Jan. 16, 2012

Car engine quit near Beaver

I have had the opportunity to take several trips to southern Utah and to Las Vegas. One year in particular Marie and I were going to Las Vegas to participate in an MLM meeting of which I do not remember what it was about. We were not sure the car we had would make it down there so we borrowed Tia’s Saturn. Well had we known we would have probably taken the other car. Anyway just about 20 miles outside of Beaver, before arriving there, we lost power in the engine had to pull off the side of the road. This was luckily in the days of cell phones and not prior to them and so we called a wrecker from Beaver to come pick us up and we also knew some of the upline who lived near Fillmore so we called them. They had room for us and they actually got there just about the time the wrecker did. We went on in to Beaver to the Chevron on the south side of town where we had them look at the engine. They said it couldn’t be fixed so we left it in their parking lot and went the rest of the way with the other families. After it was over we came on home and for a month tried to figure out how to get the car here. I finally asked Doug to go get it with me and was very surprised after getting there that they had charged $10 per day for storage which equaled about $300.00. They finally let me take it for $100. Since they hadn’t told me there was a fee for parking it in the sagebrush south of the station.

Doug and I then hauled it to his place where it was my intention to take the engine apart with Loren’s help so he could learn about mechanics as I did also. Life however was very busy and so we were only able to manage getting it torn apart and finally hauled it to Max’s where he replaced the engine due to the nature of the problem with the engine and repairs costing more than the replacement engine. That became Loren’s car anyway as I had bought it from Tia so she could get another one. He used it for quite a awhile before his mission and then I took it over and used it until I was in an accident with it while coming home from work. A fellow in a glass hauling truck pulled out in front of me across from the Model A café. I swerved to the right to miss him since he was pulling out so as to be in my path if I were to swerve into oncoming traffic to my left to miss him. I was almost able to miss him but the end of the glass carrying attachment on his truck caught and slid up the front of the engine and off just to the side before going through the window where I was sitting. The police later told me it was the best thing that I could have done since going to the left would have ended up involving a lot more vehicles. I have been in several accident but this was probably the worst and I am so thankful to the tender mercies of my Heavenly Father who guided the car the right direction that time just had He had always done it before.