The day started off good. We headed for the country roads and drove about a half hour. Then I heard a slapping noise under the hood. I knew immediately what it was. I thought that is the supercharger belt. I pulled over and sure enough it was. One of the ribs was separating. So I cut the little strip of the belt off that was hitting the hood. We drove a very short distance and the next section started to come off. This happened 5 or 6 times before the entire 4th rib came off. Once it was off I thought good, it's done and I know it will run fine on 3 ribs and I have done this before. Well it didn't take very long before the 3rd rib started to come off. So I cut the little bit of it off, drove to the next drive before more started to separate and decided to just cut the belt off.

After I cut it, I didn't have air, boost, or power steering. The car ran fine, but was a little tough to steer. We drove to a town to eat. While getting out of the car I saw a Car Quest across the street. We thought we will go check to see if they had a belt after we ate. I wasn't to hope full as I always have to special order it from the NAPA in town, but I figured I had nothing to lose. We checked and they did. We thought cool, we have it fixed. So we went out and I tried to install the belt. It was tough, and as I was working on it, one of the guys from the store came out and helped me. They loaned me tools to install the belt since I was right out their front door. He helped pull the belt on the pulley as I turned the supercharger to ride it onto the pulley. It took several tries, but we finally got it.

He even gave us directions to some twisty roads on the way to Maramac Caverns. We took the roads, and they were twisty :) We finally made it to the caverns and took the cave tour (1:20 tour) and enjoyed it. I got a couple of shots. There isn't much to say about most of them, they're just the best cave shots I could get.

Stalactites meeting the water.

 A huge mass of Stalagmites.
This was where the floor met the ceiling and it looked pretty cool.
Here is another little nook where the floor & ceiling meet. This one I took using their light.

 Same photo as the one to the left, but this one I used a flash.
See text to the left.
This was really cool. There where little knobs all over. The shot to the right is the same wall, just scanning to the right.
This was from the same room as the two shots above, except I turned 180 degrees to take the shot. This is the only 3 legged stalagmite. It does have a crutch, but it's old, so what ya gonna do?

 I got Pat in this one for some perspective on the size of these things.
This was one of the last rooms we got to see. This thing was huge. You can see the peoples heads in front of it. When a person stood in front of it they would be less than half as tall as the wall.
This is the same room, just panned to the extreme left.
Same spot as the shot above, but with a flag projected on it. It is to be in honor of all who served for the country.
I believe this was behind the wall in the shot to the left and the two above.
One last shot on the way out :)

After we left, we headed for more small roads. We were going to go South. As we were driving I saw something that looked like I hit a big bug, or a goose dropping of the hood. There was stuff running up the hood and everything. We thought, yuk, but better there than about 4 feet further back the car :) So before we headed out to the country, we thought we would stop and get gas and drinks. While filling up, the guy at the car next to me said to the people with him he was going to check under the hood as he could smell something. I didn't think anything of it as I could not smell it. So we finished getting gas and went in to get drinks.

We continued to drive and then all of a sudden the car started to ping, and ping allot. I could not believe how much it was pinging. So I checked the gauges, and the Water Temp gauge was off the scale Hot. I pulled over immediately. I looked under the hood, and the crap running up the hood was radiator fluid. It was steaming out from under the hood. I looked and thought the belt that was coming apart must have weekend a small hose. Then, after more driving, it failed as the heat rose.

So, tonight we are stranded in a hotel. Gladly this happened in a town with a motel and a Car Quest. Tomorrow morning we are getting up early to walk down to the Car Quest. They open at 8:00. Only thing is the news just said it should start raining in the morning. I don't really want to walk 2 or 3 blocks in the rain. At least we will be able to work on the car under cover. There is an overhang all the way around the building for semi protected parking. You can see a photo tomorrow.

Pat went out to retrieve something from the car and met up with a couple (Ann and Ron) walking their dog. They told her they were stranded at the motel also. Their '91 Jeep Cherokee broke down on their way home from a class reunion. The water pump had gone out and they had to be towed 10 miles into town by Miles Towing. We'll ask tomorrow to see how things are going with them as we work on ours.


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