A Great Meal and a Broken Pony! Happy Birthday!

We spent Saturday night out on the town in Celebration of Mom Latham's birthday. We had big plans for the night. . . Mom has always loved Ford Mustangs, so we talked to a dealer and set up a test drive. They do not sell a lot of these cars in the winter. (they are rear wheel drive and we are in Salt Lake). So the dealer was gun hoe. We chose the most beautiful car on the lot, a hot red number with a glass roof, hood scoop, and a sweet spoiler. The test drive was a ride to never be forgotten. . . I will tell you about it in a minute. We went to dinner first though.

Mom has always wanted to go the Roof Restaurant downtown near Temple Square in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. It was a gourmet buffet beyond compare, with breathtaking views and a very calm little Emma. . . by the grace of God alone. The above picture was taken just outside the Roof after dinner. Awesome. It was the best place in Utah to eat with world class deserts that Matt almost single handily at all of.


So back to our test drive. Mom had no clue about the car thing, or she never would have let us do it. We arrived and she was a good sport though, and chose the car she would want. Well the dealer brought us the keys and the engine was dead. "It has been sitting for a long time because of the snow" seemed like a good reason for that. We headed out and let me tell you this car was beautiful on the interior as well. Mom noticed the "check engine light is on" about a block into our trip. dealer . . ."oh um, well it is most likely from the dead battery" "I will shut it off once we get back" So we didn't think to much about it, and got on the freeway. The car beeps at us concerning low fuel. . .Mom says "the fuel light is on" dealer says "oh really well just push the info button and see how far we can go. . . so I push the button and it says zero miles. Dealer says oh bummer we better get back fast exit here, we are a little over a mile away by now. So we exit and get back on the freeway and sure enough we start to sputter run out of gas while exiting by the dealership. At this point the guys says "shift into neutral and don't stop to hard it will slosh the gas away from the tank" We all sat there and wondered why we had to have this lesson on how to run out of gas from this guy, but then it gets better. . . as we stop mom notices the the car is running really hot. . . mom says "I think it is overheating" dealer "no it's not" mom "the gauge says so" dealer "you must be reading the wrong gauge" mom "this is not my first car and I can read a gauge, H for Hot C for Cold!" dealer "silence". So at this point we are half a block away and need to go through one more light making a left turn, as we approach the light it starts to starts to turn red and mom thinks she needs to go right instead of left. . . As we approach the intersection the dealer "turn here, NO not right LEFT, GO THROUGH THIS LIGHT" mom "what oh oh oh". . . So mom ends up half way through in intersection and the car kills (it was a stick). Traffic is coming and we fire it up, as smoke pours out of the new shinny hood from the overheating issue. Dealer . . . "silence". Mom makes a turn into the dealership and parks right away. We make awkward goodbyes and he gives us silly excuses and we drive off laughing. Not a way to sell cars. Still a funny story.