An Adventure-less Day is No Day at All!

So yesterday me, Erica, Jess, and Amy borrowed Josh's car and drove it up to Christchurch to pick up our dear sweet Kelcey! It's been such a long 3 weeks without her here! Over break she went to the States to have surgery on her broken leg and so had to stay for some doctors appointments, but now she is back with us. Unfortunately, with me and traveling, there always has to be something that happens to make a good story, so let me back up and tell you this one...

Erica, me, Amy, and Jess on our way

We left after church and made it to Christchurch with plenty of time, so we drove to a shopping center. As we pulled into the parking lot the car started smoking and the temperature gage went up to hot. Luckily we were there, so we just parked the car and opened the hood. Now the four of us girls have had experience with not great cars, but not much with actually fixing them. So we checked the oil. It had oil so that was good. Then a nice man came over...praise God for nice men! And asked if we needed help. We said yes. He looked it over and said that it smelled like burning oil, but it was probably the radiator and we should let it cool down more first and then add some water. So we went shopping and came back with water. We put some in and then hoped that would solve our problems because at this point we needed to get to the airport so Kelcey didn't get there first. 

It started fine and looked okay, until we pulled out onto the street and then the gage started bouncing from cold to hot to cold to the middle to hot... We knew this was a problem but were glad that at least it wasn't smoking this time. So we pulled over at a gas station and I ran inside to see if anyone had any ideas for us. I told the guy what had happened and he said it was probably the radiator and we could probably drive it if we stopped every couple of minutes to put water in. oh boy. (We had about an hour and a half drive from the airport home.) Well, then the gas station man came out with a big jug of water and started pouring it into the radiator for us. He poured and poured and poured and poured some more...and was starting to get a really funny expression on his face when the thing wouldn't fill up. That's when I noticed a really long trail of water coming out from the car and and sliding down the slope to the drain. No wonder it wouldn't get full...it was coming out as fast as he put it in. And there was oil mixed with it. And there was now oil all over inside the hood. The guy stuck his head under the car (we thought it was obvious that there was a leak, but he looked anyway) and he told us that it wasn't the radiator, but that it had to be in the engine somewhere and if we drove the car it would probably light on fire. ...great.

See all the liquid coming out...

At this point Kelcey's plane had landed and we had no way of contacting her, because she doesn't have a New Zealand cell phone. So I was on the phone calling our school telling them we were stuck and Erica was on her phone calling the airport to try to get them to get a message to Kelcey and then we called multiple other people between the two of us and ended up figuring out that we would leave the car there since it had to be towed to a garage and no place was open on Sunday. We would have to hitch a ride to the airport. But the man who was coming to our school to speak that night was from Christchurch, so he would stop at the airport on his way down and pick us all up and take us back! 

We got our stuff out of the car and then looked around the gas station for a nice person with room for 4 in their car. I found a big tour van that was empty and said we should try that. Jess went over and presented our case, "We are on our way to the airport, our car broke down, and we were wondering if there was any way you could give us a ride there?" Hank, the driver, was so kind and did just that. He said he didn't mind at all and wished us luck on the rest of our journey.

Hank's sweet ride

 We got to the airport and started searching all the faces, because by this time Kelcey could have been anywhere and we had no clue where to start. As we were running around like crazies calling her name my phone rang and Patti, from school, told us that immigration had just called the school and there was some issue that they had just worked out, but that Kelcey wasn't through yet, and was just getting her luggage now. So we had just enough time to get over to the arrivals spot and pull out our posters that we made her before she came through! Then we went outside and not 10 minutes later Pastor Jason came and picked us all up and brought us home. Wow God is good with His timing!

Made it just in time

And with epic posters!

So, it's a bummer for Josh's car, because it doesn't sound like a cheap fix - if it's fixable at all. But we are all so glad to have our Kelcey back! And let's be real, how boring would that trip have been if all went according to plan...it probably wouldn't have gotten blogged about. =)

The Roomies Reunited (the 1st of all Term 2 Roomie Pics)