Tuesday, June 22

Didn't get much painting done today. Markus borrowed the car to go down to southern Utah, him and two other buddies packed the car to the limit with gear and headed south along I-15. They made it as far as Point of the Mountain and the car died. As they put it, "We gave it gas, but it just kept going slower, until finally it just stopped"

One of the kids, Kyle fortunately had a AAA card and they had the sick Volvo towed back to another friends house in Holiday. The car was still ten miles from our house and we were up at the cabin. All of this Karin got from a garbled phone message. They then ended up borrowing the family car from the parents where our car was dropped off at and continued on their way to Moab.

We called that family today and arranged to have it towed to a service station they knew about that had worked on their Volvo. The tow truck showed up and did a few quick tests.......it was the timing belt and yes the engine was probably shot. Might as well haul it off to the junk yard, it would cost more to fix than its worth.

That was the tow truck operators opinion. The car mechanic at the service shop wasn't quite sure either and said he could look at it tomorrow, but the outlook doesn't look promising !

God, do I hate cars !!!

Richard Boyer