Along time ago in the land of Logan, Utah, it was time to replace our brown Pontiac Montana minivan. So we went shopping. We found a blue Honda Odyssey minivan. It had low miles and seemed nice. It was a little more than we had planned on spending, but Hondas are supposed to be good. So we decided to buy it.
We were driving in to trade in the old van and sign the papers for the new van. I had the worst sinking feeling that we shouldn't buy it. (The Holy Ghost cares about minivans). I rationalized away the thought and we signed the papers. I should have listened to the Holy Ghost.
A couple weeks later we drove our new minivan to Canada. While we were there, a switch went out that made it almost impossible to shift from park to drive. And also something in the backdoor broke and so we couldn't open the back door. First mechanical repairs.
As soon as it got cold, we realized the heater didn't work. They tried a few things to fix it with no luck. Then they told us it would cost more than $1000. We didn't have the money right then. We decided to go to Canada for Christmas even though we didn't have heat. It was a trip we would never forget. It was so cold. We bought a little heater and electric blanket that plugged into the car. We had sleeping bags to wrap up in to keep warm. We were driving near Magrath and it was foggy, and the window fogged up. Hanna was holding the little heater next to the windshield to try and keep a little space for Austin to see as he drove. It was a trip we will never forget.
We did spend the money and get the heater fixed a few weeks later.
About 5 years ago, we decided to try and sell the van. So I got the windshield fixed, but it didn't get sealed properly. I took it back in 3 times, but it never really got fixed. A man was coming from Lethbridge to look at it so I washed the van on the way to town. As I pulled in to meet him, water started dripping down the inside of the windshield. He noticed. No sale.
Then another couple from Cardston wanted to buy it. They paid us part of the money and took the van. Three days later they called and wanted to bring it back. While they had it, the driver's side window stopped working. They also had put in a new battery but didn't latch the stick that holds up the hood. So we went to drive it and sparks started flying from the engine. The stick was across the engine as we drove, and it burned a hole in the wire that runs the cruise control.
Soon after that, one of the sliding doors stopped working.
In July, there was a major hail storm in Cardston. Most people's cars were totalled. One of the tech guys from the school division didn't have a car because his was wrecked from the hail, and he needed to go and out work at the some of the schools out of town. So Austin let him borrow our minivan. A couple hours later he called Austin almost in tears telling him that he had tried to drive around a mud puddle and instead hit a pole in a parking lot. We now had a new dent in the other sliding door.
Austin just kept driving it and it became the farm van. We hauled goats and hay in it. It had no shocks, but it ran great. He wouldn't let us change the oil because he was afraid it would ruin it or they would tell us something else was wrong. So he would just add more oil every once in a while.
We had many, many other repairs on that van over the years. Rick's Auto got to serve our van so many times.
It had a security system that someone had installed in it. It stopped working and it would start beeping every time we pushed the switch to unlock the door. We had to have the system taken out.
Then the key stopped going into the ignition. Rick Olsen just took out some of the parts and made it so any Honda key could start the van. Also, sometimes you would be driving down the road and the key would just fall out of the ignition. You had to find the key off the floor when you reached your destination so you could turn it off.
The locks to get into the car also stopped working. If we needed to lock the van, we had to unlock the very back door. Austin actually just left the keys in the van everyday at school.
A couple years ago, a horse that we had been keeping at the Agridome had gotten out, and so Austin went looking for the horse and hit a pothole and hit the bumper. The minivan became a hotrod car that you could hear coming for a mile or two. Once again, Rick welded it together to make the muffler work again.
On January 9, the van was parked outside the high school, and Austin was in basketball practice. The roads were really icy, and an older man came up the hill and must have slid and ran into the van. It spun around a couple times and was left next to the sidewalk. I dropped Lucy and Carly off at the high school because they wanted to go to practice. Lucy did notice the van and said look how Dad parked - that's funny. But we were too far away to notice it had been hit.
I drove around the corner and there was a car stopped in my lane. I stopped to help because I thought they must be stuck. I could tell he had been in an accident and there was blood dripping from his forehead. I asked if he was okay and if he needed help. He said, "No, I think I can back out." Right then the police came and I left.
About an hour later the police went into Austin's practice and told him that his van had been hit. The guy I stopped to help had hit him.
After almost 2 months of paperwork, the other man's insurance paid us $4,000 to replace our van because it wasn't worth repairing.
Goodbye to our mini van that we shouldn't have bought in the first place, but that served us for almost 150,000 miles.
