A car passed us and I could see some kids pointing at us. Right after our oldest Beatrice said that, a trucker passed us and honked. Then I saw the smoke. White smoke that billowed out from the front of our Santa Fe Hyundai.
"Shit," I said. "We've got to pull over." I aways cuss a lot when I'm stressed out.
It was Memorial Day weekend and we were less than two miles from our final exit and less than four miles from our final destination at the KOA campground in Visalia. My wife Amy and I had no idea what was wrong with our car, but I knew that we all needed to get out of it in case it caught fire.
"Everybody get out of the car," I said, waving the family out. "Fuck," I then said under my breath.
Once outside of the car, Amy said we should unhook our trailer camper in case there was a fire. Seconds passed that felt like hours. I called my sister, who we were going to see, and then I called for roadside assistance. Cars and trucks blurred past us on the highway. We told our kids to stay away from the highway and hold our dog Jenny.
Twenty minutes later, as we waited to hear back about the roadside assistance, the white smoke finally subsided. Thankfully there was no car fire. We had put our dog back in the car so she wouldn't get more stressed and try to get away.
"We have to get to the campsite," Amy said. I agreed and knew it would be a risk to drive again, but that's what we did. I started the Hyundai, pushed the flashing hazard lights button, waited for an opening in the highway, and pulled out. I drove white-knuckled all the way to the campground. We made it there without anymore white smoke, but the engine light did come on. Two weeks before all this we had just had the car serviced. Nothing was wrong then, although they did overfill our oil and not tighten our oil filter all the way, which was something we had to deal with before this trip. We didn't realize then how much foreshadowing that was.
Of course it was Memorial Day weekend, so by the time we got to the campground, the Hyundai Dealer in town was already closed. We set up camp and my sister came and got us and took us back to her house for dinner. After that, she let us use one of her cars, which was actually my parents car before they had both passed away.
The next day a dear old high school friend who was a mechanic came out to take a look at my car and verified that transmission fluid was leaking from the car and that's what had sprayed onto the engine and smoked. We took our Santa Fe to a local lube and oil place and they ran a diagnostic that confirmed why the engine light went on: the might be an issue with the torque converter in the automatic transmission. And yes, the transmission fluid had leaked out.
"Shit."
The service center at the Hyundai dealer in town wouldn't be open again until the Tuesday after Memorial Day, so we had to strategize on what to do next. The plan had always been to go home on Memorial Day Monday because we had to get back to work and our kids had appointments. But it was still only Sunday, and Amy and our daughters attended my niece's bridal shower while I hung out with Jenny and worked and wrote. After that, we hung out again at my sister's.
We still had a nice visit overall, but the whole time I kept worrying about what was wrong with our car and what we were going to have to do about it.
[More cussing in my head.]
But then my old friend had offered to tow our trailer camper back home and my sister offered to let us use the same car so Amy and our kids could get home. That's what we did on Memorial Day: my family made it home safely and I rode eight hours with my friend to drop off our trailer in Santa Cruz and return to Visalia. We were so grateful to my friend and my sister for all their help.
What happened when I took our Santa Fe to the local dealer service the next day was completely anti-climatic to how the whole holiday weekend started. In the end, there was nothing wrong with our transmission or anything else. During our last car service back home just two weeks earlier, they had overfilled our transmission fluid by over two quarts. They had also overfilled our oil and not fully tightened the oil filter, which we already knew about. We'd been taking our car to that Hyundai dealer service for seven years and nothing like this had ever happened, until now.
Two days after Amy and our girls went home, Amy drove my sister's care back to Visalia and we returned home in our car. The universe realigned.
When life goes sideways (in this case with car trouble), our first rule is always safety first for the family. Everything else is just time and money and transitory pains in the asses that will not always be recoverable, but because we're still here living and breathing, there's always the possibility of recovery. Endless possibilities actually.
That's why the second rule is, we make the most of our moments, wherever they are and however they are. Stewing in uncertainty results in angst-filled inaction, which I'm certainly still guilty of, but endless possibilities make all the difference in the end. Reconnecting with an old friend and spending more time with my sister were moments I wouldn't have had otherwise. Again, we're so grateful for their help.
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