A Roller Coaster of a Week

 

 

 

So, we finally sent the car to the body shop.  There it went through a lot of transformations.  After several agonizing weeks, a paint redo, and minor adjustments, our car was ready for the upholstery shop!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is Kenny, the guy who made this car SHINE !

 

 

 

Arriving at R&M upholstery shop.

 

 

Finally the day came when it was delivered to the upholstery shop.  Yeahhhhh, we were almost done.  The seats had been finished and waiting for this moment.  The guys known as Rick and Mike  only had to install the carpet, headliner, then install the seats!  Within a few days the GTO was on its way back to Coalville!  Finally, only a few more minor interior installations and we were home free!

 

 

OR SO WE THOUGHT!!!

 

 

After getting the car home, Wade started getting all the lights working, the console installed, wipers on, etc.... and the big day finally arrived.  Time for a test drive.

 

 

Last Sunday, June 9th, Wade, his wife Sara and their 2 boys were going to go for a little ride around our valley, nothing long, just a few miles to get a feel for the car.  They put the car seats in the back seat for their boys and I just had to have a picture of it.



 

 

Vaughn and I decided the back seats in cars from the '60s were really BIG!

 

What a Beauty

 

 

 

So they loaded the boys in the car and off they went. Wow, that car sounded good as it took off down the road.  I had visions in my head of Vaughn and I roaring off into the sunset.  Would we look cool or what?  I was really getting excited!

 

A few minutes went by, then a few more, finally I couldn't take it any longer.  I called Wade.  He answered and I asked him how things were going, was the car running OK? He said, "Let me call you back".  Oh Oh...

 

A few minutes later he called back.  Or rather his wife Sara did.  She said, "Wade needs you to bring us a couple of gallons of water.  The car overheated, we are at Echo Canyon junction."  

 

Nooooooo......

 

 

I filled a couple of jugs and off I went, on a rescue mission.   He finally got the car running again, and I followed them home. 

 

The next few days were not fun.  They found that something had come apart inside the engine, ( I don't know much about that stuff!) and this is how the car sits today.

 

 

 

Not a very nice picture when we are supposed to take off for this trip of a lifetime in just a few days.

 

While all this was taking place this past week, Vaughn had been in touch with me since I had run away from home for my annual quilt retreat in Idaho.  We had discussed what we were going to drive on our trip, wondering if this car would be up and running, or do we go another direction and rent a car to drive across the country.  Vaughn suggested renting a Corvette, but I told him that I didn't think I could get out of one, IF I got in it, and suggested he might want to find a dealership and try one on for size.  Then we found out that some of the car rentals didn't let you rent a car on one coast and drive to the opposite side of the country.  So we thought that it would be fun to rent one car, drive it to the edge of their boundaries, then pick up a different one, drive that one and so on. Wow, we could drive several different cars and still have fun. 

 

Then Vaughn called one day, Friday to be exact, and said he felt like we needed to try our hardest to get the GTO up and running. We had worked too hard for so long to give up so easy.  So, he called on Wade again, and we are trying our hardest to make this dream come true.