We got back from a little 4 day camping trip to Crimson Lake up near Rocky Mountain House on Sunday. As far as the camping went, everything was just fine. We were SUPPOSED to be booked into our site until Sunday, but we ended up only being reserved until Saturday, so we moved next door to our friends, Kevin and Sharon’s campsite for the last night. A little squishy, but not too bad. I’ll get some pictures up in the gallery later.
The REAL excitement happened on the way home though (sigh):
After stopping on our way through Rocky Mountain House for lunch, I noticed a little puddle under the van. “Must be air conditioning condensation”, I thought, but when I moved the van to put gas in it, I went back and had a look at the puddle…….coolant!
Damn.
Well, Kevin has an Aunt and Uncle that live near the town, and the plan was always to go to their acrage and ride the horses for the afternoon, so we went there anyway, put the van up on some ramps and had a look. It wasn’t dripping particularly fast, but it seemed to me to be coming from the head gasket.
Damn again.
It couldn’t be simple, could it! So, with the kids riding horses and driving the quad, the three men scratched our collective chins and decided that it would probably be okay to drive home.
So, we did.
We took a little extra coolant to top up on the way (Thanks Terry — Kevin’s uncle), and made it home safe and sound.
On Monday I took the car into Canadian Tire, thinking it was simple (labour intensive, sure), but a simple enough job. Thinking, maybe, $800. They came back with $1900! Yikes! After my heart stopped racing, I called around a little and finally settled on our usual dealer, who agreed to do it for about $1150. Better obviously, but that still hurts!
So, it’s done. We pick it up tonight.
Like I said, I’ll get some pictures from the trip online tonight if I have time…we’re going van shopping! We’ve looked at the Honda Odyssey and tonight we’re going to look at the Toyota Sienna. Anyone have any comments about either? I know T&V have the Honda and like it, but it’s a little more expensive than the Sienna. We also looked at a few SUVs (for towing), but they are even more expensive, and the milage it pretty bad. My ECO-Guilt would kill me!
[Edit: Photos Uploaded here]