Well, it does say Morgan Follies...

So here I am blogging when I should probably be be hitting Amarillo about now. We have everything just about packed and all the laundry in the house is clean and we are pretty much out of any fresh food because we wanted to use it up before our 3 week long trip. I was out running last minute errands when I noticed the rear end of our car making a ringing type of noise. It wasn't the wheels because it started as soon as I turned the car on. It sounds like the noise from the Emergenct Alert System on TV. So we thought we'd better not try leaving until we make sure we know what it is. We did some Googling and found that it could be the fuel pump. We don't have very good luck with those. When we first got married we had to have one replaced twice on our ancient Taurus. Okay here's the flashback to the last time we drove to Utah. Sit back and relax because it is a very bumpy ride.
....(think of those flashback waves you see in the movies)... The drive to my sister's was uneventful although the air conditioner doesn't seem to be working that great- whenever we go uphill the air switches to the floor vents. Wierd. So we go on the next day up through Wyoming, get right about to the middle of absolutely nowhere and the car loses power and off we go to the side of the road. It won't start back up again. Did I mention there is NOTHING around? Oh and this was before we had cell phones so we couldn't call anyone either. I liek to think that if we were in Texas and someone saw a family with small children on the side of the road waving for people to stop in very hot weather they would stop. Well, it doesn't work that way in Wyoming. No one stopped. We were there for a good long while. We decided to pray (duh, why didn't we think of that first?) and the car started right up again. So on we go hoping to get to the next town. We stall again right outside of town. By the way- this is on a Saturday. Someone (he's actually from Colorado, still not a Wyoming native!) stops and offers what help he can give which is to go to town and call a tow truck for us. We thank him and try the car a few more times. It starts back up again. We make it into town, Green River, and to a gas station. We ask around and there's not much in this little town and what is there is already closed because it's after 5 on a Saturday. This trip was already going to be a short one and we were sa sad about having to lose another day (nothing would open until Monday). So we call the family in Utah. They say stay put they are on their way. They get a tow truck to tow the van all the way to Orem (don't ask, yes it was expensive and we feel pretty stupid now). Meanwhile we eat dinner and park at the local park and let the kids play and play until it gets dark and then we sit in the van and watch movies until his parents arrive. Turns out it was just a little fuel filter- no big deal if you know that's what it is! So then we had a good time with family and had to go home way too soon later that same week. Well, about the time we got to New Mexico the little gage that tell you your car is getting hot was about as far over into the red as you can get. So I pulled over and we let it cool off for a while. We tried it again a little while later and it went right to red again. Did I mention it was hot in New Mexico? I also forgot to mention that we did a smart thing and bought a cell phone before we started out. So we called our insurance company for their road side assistance and had them get us a tow truck. The kids were ecstatic! They put our van on the back of the truck and we all squished inside. Kaela was 1 year old at the time. Lucky for us the tow truck did not have air conditioning... Also lucky for us, the guy had to stop somewhere along the way and help someone else for an hour. The couple he was helping was so nice though and shared some grapes and water with us. It was so hot! The kids thought it was the best thing ever though. They thought it was so cool that we got to ride in a tow truck and then hang out in a car shop for hours while they replaced the water pump. From there we made it home without much problem. ... (more flashback wave thingys)...
So here we are with a fuel pump that needs to be fixed and kids that are ready to go. I tried to explain to them that we needed to make sure the car would be okay because we didn't want to break down on the road again like last time. Their eyes got HUGE and they got great big grins on their faces and then the begging began. "Please don't get the car fixed! We WANT to break down! We want to ride in the tow truck again. That was so much fun! PLEASE???" Sorry kids, as much fun as that was, we are going to fix the car BEFORE we go this time.