First thing in the Morning:

This now our roughly seventh conversation with the roadside assistance folks at Budget, they assured us that they would be out there first thing in the morning to look at our complaints. Perhaps as early as 6am. At 10:30 we stumbled outside to greet them and the guy warned us that we shouldn’t have been driving on that other tire….yeah, the one that we wanted replaced 150 miles ago or so. When he pulled off another tire the braking mechanism crumbled to the ground like a kid losing at jacks. But no worries because he said we didn’t really need that brake so replacing it was not necessary. We did score a third new tire however and were on the road by at least 3:30 or something early like that. That night we got to see the meteor shower from the truck and while Dave misses everything, he was able to see a few including the super cool exploding one. Luckily we were able to make it to Ogden Utah because the Cherry festival was in town and that seemed to bring out the best in people. One guy at an Arby’s even offered us a phone book in lieu of the directions he couldn’t give us to find the highway that he works 4 miles from. We tried calling the highway but it was busy intersecting with an onramp …yeah that was bad but I couldn’t help myself. Anyway, who gives you a phone book to find a highway. This was also the town where the pictures disappear from your camera and the hotel rooms are made of glass like a pet store. We solved the picture mystery in time but I still couldn’t tell you why they thought it was a good idea to build puppy displays for hotel rooms. Later that day we arrived in Moab Utah. Fortunately there were no camping spots left and very little in town either. We were offered a tiny triangle that was basically a speed bump on a corner of the racetrack that winds around the perimeter of the campground. We were tempted but thought we might as well just set the alarm clock instead of opting for the Goodyear wake up call.

Westbnd...I Mean Eastbound at last:

When the budget truck rental dude called me to smooth things over after our spat the day before, I knew it was going to be a good trip. The next day found us discovering that even 4 ½ hours at a Public Storage facility while the lights on your trailer are being fixed can be fun and the following day was no different. After more trailer antics we found ourselves in the parking lot of a Home Depot attempting to draw plans to build a ramp that would allow us to drive our car on to the trailer. Yes I realize that usually when you rent a CAR carrier, it should be capable of carrying your car without much hassle, but then again that would have been so blasé. Luckily we had a hunch that a simpler way lurked nearby and that’s when we met Doug the ex-tow truck driver. Doug had everything rigged in about ten minutes despite the messed up equipment we were provided with. He gave us some advice, smiled about his family and sent us packing. Now I know this is the part where we should have hopped on any highway going east, but we had been reassured over and over that we were leaving an excessive amount of time for ourselves to finish this trip…so I needed to say Goodbye to the Pacific and Dave needed to make it’s acquaintance. Later on we communed with the Sea Lions met some people who didn’t like the dumpster we were standing near and headed for Washington. Honestly that’s the quickest way back east! So Eastbound as we were what could slow us down but a rubber spewing smoke belching flat tire. Oh, and yes, we were still in Oregon at this point. We mentioned to the guy that came out from Les Schwaab about the other tire that looked bad but while he agreed it wasn’t good, he was willing to gamble that it might make it to Michigan. Several hours later in Idaho while trapped in the parking lot of a hotel that had no lodging (or parking, hence the trapped part), we learned the finer points of driving a 40’+ truck backwards up a hill with a curve in it surrounded by cars, pillars and a wall. Dave got it within an inch of where we needed to be which was really quite impressive considering I was uselessly giggling at the ridiculousness of the situation and Obie One Kanobi the hotel grave shift worker was full of helpful advice. We stumbled upon a humble man who drives a very small trailer “nothing like this”, but was willing to give that last inch a go and we were free again. Except this time we noticed the awful grating noise it was making was not just a reverse thing but rather the state of our truck. It felt like the wheels were rectangular and not fond of turning. This was when we got a room in beautiful Boise Idaho.