Lance manages All Foreign Auto in La Grande. He'd made a couple of phone calls to find me a rental car in La Grande. No one had cars available.
This was not good news.
It was Monday. Sunday, I drove from Eugene to Pendleton. My plan was to drive to McCall, Idaho to the University of Idaho Field Campus to join the Northwest Inland Writing Project writing retreat. I'd been hired to be the visiting writer for this retreat.
I stopped for gas in La Grande. After my fill up, my 1993 Honda Civic with 178,000 miles stuttered as I left the Shell station. I drove down Adams Street and the car felt better, but my car fear was in high gear.
I returned to I-84 and suddenly my temperature gauge leaped to the red zone. I started having morningmares of steam and smoke billowing from under the hood. I exited right away at the Flying J Travel Plaza.
I inquired about help at the Flying J, drove to a Les Schwab shop in La Grande, and a trotting tire man sent me to All Foreign Auto.
"Yeah, we can look at but it'll be a bit before we can get to it."
"How long of a bit?"
"About an hour or so."
I walked the main drag of La Grande, trying to push down more morningmares of being stuck in La Grande, never making it to fulfill my contract in McCall.
InlandEmpireGirl arrived at the retreat a day early. She's the retreat co-director. It would be one thing to tell a retreat director who runs a writing retreat through some college in western Montana that I can't fulfill my duties as visiting writer because I'm stuck in La Grande with a busted car, but the thought of telling my sister this made my stomach burn and knees wobbly.
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I ate breakfast. I returned to All Foreign Auto.
Lance greeted me. "We're working on it. Not sure yet what's up."
Soon, one of Lance's mechanics drove off in my car. I thought this might be a good sign. It wasn't. About half an hour later Lance told me that my car was burning coolant and calmly rattled off a a list of things that needed repair. It would take the rest of the week.
"Where you headed?"
I told him.
"Yeah." Lance sighed at looked at his work boots. "I wouldn't take this car out. If you'd like I can call a couple of places that rent cars and see if I can find you something."
No luck. No rental cars were available in La Grande. I told Lance I needed some time to figure things out.
I went back to the slow streets of La Grande and stumbled into Goss Motors.
Denice was working the business counter.
"Do you rent cars?"
"Yup. You want one?"
"Yes!" I tried not to shout.
"When do you need it?"
"Now."
"I wish you hadn't said that. Our cars are all rented out." She paused. "How about a pickup?"
I lit up. I uttered a silent prayer of thanksgiving.
"A pickup would be great."
Soon, a Goss Motors guy wheeled a 2006 Chevy pickup to the front of Goss Motors.
Back at All Foreign Auto, Lance shook his head. "I told her I was looking for a rental car. When she said, 'no', guess she didn't think to ask me if a pickup would do."
The Honda Will Spend the Week in La GrandeThe cost of not being stuck in La Grande will be dear, but worth every penny. I didn't put InlandEmpireGirl in a pickle and now I could do my best to help just over a dozen school teachers with their memoirs and poems and enjoy the mountain air and field campus' Ponderosa pines overlooking Payette Lake.
Saved by a Chevy
1 comment:
The prospect of being stuck in a totally unfamiliar, one-horse, abjectly horrifyingly desolate town due to car problems is NOT FUN. Not a good thing at all. I like the term "car fear"...I used to sense that whenever I took my little Chevy Chevette on the highway. It finally died just as I was approaching Spokane. I paid to get it towed back to CDA, where I was living at the time. And I was so disgusted that I told the mechanic, "just have 'em tow it away". To this day, I don't know if my car gave up the ghost, or if it was a little 25-cent fuel filter or whatever. 184,000 miles on yer car? Ooooh, boy, yer pushin' it thar!
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