A few weekends ago Walker and I went to Oregon with a couple of our friends with a mission to visit Bagby hotsprings. From the title you probably guessed we didn’t make it there and I’m sure you can also assume that everything worked out well because I’m writing about it now but at one point we weren’t sure how our day would end.

Let me go back a little ways. We woke up pretty early on Saturday so we would have plenty of time to drive to the springs and enjoy them before heading back to Portland for the night. I figured that at some point our cell phones would stop working so I wrote down some rough directions from google maps. Once we left the main road I started calling out directions. The day started out with rain but at some point it turned to snow. This was also after the second time we didn’t turn left when my directions said to. The car as a whole wasn’t too concerned about the snow until we could no longer see the road ahead. I suggested we stop and play with the snow and decide if we should go on considering the snow and the “not sure we’re even going the right way” thing.

At this point I noticed a tiny trail of red fluid behind the car. Uh oh. Can you guess what it was? If you guessed transmission fluid you would be right! We collectively decided that was not good and we should turn around. If only it had been that easy. The car would not go into gear. When it finally did it would only go about 20 yards. Yikes! Images of us walking down the mountain being chased by bears in the snow flashed across my mind. Somehow we got the car turned around and somehow we got the car up the first little hill. On the downhill we cruised in neutral. Then we came across another little uphill…

We knew if we could just make it up the little hill we could cruise the rest of the way down in neutral. We tried pushing the car, we tried everyone but the driver walking along side the car, and we crossed our fingers a lot. Finally we made it over and we all yelled for joy as we went as fast as was safe in neutral down the mountain. At the end, where the dirt road meets the paved road, we flew by some people who were getting ready to raft. I think they were a little confused and probably angry as we went flying by but we couldn’t stop. Once the road leveled out that was it, the car had had it and was bone dry as far as transmission fluid was concerned.

So at this point we had made it out of the mountain but we were still about 20 minutes from the closest town and still without cell service. We asked the rafters for help but since they were about to head into the river there wasn’t much they could do for us. They suggested we hitch a ride since it tends to be common in the area. Would you believe that the second car that stopped agreed to take all 4 of us plus our bags? We were super excited and thankful. He drove us into town and dropped us off at the gas station.

We found a napa auto parts store and purchased an entire case of transmission fluid. Then we had to jump the next hurdle. We had to find someone to give a ride to our friends back to the car. The hard thing about that was just about no one seemed to be traveling that way. We suggested a small intersection where the road split for them to stand and we stood by until they got a ride. After maybe 20 minutes of trying they got a ride. Turns out the man who offered them a ride was not going in their direction but after he asked what they needed he decided to just take them. How amazing!

There wasn’t much for Walker and I to do but wait so we took a walk around the town and discovered some pretty cool murals. Oh right and then we found a brewery. Thank goodness! We felt a little bad about drinking while our friends were still dealing with the car but there wasn’t anything we could do to help so why not? In about an hour our friends were back. They had filled it with fluid and drove it back to town without a hitch! Phew! The day was saved. We drove back to Portland and we all took a nap because we were exhausted. It was a crazy day. Not at all how we planned it but in it’s own way it was pretty exciting.