Day 3: From Utah to Idaho

The stuff pictured above is what got me through the night. Kate had gone out to a nearby eatery/gift shop the night before and brought back the softest, most friendly-looking stuffed animal she could find. I didn't know anything about Beanie Buddies until later when we added some to our gift shop, but I now know that Beanie Buddies are among the softest of stuffed animals. I looked directly into her (the elephant's) eyes and named her "Olympia." I didn't know where I'd end up on this trip, but we were driving toward the Olympic Peninsula, which is actually in Washington, but it sounded like a good name.

In the morning things looked brighter. I felt better. Walking in the cooler morning air was nice. I walked around the edge of the parking lot, enjoying being on dirt, not pavement, and looking at the mountains (below). When the patrons of the Days Inn had said rudely to Kate, "I hope you go today," it seemed to be a mutual sentiment. Things were definitely looking up. We found a nice trucker who offered to help us out of there, and he clearly knew more about turning a rig like this in an inadequate space than we did. He knew exactly how to turn to make a certain thing happen. We watched somewhat in awe, because it made sense afterwards, but it wasn't what one would have expected. He made it look easy.

Springville was actually kind of pretty. For some reason, mountains are always reassuring to me.

The lovely Days Inn. I must have been getting some of my spirit back, because I enjoyed taking these photos, if only for the memory book.

We drove through Salt Lake City uneventfully, only stopping for gas and probably peanuts, trail mix, and water, or something like that. I took this picture in Idaho. I think these are not roads, but potato patches. I'm not sure. I kept thinking about potatoes as we drove, and thinking the countryside was pretty boring. It looks nice in a single photo like this, but we were getting tiring of driving mile after mile with nothing new to look at. Somewhere in the middle of that long stretch of Idaho - actually while we were stopped at a cafe having a baked Idaho potato - Alex called on the cell phone and ordered something from our (now itinerant) gift shop. All of the stuff was in the back of the truck. He said he'd wait till we arrived in Oregon, which was a good thing.

Go to Day 4, Part 1

Day 2: The Days Inn I will never forget

It was desert, but it was also a bit mountainous. I like that about Utah. But it also seemed endless. I took this photo in the morning. I took very few photos on this first part of the trip. In fact, I only took three today. Kate drove all day. I wasn't feeling that good, and I don't remember much about the morning. Later, we had an incident that almost made me believe in angels.

There weren't too many places to eat. Around lunch time we pulled into a McDonald's that had an extremely high curb. In the heat, I think we were after milk shakes almost more than food. We felt the bump but, tired and not thinking, we didn't inspect the truck. It seemed to be riding OK. And then, as we were cruising down what should have been an uneventful stretch of the seemingly endless highway, we noticed a guy waving and flagging us down. At first we were nervous, thinking he'd been drinking or something, but we noticed he looked sane and was in a uniform. We pulled over. Thank god. The guy, who was in the military, pointed out smoke coming from one of the tires on the trailer. Sure enough, the somewhat flimsy fender had bent at McDonald's and our tire was about to catch fire! Our guardian angel was a perfect gentleman and perfectly calm. He had some tools in the back of his car and bent the fender so it wasn't digging into the tire any more and, making sure everything was safe for the moment, and I think he called a nearby repair place or directed us to a phone book. I don't even remember what we did or what happened. I vaguely remember waiting alongside the road for much longer than the repair people said it was going to take. I was stressed, despite everything I was having fun with Kate, and we were finding reasons to laugh, but I was also starting to feel exhausted and nauseous. It was probably from stress and heat. We were so grateful for our uniformed angel, but the day had clearly been too long already.

We stopped early at the Days Inn in Springville, Utah, and they were very sorry we had picked their hotel. I don't know what we did right off the bat to irritate them, but it got worse fast. Normally I'm a good hotel guest, but once we got settled, I threw up all over the bathroom. I had other manifestations, too, which I won't go into. I was at least in the right location when that happened. Poor Kate! She got a bunch of towels and cleaned everything up, then threw them into the hotel laundry. I could barely stand how I felt. I must have simply been way over-stressed. Kate was taking care of everything and being very upbeat, but - and she'll have to remind me about this, because I can only remember part of the story - she passed out from dehydration. She gets a kind of dehydration that can't be fixed by just drinking water. Frogs. If it gets bad enough she has to rebalance her electrolytes, and we somehow did that. Then she went looking for someting to cheer ME up and a way to feed both of us. A little broth, maybe. Food wasn't sounding very good to me at that point. Meanwhile, the staff at Days Inn was getting a clue that something wasn't right with their guests. "You go soon?" they kept asking her hopefully. Just a little more stress. Um, no, we're staying. They didn't like it that we'd parked a truck that was too unmanageable in their parking lot. Who knew. When we'd arrived, we'd driven straight through under that canopy to the back lot thinking that OF COURSE there was a way out, like a circular drive, but no. And the rig with the car on it wouldn't turn in their parking lot. I'd asked politely at the desk if they could suggest the best way to get the truck and trailer out of there, but they were extremely rude about it, so we parked it and left the problem until later. If I'm remembering correctly, the ball on the hitch got damaged, maybe trying to turn the truck in their lot, and we had to call on a mechanic for the second time that day. Again, it took a long time for anyone to come out. Kate got me settled in the room and then went to deal with the truck. In the "can't we do one more stressful thing" department, I called Marco to let him know we were OK. He'd asked me to. It didn't help that he didn't consider the situation OK at all, and he ordered me to turn around and drive back to Grand Junction so "somebody who knew what they were doing" (he) could do the driving. Are. You. Kidding? I refused. We'd gotten this far. We were going to make it. Go back? No, I don't think so. And somehow women's energy at this point seemed a lot less stressful to deal with than men's. I'm sure he was mainly concerned, but he was just showing me the attitude and macho piggishness I was glad I was leaving behind. In all, it worked out OK. Thank god for friends who can stay calm and laugh, even when you're sick and stuck at the Days Inn being told to "go soon." Kate even told them her friend wasn't feeling well and we might want to spend another night or two. They were not happy about that.

Go to Day 3