You're Not Going Anywhere without THAT! - The Concert that ROCKED and SUCKED! Part III

For those of you just joining us, this is a continuation of DON'T STOP! - The Concert That Rocked and Sucked! Part II.

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"Hang on! I'm not sure if I can turn it!"

The power steering was gone. At this point, I'm sure any sane person would have pulled right back into the driveway and called it a night.

And a tow truck. Period! End of story.

But Ohhhhh Nooooo ... not US!

I soon realized that if I pulled REALLY hard, I COULD turn the wheel. It took alot more effort, sort of like driving a standard (so I'm told), but it turned, and there were few turns between here and home ... and I REALLY wanted to get home.

I understood there was something 'wrong' ... seriously wrong! But I also knew that regardless what was wrong with it, I would still have to get it home sooner or later, and if we DID have to get a tow, I'd rather be closer to home, which would then hopefully cost me less ... so we looked at each other, and said "Let's do it!"

We'd go in stages. First, just as far as the Tim Hortons. I NEEDED that coffee now lol. If it seemed to be ok, we'd go further. If not, there was an Irving gas/convenience store only a couple of minutes from the Tims, and we hoped that might work in our favour.

You see, the Irving Gas Attendant Fairies were going to sprinkle their pixie dust over my CRV, and it was going to fly us home like the chariot on wings it was.

Yeah. Not so much.

We did make it to Tim's without incident.

When I turned it off in the parking lot, Cass said "What's that?"

"What?"

Pause. "Nothing. I thought I saw something ... guess I didn't."

I made the coffee run, we pulled out of the parking lot, and the 'YOU'RE OVERHEATING' needle shot right to the H.

We might have gone 15 seconds before I heard myself say "Crap, that would be smoke. That would be smoke coming out from under my hood."

"Yeah," replied Cass, "that's what I thought I saw earlier, but then it was gone, so I wasn't sure it had even been there."

Guess it was.

That decided it. We were going straight to the Irving.

Before we even got there, we were chugging. Yes, chugging. Loudly.

It wasn't pretty.

We pulled into a spot, and this time when I shut it down, it died with MANY thunks :-( So did my hopes of getting home that night :-(

OK, now the plan was to look under the hood.

No, I wouldn't have a clue what I was looking for, but Cass had a couple of ideas, and *some* experience. At least she could name the majority of the parts under the hood lol.

Also, with a parking lot full of 18 wheelers, there was also the hope that two chicks staring under a smoking hood, would elicit the help of one of their drivers, who might actually be able to FIX what was wrong on the spot.

Yeah yeah yeah ... more wishful thinking! Call me a glutton for punishment.

I opened my door, and it hit me right away! "You smell that?"

"What?"

"Ewww THAT! Like something's burning. Or burnt!"

Up came the hood, out came the smoke. We decided to give it a few minutes to cool off before sticking our hands in there.

Instead, we discussed 'Plan B'.

"We COULD loosen the radiator cap, and see how far we make it before overheating ..." said Cass. "But we'd need water to refill it once it ran out."

We had no idea how far we'd actually get, but we were going to give it a shot.

Into the Irving I went and came out with two huge jugs of water. Enough to get us to the next gas station at least lol.

I had just gotten back to Cass, who was starting to poke under the hood, when a gentleman came over. We explained what happened, he looked inside and hauled out the fried fan belt.

"There's your problem. You're not goin' anywhere without THAT!"

I looked from Cass, to the friendly mechanic-on-the-spot, then back to Cass.

"Well Damn! Where am I going to get a fan belt at 11:25pm on a Friday night?"

K