[Claire]

Sunday, January 2--Friday, January 7

Cassidy woke up a bundle of energy, so we knew she was on the mend. We got on the road at 10 am, Starbucks lattes in hand, and I know you all stopped reading back on Thursday's report......but here's where the good stuff happens.

We made it about 25 miles north of Redding, when my Ford Expedition started to SMOKE and smell bad, then lose power. Seems that while I was in Starbucks, my husband decided to pop the car into 4WD to make sure it worked. Turns out....it didn't. But we didn't know that.

So I call 911 and ask for a tow, and we get towed back to Redding to the Ford Dealership. The sales staff recommended a good hotel on Hilltop (another Best Western, but it was a plaza.....very nice!) after trying to sell us a new Expedition (can't blame them for trying....the place was dead).

The tow truck driver drove us over there, so we could unload at the hotel, then he took the Expedition back to the dealership for us so the service department could take a look at it the next morning.

On Monday, they told us the car wouldn't be ready until Wednesday, Thursday at the latest, so I did laundry. Loads of laundry. All of our clothes, and all the barfy stuff.

Tuesday-Thursday.....we took walks. We ate breakfast at the hotel. They had a free hot buffet with eggs (real ones!!), sausages, grilled ham, oatmeal, cereal, fruit, etc. It was actually pretty good......but by the last day there, we were SICK of it. For lunches, we ate in the room.....we had sandwiches, etc. For dinner we went to Chuck E Cheese one night....yuck! The kids had fun, but it was like walking into 1989! Big bangs and ugly clothes ahoy! Two other nights we had pizza.....one night Mexican, one night Chinese. Thankfully all delivered or were within walking distance.

Surprisingly....it wasn't all that bad.

The kids had their new toys, the room had cable, Courtney and I had new books, we had the DVD player (I had brought several seasons of Sex and the City, so I watched an episode here and there with the headphones when I could.....to keep me sane!), and we had each other.

On Thursday evening, my husband got our car back and we enjoyed our last night together in one room.....before getting in a car on Friday and riding back to Portland cooped up together.

The trip back was interesting. One of our chains busted about two miles from a Les Schwab, so luckily we were able to stop in Shasta City (which is not actually a city, FYI) and exchange them for new ones and get on the road pretty easily.

The snow was beautiful! Amazing! We were blown away by the views...the snow was 2 feet deep in some places. The roads were okay. Not great. But we made it to Medford, OR for an early dinner at 4 pm. I think we got to Portland around 8 pm.

FOURTEEN DAYS with my children, with NO breaks. Thank goodness I adore them and they get along pretty well. We survived. It was actually pretty nice.....except for the $2000 bill we got from the dealership. Ouch.

It was STILL worth it! Wouldn't do anything differently. The 4WD would have gone out, no matter what, just glad it happened when my husband was driving!!