Dave and Laura's Excellent Adventures

On Friday, we started our drive from South Jordan, Utah to Westmont, Illinois. It started out fine. We left at 5:30 AM and arrived at Dave's Aunt Joanne's house at 8:15 PM. Joanne, her husband Mick, and son Steven treated us to pizza, lasagna, salad, and bread sticks for dinner. We went to bed early because of exhaustion.


We woke up early the next day and were on the road by 7:00. Around 9:30 our car started "bucking" and the RPMs were going crazy. We called Laura's Dad, the car expert. He had us check out a few things. Nothing we checked seemed to be off. So we looked on the GPS for a near by garage. The first auto repair shop could not even look at our car until Tuesday of the next week, but referred us to a nearby Goodyear. We went over there. Originally, they told us they were to busy to look at it. We told them our sob story of being stuck on the way to Chicago. They said they would squeeze us in. They looked at our car and told us that a small part needed to be replaced. They told us they would order the part in and the car should be fixed midday. So we hung out in Altoona, Iowa for a few hours. The awesome people that worked there were really nice to us. They offered to do anything they could for us. They even suggested a great pizza buffet for lunch.

When we came back from lunch they told us they had some really bad news. The part had arrived, but they could not install it. At this point we didn't know what to do. We were somewhere by Des Moines, Iowa and we had no idea where to go. The guy behind the counter said he would take care of us. He called all over Des Moines to try and find someone who could get us in and fixed that day. Finally, he found a shop across town. We drove over there and they said they should have the part installed and the car ready to go in not to long.

Fifteen minutes after the new shop brought our car into the garage they came back out and said there might be more wrong then they had thought. Three hours later they came back out and said that the part was not the problem but a symptom of a bigger problem. They didn't know what the problem was. They referred us to the Nissan Dealer. Unfortunately, they are closed on Saturday and Sunday.


So after 7 hours of sitting around we were stranded in Des Moines, with a broken car. A man, who had heard our story while we were waiting, offered to show us where some nearby hotels were. Driving 25 mph in front of us and pulling off to the side as our car shut down 3 times he got us to some hotels. He pulled over and told us where many places around were and even offered us money. So even though we're stranded at a hotel and are looking at a huge maintenance fee, we have realized that the people of Des Moines are extremely nice and helpful. Neither of the auto repair shops we went to charged us anything and a random stranger went out of his way to help us and offered us money. We hope that we can pass along the kindness that has been shown to us to someone else in need.

Also the Jazz were killing the Lakers and then I turned on the TV. Our luck was then passed to the Jazz and they lost. I am sorry to all Jazz fans and the Jazz themselves. It is all our fault they lost...