Times and Seasons

When we got home from Iowa, we had one week before we were planning on leaving for Bellingham.  It was overwhelming trying to think of all we had to take up there.  I tried hard to take stuff we could leave there so we don't have to try to remember to taking everything every time we go one place or the other.  Dad was to give a class to the Deacons on shortwave radios on Tuesday the 4th of January so we planned on leaving Thursday or Friday after.  Dad drove the Excursion down to Larry H. Miller Ford on 2nd West and 90th South to have the oil changed and make sure everything was working properly for our trip.  When he was heading home, he was about to get to Bangerter when the engine completely stopped and he couldn't get it to start again.  He called the service department, they towed the car, brought Dad home and said they would look at it and let us know what the problem might be.  We thought perhaps the battery died.  However, when they called, they said the oil filter had failed either through employee error or defective filter, spewed out all the oil knocking out the entire engine!  They said they had already ordered a new engine for it and would replace it at no cost to us!  What a bummer!  The original engine only had 54,000 miles on it.  Not an old engine by any stretch of the imagination.  So that put our trip in limbo.  They said it could be fixed and ready by Friday but I've heard that kind of promise before and didn't put much hope on it.  We also decided to let them fix the brakes and change the battery as long as they were fixing everything.  Shockingly, they had it finished Friday mid-afternoon.  We decided to leave Sunday morning giving me enough time to pack the car and get everything else together.  It was a good choice because we wanted to take Ryan and the kids to dinner on Saturday for Ryan's birthday on Monday.  We went to Famous Dave's and enjoyed great barbecue.