Killing the Car

I had a bit of an adventure on the way to Lynchburg, VA on Wednesday.  I flew into Indiana on Tuesday in order to pick up a donated car that our company had found for me to be able to drive for the time I was in the States.  During the few hours I drove it before starting off on my trip across the country, it seemed to be working okay. 

As I was driving through the mountains of West Virginia, I was surprised to notice smoke trailing behind my car.  We stopped and looked for the origin of the smoke.  I also checked the oil level, which was normal.  That pretty much exhausted my knowledge of why a car would smoke.  After being there a while the State Trooper dropped by and helped us to get in touch with a tow truck.  The truck was going to take 45 minutes to get there and would have had to tow us about 20 miles.  The trooper left and another nice man came by.  In the meantime I had tried starting the car and it didn't even like doing that.  When the man came by he looked at the engine and then suggested I try starting the car again.  It started with no problem.  He suggested we try driving it again for a little while with him driving right behind us in case we had other problems.

We were able to drive the car for about 16 miles (2 miles short of the exit we needed to get to) before it started smoking again.  After pulling over, we noticed a puddle under our engine of a substance that turned out to be oil.  At this point, we figured that we probably weren't going to be going anywhere anytime soon. 

So, we waited for a tow truck that the nice man helped us to call.  Three or four people stopped to check on us as we waited.  The tow truck took us to the nearest mechanic and he thought that the car would probably not be worth fixing, due to the expense of the repair and how old the car was. 

Since there were no car rentals available in the small town we were in, someone from Lynchburg drove the three hours to pick us up.  I am now in the process of looking into other options for a car to drive until the end of May.  I have been in touch with an organization that specializes in long-term car rentals and that looks like a fairly good option.  I will try to finalize things next week. 

I am very grateful that we are safe and that everything this week related to transportation has worked out.  I have had a very nice time in Lynchburg.  It has been good to see friends who have visited us in Kazakhstan.  A friend will be driving me to Richmond tomorrow.