We pull out of my sister's place and start following her to the mechanic who is only a few blocks away. We go about three or four blocks and get to a stop sign so I slow to a stop and get ready to turn right. Another car pulls up to the stop sign at my left (four way stop) and motions me to go ahead, so I step on my gas........and nothing happens. I try again, thinking maybe I didn't push hard enough? Nope...nothin. So I sit there a good ten seconds trying to get the car to GO and realise this lady is still waiting for me to move! So I motion her to go. I try putting the car in park...nothing. Suddenly I look behind me and there's a car waiting there...so I motion them to go around me, trying to pretend to look busy like I'm looking for something so I don't look so stupid. My face is turning redder by the second and I'm soooo embarassed! I keep looking at Devan with this, HELP ME look, but he can't do jack since he knows less about cars than I do! I put the car in reverse and it moves! SCORE! So I start going in reverse to get out of the way and off the road....and see there's ANOTHER car behind me waiting to go, and I almost smash into it. Oops... I'm thwarted with every try! Laaaame. So I motion him to go around me as well. Isn't it funny how you think you can take a back road so no one sees you, and that ends up being the day that EVERYONE AND THEIR DOG uses that road?! What the?! Yeah.... basically, I had to have some lady from CarQuest who happened to be driving by, my sister, and Devan all push my car out of the way of traffic so I could park it on the side of the street. LAME! And I had people slowing to peer out their windows at me in disapproval for owning such a piece of junk....particularly this old BAG in a shiny nice car driving past me and glaring at me through her window. At this point, I wanted to show her my favorite hand gesture, but decided against it since it's not very nice, and I only do it to family members. Hee! :) So needless to say, we bought a new car today. Didn't know we were going to, but yeah...nice surprise! Here's the one picture I have of it so far, but I'll post more later.


So, here's my beauty! I love it!!! 2006 Nissan Maxima! What do ya think?!