vacation re-cap day 5 and the car saga

We spent the night at the overpriced Holiday Inn in Bozeman, MT. Did I mention that it was $140? And that it did not include breakfast? Eh. Whatever. We got to take showers! And do laundry! Both things were a definite plus in the middle of the camping vacation. National Park campgrounds often do not have showers. There are usually showers *somewhere* in the park, but not necessarily where you are. Even then, they are coin-operated, which just boggles the mind.

Mike got up early and took the car in. They figured out that (hold up, I'm about to get technical here) this little flappy door thingy that directs the air to either be heated or cooled was stuck and sending all the air to be heated. Great, sounds like an easy fix, right? Well, maybe, if you happen to have one of those little flappy door thingies lying around. Rather than wait 3-5 days for the part to come in, we had them rig it so that the air could only get cooled.

Went to Wal-Mart and grocery shopped for the rest of the trip and then drove up to Glacier. When we got to Glacier it was (surprise!) getting dark. And really windy and threatening rain. Yeeha! We did manage to get the tent up and dinner made before it got too dark. Clean-up took place in the dark and was, honestly, a little half-hearted. I was tired, cold & couldn't see.

The car saga continued after our return from vacation. When we got back home, Mike had our favorite garage order the part. Yes, unfortunately, we have a favorite garage here in town. We took the car in last Wednesday evening to have the part put on Thursday. Ideally it would have been done then so we could go on yet another camping trip. Yes, Mike is part gypsy. The car was not ready by Friday afternoon. In trying to replace the flappy door thingy, they found that another flappy door thingy attached to the original door flappy thingy was broken. Mike is frustrated with our current vehicle situation and has spent the entire labor day weekend online car shopping to replace both our vehicles.

Today we found out that Ford doesn't sell just that part on its own. The assembly needed is about $450. For a car we are looking to trade ASAP. Umno. Mike called some connection in SC who has some material Mike may be able to use to patch the 2nd flappy door thingy and is overnighting it. This should be fun. I'm already tired of the whole thing.