Thought this day would never come, but that day is nearly here!

We're going to load up the car with all the camping gear tonight, after we go out for one last family dinner before we all head off in different directions for the next few weeks.

Can't wait for four in the morning to roll around, and we're in the Silver Streak heading for Glacier National Park.

For all of you folks who are going off on a traveling adventure, enjoy your trip and drive carefully so we can all enjoy our traveling stories.

 

Ya'll be careful, ya here !!!! And definately enjoy !!!

 

Have fun and be safe

 

We are so excited about taking our little HHR on this trip. We're glad that Chevy COULD put a roof rack on it, even though we didn't enjoy paying their price. It's going to be so nice.

Had to work a bit later tonight, which was a bummer, but we just got back from a nice family dinner, enjoyed the best Mexican food we'll be getting for awhile. Love the food at Valle Luna! Actually, after a camping trip we always come home craving meat loaf.

Thanks for the good wishes, we'll drive carefully and take it easy, it'll just be nice to have our time be all ours for the next few weeks.

For all of you great HHR folks along our route on I-15 as we head north through Utah, Idaho, and Montana, wave hi to us as we go through.

 

Have fun be safe

 

Not a good start to our vacation.

First we started off by having to fight our way through the smoke and traffic and detours caused by the fires in southern Utah.

Car started making a strange clicking noise which got worse and worse.....took it in to the Chevy place in Kalispell MT first thing this morning, seems to be something wrong with the lifters or some such thing, ordered the parts, we're now driving a rental, an Equinox.

That's the bad part. The good part is they're hoping to have it fixed by Friday, and they are going to wash all the ash off from the fires, and a friend of ours is dropping off a canoe for us to use while we're camping.

Hopefully the poor car will not have any more problems this trip.

 

UPDATE!

Our little Silver Streak is still in Kalispell in the shop, they told us to pick it up Friday, then they told us to pick it up Monday, then it was Wednesday. Today is Tuesday and we decided to go into town and stare at them, got there just in time to see the service man come up to the service manager with the paper work for our car, and another car, and we told them we hope they'll be working on our car first because we want to drive it and enjoy it, that's why we bought it!

On top of that there's a big forest fire going on near Glacier National Park, and the park hosts told us they talked about the possibility of evacuating in case lightning should strike and ignite all that dead timber from the 2003 fire. Hubby has severe breathing problems, and should that happen we would need to high tail it out of this state and head for home, and how can we do that when our car is in the shop?

We are not happy campers about this, and just as a heads up, we were told that the cam shaft and lifters are an issue which folks in HHR's might very well be having problems with.

It's back to camp for us now, though I have to say the little Equinox they've given us to drive isn't too bad, not great mileage on the gas and it's a hard ride, but over all, not bad.

 

Well I missed this the first time. That sucks. Hope you get Silver Streak back soon!!!

 

Okay, we left home soooo thrilled to have our new little Silver Streak to enjoy a great vacation.................ha!

We ended up having it in the Chevy shop for over a week, while we drove around in a Chevy Equinox, which they loaned us. We have to say that it was a very nice little car to drive, though it only got, at best 26 to the gallon on the highway. They kept putting off fixing our car, though they had the parts, and finally we decided to go in ahead of time and just sit and stare at them. We walked in one morning just as the service man was coming up to the service manager with two orders, one for someone elses car and one for ours. To which, my husband said, they'd better be fixing our car next, so it was ordered that they fix ours first. We were told not to pick it up till the end of the day as it was a big job and would require lots of time. We got there the next day right before closing, and Ken pulled the our car around so we could transfere all our camping gear into our car. By the time we were done they were closed and gone. I pulled out and got a block and a half away before pointing out to Ken that the car was STILL making the same ticking noise we took it in there for. This was NOT a happy moment. Next morning we were back at the Chevy dealer and as we pulled in the service manager noted right away, "gee, it's still making the same noise!" Is he alert or what?! They checked it out, and in the end told us they could not hold us up any longer to check it out and do the work it needed and so they told us to drive it home as is and let Chevy in Phoenix worry about it.

They had replaced the camshaft and done some work on the hydrolic lifters. Ken WILL be taking it in as soon as possible now that we're home. In addition to that, we get out in the middle of the Utah desert and the air conditioner decides to switch over to heat, and starts blasting out hot air. So there we were driving along with the windows down in southern Utah!

In spite of all this, the little Silver Streak..............which we've renamed Little Ticker, for the time being, performed well, didn't chug or give out on us, and had tons of space for all our camping gear, and plenty of comfort in the room and ride. Bless it's little ticking heart! So all that being said, we still LOVE our little HHR. We also feel the folks at the Chevy place may have tried to fix it, even though it took longer than we hoped it would. Montana is a laid back state, and folks are never in a hurry to get anything done there. We're hoping for the best when we take it in here now that we're home.

So that's the scoop on our three week adventure. We really think it all started when they changed the oil here at Midway, because it started ticking right after that, though it quit, and would only tick on and off, and was not ticking when Ken had it in to have the roof rack put on. It started up again when we got up north of Flag. Poor little car.

 

Sorry about the little tickers problems, but at least you are back home safe and sound and the little ticker can go back to his own Dealer.