On Halloween night, at 7:30pm just as the trick or treating
traffic in our neighborhood started to die down, sweet cheeks and I shoved off
on our first solo road trip in the van. The plan was to drive from Silverado to
Santa Rosa in 2 days, 3 hours on the road Thursday evening would put us at a
nice camping spot at Fort Tejon, and then just 5ish more on Friday would
deliver us to Santa Rosa. Our objective was to see my brother, his wife and all
4 of their kiddos who were flying in from Texas on Friday and only staying for
4 days. Seeing how I really want Addy to have a relationship with her cousins,
the timing was sorta critical.
We rolled out of Silverado with a 'what can go wrong?' attitude. You know, just me, a 9 week old baby, a dog, 450 miles, and a 2003 Sprinter van, sounds like a solid plan.
We rolled out of Silverado with a 'what can go wrong?' attitude. You know, just me, a 9 week old baby, a dog, 450 miles, and a 2003 Sprinter van, sounds like a solid plan.
Well we found out the answer to
that little question about 2 hours into the drive, when the van wouldn't start
after stopping at a gas station at the bottom of the grapevine. It was 9:30, I
had stopped to feed Addy, and since fuel was reasonably priced I figured I
would top off the half full tank at the same time (that actually saves my butt
later).
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Tow truck #1 |
Around 11:40 the tow truck
finally showed up. I've never needed roadside assistance before, so lesson 1 of
the ordeal was that tow trucks take FOREVER to get to you if you go through
insurance.
We got towed to the Dodge
dealer in Santa Clarita and slept there in the van. By that I mean Addy slept,
because being over tired, and stressed about getting to Santa Rosa kept me up
all night.
At 7am when the dealer opened I explained to the service manager what happened and he took his sweet time getting around to looking at the van. Lesson 2, car dealerships have no sympathy for a lady stranded with a tiny baby. Waiting for a diagnosis at the dealer took FOREVER, and I was afraid to leave in case they wanted to explain what needed to be done. Thankfully Davey and the baby were really calm the whole time. Around 11am I asked if they could give me an idea of how much longer we would have to wait (all this time they brushed me off when I asked) and they said it was the fuel pump, and that they were trying to find a new one. Fortunately, a nice tow truck driver had been hanging out petting Davey and he offered to tow me somewhere else so I could get the work done that day. Brendan's favorite local Sprinter mechanic was 25 minutes away in San Fernando (I would have gone there the night before but it's in a really sketchy part of town) and he seemed to take pity on me/offered to look at the van and try to fix it even though he was supposed to go home at noon. So after all that waiting we were rushing to get the van onto tow truck #2 of the trip and we were off to San Fernando.
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It was hot in Anatoli's waiting room, but Baby A didn't care. |
Again baby A was an angel through all of this.
Eventually Anatoli came in and told me it was leaky fuel injectors
and that he couldn’t finish the job because one was stuck and he wanted to go
home (this was 2.5 hours after he was supposed to close for the day). He said I
could drive to Santa Rosa if I just never turned the car off, OR if I bought
starter fluid and sprayed that into a hose on the engine block to get started
again. And since I REALLY wanted to see family I choose the don’t turn the van
off ever option and jumped on the road.
Thankfully the drive from San Fernando that day was uneventful. I
stopped three times, to feed Addy and once for coffee, and just left the van
running (sorry environment!). I was crazy tired, and ate 4 apples in a row at
one point to stay awake. But we made it to my sister’s house in Cotati (20
minutes from my parents) by 9:30pm and only missed out on half a day with the
cousins!
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Davey keeping Addy safe. |
The next morning, when we stopped for fuel just before heading into
the wilderness the van died in a new way, while idling at the pump. At first we
couldn’t get it started, called insurance to get it towed and were told it
would cost a small fortune to tow from the middle of nowhere town we were in. We
did a bunch of research to find a mechanic close enough for a reasonable towing
fee, and eventually tried a few more times to get the van going. Thankfully
Brendan is pretty smart and he got it started by not letting the revs drop
below 1500. And we were on our way, this time to a mechanic in Salinas that our
neighbor uses (it was the closest trusted mechanic who was also willing to look
at the van that day).
We made it to Salinas just to wait for a few hours and then be
told it was the low pressure fuel pump which they didn't have, and it would
take a week to get one. After MORE research Brendan found a mobile mechanic in
Santa Rosa, yes, where we had come from a day ago, who had the part and was
willing to do the work.
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Addy and I chilling in the van while Meth mechanic looked at it with Brendan. |
Mechanic #4 was a little crazy, maybe on meth, and in a spazy,
possessed sort of way worked through replacing the low pressure fuel pump with
Brendan. When the van still wouldn’t start they trouble shooted some more,
until 12:30am when they came to the conclusion it was the high pressure pump, and
meth mechanic said he needed to eat dinner.
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Feeling foolishly optimistic on Sunday morning. |
At this point starter fluid worked again to get the van running so we decided to drive home and have Brendan replace the part in our own driveway to save the cost of labor. I had been napping in the van bed with the baby while the boys worked on the van, so I felt rested enough to drive part way, getting us to the rest stop where I-5 meets the 580 at 2am Sunday morning. Yes, this means we crossed the Richmond bridge 3 times in 2 days.
In the morning we hit the road again, feeling confident we would
make it home by mid-day, so much so that we were making plans: the first think
I’m going to do when we get home is wash the baby… oh if it was only that easy.
Instead, you guessed it, the van died AGAIN, this time on I-5 while
Brendan was cruising along at 75mph in the middle of nowhere about 65 miles north
of Bakersfield.
I’m going to stop here to say that through all this ridiculousness
somehow I was able to remain incredibly calm. Through the towing at midnight
when I was alone, Anatoli’s cockroach infested waiting room, the night in meth
mechanic’s yard with the boys trying over and over again to start the van, I
was upset, but calm and collected. I’m not sure if it was for the baby’s well
being, or I’m just different now, but it’s sorta surprising that all the
stress, loss of sleep, uncertainty about the van didn’t break me. Even on the side
of I-5 in 85 degree weather in a broken van, big rigs driving by within feet of
us at 70 miles per hour, causing the van to sway as each truck passed, I was calm
and relaxed. I sat on the bed with the baby and talked to her, fed her and
watched her sleep. And she was an absolute angel again, not crying or fussing, probably
not even really aware of how dangerous and stressful a situation we were in.
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On I-5 in the middle of nowhere. |
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Tow truck #3 was the nicest of the tow trucks I've been in haha |
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Tori to the rescue!!!!! |
Brendan stayed in Bakersfield, wasn’t able to get the first
mechanic to do the work, had the van towed AGAIN to the Mercedes dealer in town.
After the new high pressure fuel pump didn’t work and just as they were about
to install another $800 part Brendan suggested replacing a $14 seal (as
suggested by some Sprinter Guru in South Carolina) and low and behold, that was
what got the van working normally again.
We spent about $3,000 in parts and labor, saw 5 total mechanics,
got towed 4 times, and drove about 1,000 miles in search of the answer and it
turned out to be a $14 seal. Yep, that is our awesome #Vanlife life right now.
Kicking ourselves for wasting so much time and money on a problem that could
have been so cheap and easy to fix.
On the bright side the van works again, and I have had incredibly
good luck driving that van ALL OVER the western half of the country, alone most
of the time. We are so grateful to be home safe right now. And I’ll definitely think
twice before going on another road trip with a little baby and a dog 😊