Ouch, you didn’t even make it to warm weather. If you broke down an hour from Myrtle Beach it would have been a fun experience, but WV just…sucks. My thermostat went on the way home from Myrtle Beach. There was a conveniently located rest stop, I let the car cool down, and I made it to small town NC. Fixed it in an Autozone parking lot the next morning, and drove the rest of the way. If it had been something worse, I would have been fucked.
Oh, and a Taurus eating it’s transmission? Who could have predicted that?