Hot as Balzac

Why did people settle in Texas? I guess I can understand the idea of lots of land, good grazing, beautiful scenery (like the Hill Country). But dangit, why didn't they leave come July or August???

So thanks to the inordinate amount of Texas heat, my car is in the garage (for the second time in a week). This time he's getting a new radiator. Let me tell you how fun it was to pull into a parking spot Tuesday evening about 6:30, get out of the car, and hear this sound like flowing water. Yes, by Jove, it was all the coolant being purged from my reserve tank. Glad there weren't any cats or dogs around. I could've been blamed with the death of many poisoned animals. After everything cooled off, we checked the radiator, and it looked like there was still fluid in there. I hoped for the best and decided to head home (granted at this point it was about 11pm--much cooler right?). By the time I got to my friend's house to drop her off (maybe ten minutes of driving), the temperature guage started rising--fast! Well, I pulled into her driveway, popped the hood, and was blasted by heat. Not a good thing. We went inside, got some large cups of water, and poured them onto the radiator and reserve tank caps to hasten the cooling. When I finally could get the caps off without burning off my eyebrows, I noted that I was pretty much out of all fluid. Coolant, water, everything--gone. Off to the store for coolant! I was quite surprized that the first place we went had coolant. I got the kind that had to be diluted (that "premixed" stuff makes me nervous--what if it is too dilute, too concentrated?), went back, diluted it by half with water, and added it to the reserve tank. It was hard to see into the radiator, so I added the little bit that was left over to it. When I finally got home at almost 1am, I was tired and sweaty. If your car is overheating, you help it out by not running the a/c. Well, when I passed a TxDOT sign at 12:45am, it said the temp was still 96 degrees. UGH!!!

All the fluids got topped off first thing in the morning, and I made it about 50 miles in the heat of the day with no problems. Things were going quite well. I stopped off at the house for about 15 minutes to change for dinner with friends, then left and drove another 10 minutes. Wouldn't you know that after that short jaunt, the whole coolant boiling over incident happened again. Double damn! At least this time, I was carrying pre-mixed coolant in the car with me. Topped everything off again and waited to call the garage this morning. Stupid Texas heat.

Now the boy is fixed to the tune of about $500. Whoa. I guess that's what credit cards are for (unfortunately). If anyone has any odd jobs, I'm taking suggestions. Monetary donations are also being accepted.