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Maxine made an awful grinding sound and we pulled over on the side of the road. Now, the side of the road on 287 is a scary place to be, as cars and trucks whip by on this two lane highway at 65-75 mph, not caring at all that we are sitting there being buffeted about as they pass us. We put her in park and put on the emergency brake, but the brakes didn't hold. Jim got out to check the situation, as I slid over and kept my foot on the brake to keep us from moving on down the road. We called AAA and they said they'd let us know when someone could get out there to tow us. They said they would put a call into the police to come keep us safe from the traffic in the meantime. Well, they did call a couple of times in the next few hours to tell us that they were still looking for someone to tow us and that they had put a call into Highway Patrol, but all of the officers were busy on other calls. I finally called 911 to send someone out. To make a long story short, after about 1 hour sitting there with my foot on the brake and lots of prayers that we would make it out of here alive, a wonderful Sheriff's Deputy came to our rescue.
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| Jim and Deputy Harvey Hildreth |
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| Harvey's truck, running interference |
Harvey was our savior. He moved his truck into the highway to divert the traffic around us and stayed with us for the next three hours until we finally got towed out of there. Once he came, Jim could get into Maxine's basement and get out our chocks to put under the tires so that I could finally take my foot off the brake.
We finally got the call from AAA that they had found someone in Greeley who was coming to tow us to Boulder. Dwight from All American Towing showed up about two hours later and began very professionally checking out Maxine from stem to stern for another two hours.
He discovered that the differential housing was cracked and that all the fluid had drained (We had thought that maybe it was the transmission). He determined that it was not safe to tow her to Boulder. That began a search of where, within a few miles, we could tow Maxine. We tried a friend of his, but, he wasn't home and then someone came up with the idea of leaving her at Walmart. We checked it out with the manager and found a nice safe spot under the lights in the parking lot.
Now, we never thought we'd end up in a Walmart parking lot for a night, but it looked like that might be the case until Dwight, bless his heart, said he would drive us to Jason's in Longmont. Thank God for Dwight. We arrived in Longmont at 9:30 (this had happened at 3:15), fell into bed and woke up the next morning to deal with the rest of the ordeal. Dwight would not even accept a tip!
The next morning, we found someone with a flatbed to tow Maxine to Boulder (no easy task, as they finally found someone in Denver). We met him at Walmart and emptied out our laundry, the food, cosmetics, etc., stopped in Longmont to dump this load, and then went to the repair place in Boulder to empty out the rest of our stuff.
To make a long story longer, the end of the story is that we probably hit a rock or something in those last few days and it cracked off the differential housing, causing the fluid to leak out. The differential overheated, seized and shattered. That eliminated the possibility of driving it. The overheating caused the axles to break. This will cost over $5,000 - thank God for State Farm Insurance!!!!!
Four months, 6,500 miles and Maxine was so good to us!!! Within an hour from home, this happens! We feel extremely blessed that, even though this was a royal pain, if it had happened anywhere else, it would have been a disaster. We are anxious to get her back, all patched up and hit the road again.
