Wyoming: The Bermuda Triangle for Cars

On our way home from Colorado over Memorial Day weekend and in the middle of nowhere Wyoming, Chad's car died. We were driving along just fine and then boom. Nada. No power. Nothing. We coasted over to the side of the road and after checking things out Chad said he thought it was a timing belt issue. We called our insurance and luckily we were only 40 minutes outside of Laramie, but it still took the tow truck over an hour to come get us. Since the cab of the truck couldn't hold three adults (us and the driver) and two kids in their car seats we got to ride in our dead car ON TOP of the tow truck. (I seriously didn't know you could do that.) Once we got the car to a shop in Laramie and got it looked at we were told it was a timing belt issue, but that the shop wouldn't be able to work on our car until Thursday (and it was Tuesday). Not wanting to spend the next few days in Laramie without a car - not that we wanted to spend it in Laramie with a car either - we rented a car and drove the rest of the way home. What should have been a 7-8 hour trip took 12+ hours.

The following Saturday Chad got up bright and early and drove back to Laramie to return the rental and pick up our car from the shop and then drove back home. It was a long day for Chad, but we were just glad to finally have two cars again. So... a $900 car repair + $200 car rental + about $120 in extra gas = one very expensive trip home.

Exactly where our car broke down. Right in the middle of mile markers 278 and 279. Poor Chad had to run about half a mile to figure out where we were. Lol.

The view from our car ON TOP of the tow truck. The only good thing about this experience was Cayden's excitement. He couldn't believe that Mater the tow truck came to pick us up and that we got to ride on him. The kid giggled the whole way back to Laramie. (By the way, it's kind of hard to be frustrated and angry when your two year old is giggling in the backseat.) For days afterwards Cayden pretended that a white car had broken down and had his Mater come tow it away.

Moral of this story... Never take your almost 20 year old car on a road trip (especially if it's through Wyoming). Frank has now been banned from all long distance drives and is only a local boy. Poor guy.