Well I left for Sanford, FL Wednesday afternoon at 4 PM.

The trip went well for the first 5 hours. However, things took a turn for the worse 5 hours later.

Somewhere on I-95 in South Carolina we hit a bump in the middle of the freeway. Soon we noticed the van is "smoking up a storm". We quickly pulled over to the side to the rushing sounds of a flame bursting out from under the car.

Everyone piled out of the van. There were two flames...one directly under the engine and one in back about 3 feet away from the van.

My dad grabbed a coat and started beating at it but couldn't get it to die. He finally was able to suffocate it but there was some nail bitting in the meantime.

10 minutes later the police show up. They call a wrecker which takes us, the van, and the trailer to Waltsborough(sp?). It is now 11:00 PM.

The wrecker takes me and my dad to the local ford dealership. We soon figure out that the transmission dumped all of its oil.

Thanksgiving morning we hike from the hotel to the van and put 4 quarts of transmission fluid in. We start the van and start looking for leaks..there are none. So we start driving it around the parking lot...still none!

So..unable to find a leak we drive it to the hotel and put a few more quarts in...still no leak. We then take it for a spin on the highway..still no leak!

So, we cautiously proceed with our trip to florida about 10 AM.

Ever 30 - 50 miles we stopped and checked for signs of leakage, for the most part we only got a few drips. We then put in another court somewhere in Georgia.

Like magic 50 miles later transmission fluid is pouring out from under the car as we pull up to a gas station.

We wait for it to stop check the levels and proceed to florida stopping every 20 minutes.

We arrived in Sanford, Florida about 5:30 pm.

Turns out the transmission burned up.

We had a good time in FL none the less. Visited with friends and family.

Hope you all had less "adventure" on your vacations.

Clif