Underground and Overheated!

Well, this morning we started out okay with a million senior citizens grabbing breakfast at the beautiful Holiday Inn Express located a mere 40 minutes outside Carlsbad Caverns. I thought, "Wow- we better get to the place fast or we will have to wait in line with everyone else" but then again, we were on the "strenuous" tour and I doubt women in walkers would tackle me for position. Seriously, when we got to the site, there was barely anyone there which is kind of great since there are no lines.
I went here 31 years ago after I saw a story on Carlsbad Caverns on the Frosted Mini-Wheats Cereal box and proclaimed to my parents that THAT was where we had to go on our next vacation. Believe it or not, my parents actually set up a trip that included Carlsbad Caverns, Painted Desert, Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest and White Sands. So here I am 31 years later dragging my claustrophobic husband to the greatest caverns in the world!
We did a specific tour where you used candlelit lanterns so you could see what it was like for the 1890's tourists. Our guide was so passionate about the caverns which made the tour even more interesting. Put it this way, Bob even agreed to walk the mile and a half self-guided tour after the special tour because this place is beyond belief. This is a man that I had to promise sex to to get him to go into California Caverns outside Sonora!
Okay, so now we are finished and are starting our 7 hour ride to Austin, Within one hour, we stopped at the Flying J Restaurant/Gas Station in Pecos, Texas (top 100 of 2008) and had an amazing lunch of "All-You-Can-Eat" salad bar of lettuce, green peppers, and Thousand Island dressing - and that was the extent of it. Starting the car, we heard a "WHOOOSH" with white steam blowing up from the hood. Not good! If you were anywhere near us, you would have thought we were going to kill each other! I am not good under stress and Bob hates asking for assistance!
Keeping that in mind, I asked the front desk at the Flying J where to go with a f*ucked up Infiniti and we were provided directions to the Chevrolet dealership (only dealership in town- Buy American!). They looked at Bob and said, "We don't do imports but there is one guy in town that might." So we drive there. He tells us he is booked for two weeks straight but it is the A/C so, it will be uncomfortable, but you can drive it. So off we go to Austin, calling the Infiniti dealer that we just paid $1100 to last week to fix the A/C before we left and he arranged for the Austin dealer to fix it tomorrow morning.
We just got here at 9:30 PM looking like two wind-blown rats- matted hair and stinky, sweaty white trash. Pray that tomorrow is a good day!