Warning to All Onstar Users......

Well, we had a very interesting weekend. We drove up to the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming, to visit a friend of ours. We've had every intention of getting up there, but it has been around 2 years since our last visit....hunting season to be exact. We used to spend every weekend up there when it was just the two of us. Oh, the fun we had. The first thing that I noticed was the kitchen. In the 11 years that we've been up there working on this and that, we have only seen this kitchen take it's shape in the past 3. That HUGE green stove has been there the entire time, but only used once.

Alan still prefers to use this beauty....I love this thing, and did manage to learn to cook on it, although I did not do any cooking on it this weekend.
Now, on to our cheap entertainment....Saturday afternoon, Grady ran out to the car to grab a few movies for the kids to watch. He heard the chime signaling that he had hit the lock button, chose to ignore it and continue with the task at hand....he thought about grabbing the keys so that he could remote start the car on Sunday morning to get it warmed up before we headed home, only to decide that would be pure laziness. He shut the door and headed back into the cabin when he heard it, and darn it, it was just TOO late! Our keys were locked in the car.

Oh well, we'll just go find cell service up the hill aways and call OnStar. But wait, we shut all FOUR of them off on the way in to save battery since there was no service anyway and left them in the car. Nope, Grady brought in his personal one for some odd reason that morning. Good. It's dark out now. Into the Ranger he climbs to head up the road and find service. He calls and they send the signal. I thought that it would be funny to run out, grab the keys, and then relock the car and tell him that it didn't work. I heard the wheeler coming back down the road and ran out only to find that the car wasn't unlocked.

The cell battery had died in mid conversation with OnStar, so he borrowed Alan's bag phone and headed back up. He had to drive up, down, back up a bit, and find a place for service. Called again, and they could not get their wonderful feature to work...NO SIGNAL IN THE MOUNTAINS, so they were to call in a locksmith. Grady told them to wait until morning to send one up, it wasn't that big of a hurry, and with all of the animals (not to mention drunk hunters) on the road, it would be safer. He told them that he would call back in the morning to give directions. There is a locksmith in Worland that had a lot in Canyon Creek, and would know the way. We figured that they would call him and we'd be unlocked and ready to hit the road home by noonish.

Well, Grady followed through with his promise and called back promptly at 9. He drove back up the hill, found service, called, gave directions to the cabin (a chore in itself....remember, we're dealing with OnStar here). Great, someone was on the way and would be there in 47 minutes. How in the world could they tell us that someone would be there in 47 minutes? Was there a locksmith waiting at the turnoff from the highway? We decided to give him a bit longer because we were told the Worland one was not the one coming.

It was beginning to look like we were going to stay another night, so I decided to make sense of what I had left. We were down to 9 diapers. I was worried about it, and voiced my concern. Alan said that if we had to, we'd use dishclothes as cloth diapers and just wash them. Oh, how nice it is to be stranded at "The Shack". You have hot showers, a hot tub, plenty of food, warmth, beds.......oh yah, and now a laundry room too!

After waiting almost 18 hours from the original call, and driving the Ranger up the hill six times only to tell six different people that we were in the mountains, no town was very close, there is not a street address, nor is there any street intersections close by, we don't have cell service at the cabin, we have to drive 10 minutes uphill to find it and we have to make the calls to get it, someone showed up from Buffalo. He had a heck of a time getting there, but made quick work out of the break in. The poor kid got lost somewhere in the direction translation, but managed to make sense of all of the dirt roads and find the place! And the best part? OnStar has the bill!

Moral of this story? No matter how remote those OnStar commercials are, it doesn't work in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming............

so..............don't...........lock.........your...........keys...........in.................your............car!