On The Side of The Road...

On our way back from our Vacation, our reliable car croaked... Well at least we thought it was reliable. We have never had any serious problems with it. Really come to think of it in the six years I've owned the car, we have only had an oil leak and had to replace the timing belt other than the regular maintenance. It started to make a funny clicking noise, so we pulled out to the next gas station and checked all of the fluid levels. The oil was low, so we filled 'er up. The other fluids were fine. After filling the oil, we gassed up and started to head out again... With in twenty miles of the car first making the noise, it completely died. We had our two boys with us, luckily we had plenty of food and drinks in the car... We tried to get road side assistance with our insurance, but they said that it would take four hours or more for a tow truck to get there. We tried to drive a little further, to the next closest town. We made it about two exits before it died completely. These were not exits to a town with a hotel. We couldn't all fit in a tow truck, so what were we to do? We tried to find a rental car place, but the closest one was in SeaTac, WA which by the time they would have arrived it would have been morning. I wouldn't have been as stressed out at this point if we wouldn't have had the kids with us. I really didn't want to sit on the side of I-82 with my boys. Cars were just zooming by. It was kind of scary... So as a last resort, we called 911. How embarrassing! A state trooper picked us up (no car seats, there wasn't room). We held the boys on our laps in the back of the car. He took us to the nearest town and we stayed at the Comfort Inn in Zillah, WA. Meanwhile our car sits in Sunny side, WA waiting repairs... It was the engine block that cracked. The funny thing is the temp. gage never went up until after we completely stopped... Who would have thought? The next morning we were able to get a rent a car and have the car towed. We were on our way. We made it home safely... What to do next?