Change in Plans

Today I was going out to Dianne's house to work sheep out in the dessert. She emailed that she couldn't go out to the dessert after all but I was welcome to come over to work cattle. I had a plan. I was prepared. We where going to work on taking the cattle from their living area to the arena. And letting the cattle return to the gate going back to the living area and pushing them off the gate together. Me on the same side as Rave and tapping the cattle on the head to turn them so that Rave would learn I was there to back her up. Hopefully helping her gain confidence in her abilities to calmly turn the cattle. Also Avery was coming to take pictures.

My car had other ideas. I started noticing a dust like material out my front window. I am thinking the car in front of me is kicking up dust. It gets worse and seems to only be coming from one side. I look down at my gauges and I am way past the red mark on the heat gauge. Oh NO! Pull over and there is a definite smell. Pop the lid. Steam coming off the engine. Avery spots that there is a huge tear in the radiator hose. So out comes the number for our Tow Insurance. I call in and they promise a tow truck within 20 minutes which is good news. I have waited two hours before. As we wait Avery and Rave have a little fun.

Also as we are waiting a police officer pulls over to see if he can assist us. When I tell him our radiator hose has a tear in it and the tow truck has been called he asks if we have any duct tape. I say no but he goes around to look at the hose anyway. When he sees the size of the tear he says duct tape wouldn't have helped it anyway. He stays sitting behind my car with the police flashers going. I figure people think he is busy and they are okay to speed because soon a car whizzes by and he takes off after it. Pretty sneaky on his part.

The tow truck arrives and I load Rave back into the crate in my car. She gets to ride on the back of the tow truck. The gentleman attaches all the chains etc. Loads us up in his cab and off we go to the repair shop he recommends. I can see Rave in the truck's side view mirror and she seems to be doing just fine. We arrive at the repair shop, the car is unloaded and we are left with the mechanic. He looks at the car and says the radiator needs flushing, it is plugged up which probably caused the pressure to blow the hose. All of the other hoses where probably compromised too. But as they haven't been changed in forever they were way past due. The radiator has to be pulled from the car to flush it. Also the thermostat will need replacing. And the biggest question of all, was the head gasket damaged by the overheating. He will have to check it out. I also told him to change the timing belt as it is recommended every 50,000 miles and as my car has 188,000+ miles and has only had one new timing belt I thought it might be time. I certainly don't want to break down on my way to Montana where there is a whole lot of empty space. The mechanic took Ave, Rave and I home as it will probably be a two day job. So now I wait for the cost estimate and the big hopes the head gasket was not damaged.