In case you missed A Job History Part 3

I popped the hood and saw the issue immediately. The fan was broken and sitting against the radiator. After working at a gas station/repair shop for several years in high school, I had absorbed enough car knowledge to know that my water pump was blown. I couldn't drive the car without risking engine failure due to overheating. It had to be towed.

We were in the middle of nowhere. This was 1999 and we didn't have cell phones. I'm a little fuzzy on how we got a tow truck. I reached out to Jim to ask him. I had thought that he drove somewhere to get help. He thought maybe a trucker had stopped to help us. Regardless of how it happened, a tow truck showed up and took me and my broken-down Celica to the nearest town called Ozona, Texas with the purple bug following closely behind. I remember the charge was somewhere around $140.

Ozona was a small town without much going on even on a Saturday. There was a Days Inn, a cafe, an automotive repair shop, a gas station, and a Davey Crockett museum. The tow-truck driver dropped my car off at the repair shop, which looked like it was abandoned. He assured me someone worked there, but they wouldn't be open until Monday.

Jim and I agreed that we wouldn't be back on the road anytime soon, so might as well get a room at the Days Inn. We were both disappointed that our trip was delayed, but Jim was more disappointed than I was. Right before traveling to The Institute, Jim had just gotten engaged to Rachel. This was the longest period of time the two had been apart. They kept in touch with many phone calls while we were in Houston. Jim used to use phone cards to call Rach, and I taped all the used cards to create a "Wall of Shame" in the apartment. I remember when Jim would return to the apartment after a long day, he would walk into the apartment and immediately crane his neck with tunnel vision to the answering machine to see if it was blinking with a message from Rach (no one else was getting any messages.)

It was the middle of the afternoon, and we had no issues getting a room at the Days Inn. The prospect of waiting until Monday to have the car fixed (at the earliest) was not something that sat well with me or Jim. I called my dad to ask for his advice. I explained to him what I saw under the hood. He asked some questions, and then he gave me a very specific list of parts that would be needed to replace the water pump. Even though I did not have much experience working on cars, he assured me I could do it myself. Thankfully, I kept a  toolbox in the trunk for just such an emergency.

Armed with the list of parts, we asked the locals where the nearest auto parts store was. The answer was San Angelo, which was about 1 hour, 20 minutes from Ozona. The locals also asked what kind of car I had. I told them a Toyota Celica, and they dismissed me by saying "If you don't have a truck down in these parts, you're nuthin."

We hopped into the purple bug (Jim was also "nuthin" apparently) and headed to San Angelo. I have a distinct memory that while we were driving to San Angelo, the Check Engine light came on. We were both worried that our one remaining vehicle might also be down for the count. The light actually went off and on intermittently, so we figured it can't be too serious. 

We arrived in San Angelo and found a Checker Auto Parts store along the main drag. Thankfully, they had everything I needed. It was dinner time, and Jim and I found a nice Mexican restaurant to fill our bellies and take our minds off our plight momentarily. We drove back to Ozona, teased along the way by an occasional flash of the Check Engine Light. It was a dark night with only the headlights and the moon guiding us back to Ozona. We settled into semi-comfortable beds at the Days Inn. The plan was to wake up bright and early Sunday morning, replace the water pump and get back on the road.