The Death of a Hero, the Birth of a Monster

Last night the Jeep was not dead, but certainly it was in critical condition, and struggling on much like the guy you occasionally on TLC with the knife in his head. So many problems. Overheating. Not shifting properly. Then something shit out that made the battery stop recharging. I realized this at about 11 last night as we left a town called Big Timber, and I had to U-turn and rush back. We found a room in this crappy hotel called River Valley Inn (where the river was, who knows) and were checked in by an old lady with pink-tinted glasses. Amazingly, even that strange little hotel had wifi, but I was to tired and concerned to post anything.

But there was some light to the tunnel - the Inn, as it turned out, was directly next to a Uhaul place. So we woke up at 7 and went over to find out if we could get a truck and tow the Jeep. Which they didn't have - but the guy was nice enough to charge up the battery so that we could get to the next town, which had a larger Uhaul place. We were set up for a 17' truck, pretty big, but whatever.

But go big or go home, right? We arrive and find out that they already promised the 17 footer to someone else, so they hook us up (for the same price) with a 24 foot super-mover. I mean, the thing is almost a semi-truck. And so much room inside we didn't have to stack a single thing, plus we put the bikes in. Then we hooked the Jeep up to the tow dolly and hit the road with our fatass truck.

Of course we couldn't get going without on more thing going wrong - one of the fenders on the tow dolly was broken and flapping around, so we went to a Uhaul place to get it repaired real quick (it's just a piece of plastic). Unfortunately the mechanic who did the job is a complete and total idiot who is unable to even properly deal with pieces of plastic, because as soon as we left the Uhaul place the part of the fender containing the light came right off. Yea, bolting things down is HARD. But I didn't care at that point. We duct-taped what we could and drove on.

It's actually a lot of fun to drive, except for being horribly bumpy. But it's nice to be able to look the truckers in the eyes for once, although I can't help but believe that they think Uhaul trucks are nothing but impostors, manned by civilians, of all things!

The fatass truck hauled us through the mountains, which were beautiful. Now we're in Washington, at a place call Ritzville which consists of three hotels and a McDoanlds. The best western we're at is actually pretty plush for a interstate hotel, big fridge, microwave, pool+sauna, and really big continental breakfast complete with waffle maker.

Tomorrow, to Portland! Finally.