weekend of destruction

May 23 2004

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We felt like escaping the dull cold weather and drive south to Marianske Lazne over the weekend. It’s been a marvelous day. We went for a littlebit of hinking, visited a nice peaty moor site at Sadska and a Stinky trail (with a nice smelly CO2 exhallation pond) and then comming back to the town promenade.

After having a nice panini and a coffee we went back north with a plan to stop by at Cerny Most for Kill Bill 2. Unfortunately it became Kill Peugeot 206 almost 200m away from the cinema place. Something has been making funny noises occasionally for the past few months and while I had a theory about a fan in the cooler, it was ditched by two technicians at the local Peogeot service shop. Supposedly it was just some loose part after the recent crash that was resonating thanks to aerodynamics. Fair enough. Well after the noise started again this time I didn’t bother checking the temperature since it was doing this very regularly lately and became an attribute of the vehicle.

And suddenly, at 130km/h poof the engine stopped, making a high pitched sound, all the controls lit up a nasty STOP! sign shining into my face. Stopped the a pretty ridiculous spot, but before even laying down the emergency triangle a nice woman already offering help and towing us to the nearest gas station (about a km away).

So ok, the cooler wasn’t working, been there, done that. Bought some distilled water and waited for it to cool down. But I was a little worried about the engine stopping. After realising the cooler or the rubber pipes are broken (that’s some pressure, boy!), since the water leaked, an engine start failure (only the starter doing its job) a slight panic made me call up a friend to pick us up. It’s s great to have friends to pick you up 100km away at 11:30. Leos, you’re our hero! ;)

Luckily my sister’s boyfriend’s has a car repair shop in Prague which made it an obvious place to have it serviced. I’m still crssing my fingers they will be able to put it back together since they only do mazdas. I still have no idea about the damage I managed to do.

Finally arriving home at about 2AM I smashed my backback on the floor only realising later that I had my f717 camera in. Looks like the LCD at the back and in the viewfinder have colored ghosts making it really hard to work with. Although the damage on the car looks like way way more expensive than on the cam, I felt more sorry about the camera.

For some reason I don’t feel depressed now. Must be the good food I’m having all the time ;)