Roadtrip ’99 part 9: Car Trouble in Utah
Welcome to my travel memoir. I’m publishing a chapter at a time as I write about how I traveled the world as a solo woman traveler, reaching all 7 continents by the time I was 27. If you would like to start at the beginning go here but really, read what you enjoy. Thanks for stopping by.
I picked up my Bug from the garage on Friday, the oil change and valve adjustment complete. It was time to leave Idaho.
I had begun my trip West from Minnesota with Boise, Idaho as one of two destinations that had an “arrive by” date already set. The other destination was Tyler, Texas. That is the general direction I headed when I left Parma. I needed to be there by September 11 for Feast of Trumpets, a Holy Day. I was going to keep it with an ex-church friend and her family.
Leaving Parma is a haze. There was nothing special to do, no turns to make or exits to find. I just pulled out of the campground I had been at and drove on down the road. On the map, Parma was one more pit stop on my trip but on my spiritual journey this was a pivotal turn towards new possibility. I had achieved something impossible. I had done the most wild and crazy thing I could think of. I had moved items from the list of “never gonna happen” to the list of “done that”. From now until I die I will always be able to say that I jumped out of an airplane and I guess I am free to name drop Weird Al as well. I continued on my way, on to the next state, still an unassuming 20 year old Midwestern girl.
I mapped out my route, heading Southeast. Sabbath was coming. I even broke one of my rules and got on the interstate for a short bit to try to make time. The thing about Bugs though, it doesn’t really matter how fast the roads allow you to go if your car doesn’t get up to speed. I tootled along at 60 mph until traffic bogged me down and I probably did not save much time at all. I did have the experience of heavy weekend traffic though, crawling along. It was hot. I had the windows down. I could smell the exhaust of the other idling cars. I listened to my puttering engine echo against the sides of the other vehicles, the noise of that engine distinct from the typical idle of the other more modern cars. Then I heard a loud *pop* from the back of my Bug and suddenly my engine didn’t sound like it was running right any more. At least it kept running, right? But the sound was off, almost louder.
I took the next exit, I was on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, Utah. I stopped and I called John from a payphone, that’s the mechanic that had adjusted the valves. He had given me his phone number for this purpose. I tried to describe what had happened. He said I might have blown a gasket. I walked to the back of my car and looked at the engine. Is it still called the hood if the engine is in the rear? I looked at the engine while it ran. I listened to it run different, willing myself to see something that looked wrong but I knew almost nothing about cars.
So, young people, This is how I did a search for a garage that serviced Volkswagons, in the old days before internet:
- Stop and ask
- Drive in direction of advice
- Repeat till hope is lost or answer is found
I pulled in and asked at a gas station for advice. The attendant barely spoke English, and he didn’t know anything about the area. He directed me down a road of car dealerships. I drove off in the direction of a fingerpoint but I didn’t find a Volkswagon dealer. I stopped at another gas station and it was another attendant that barely knew the area and directed me back down the road of dealerships. I felt out of place in my 21 year old car among all the shiny new things. I had always understood gas stations to be like the General Store of the small town, the information hub. These gas stations were no help and I didn’t happen to pass any general mechanics. I suppose an area showcasing new cars is not their target market.
Closing time was approaching on a Friday. Out of desperation I pulled into a Porsche dealership. Those cars are little, the engines are in the back, they are foreign, I was fairly certain they were also a German company. Bugs are not so different, right? The garage was open and a mechanic in a lab coat gave me directions for someone that works on Volkswagons. I drove off and got lost once again. I never did find what he was talking about. It was about 4:30. I found my way back to the Porsche dealership. The garage door was still open. I pulled into the driveway and the same guy came out to greet me again. My memory is putting a bow tie on him but I doubt that’s true. He seemed like such a fancy mechanic in his lab coat. I wanted him to be my Q. He would fit the part well, tall with a barrel chest and the long stern face of a butler. I apologized and explained my frustration in finding anyone else. I had my hair down and wild again. I willed the curls to be my ESP antennae to send out whatever influential rays that would entice a man to help a damsel in distress. I concentrated on keeping my voice from sounding shrill and whiny. I was worried about my dear little Bug and the weekend was fast approaching. If I didn’t find help before Sabbath I wouldn’t get it looked at on Saturday and then Sunday everything would be closed. I would lose 2 days on the road and my expenses would literally be eaten up in food.
The mechanic had been wiping his hands with a rag. He tilted his head towards the engine that I had left idling. He gave a slow sigh as I came to the end of my enthusiastic story of adventure and desperation. His sigh did not quite sound like exasperation. “Well…” he said. I held my breath watching his demeanor slide from deflection into problem solving. “It sounds like there’s a misfire.” This sounded better than a blown gasket — until he continued,“The loud pop could have been a sparkplug that blew out but if that’s the case it will have stripped the threads and you’ll have to re-bore the hole…” He knelt down and jiggled some spark plug wires. I turned off my car. “You’d have to make an appointment and pull the engine.” He reached farther back and pulled out a loose spark plug wire with a sparkplug still plugged into it.
“Unless…” He said to the sparkplug as he eyeballed the threads. “…you got real lucky.” And then he stretched far forward, his arm disappearing behind the engine and screwed the plug back into place without a fuss. He got a ratchet and tested the tightness of all the plugs. They were all on the verge of popping out. Whoever had done the tune-up in Minnesota hadn’t properly tightened down the plugs.
My car was just fine. It was back to it’s happy puttering idle. I thanked him profusely, resisted giving him a big hug and zipped off to find my Sabbath dwelling for the night. I excitedly gushed my praises and gratitude to God into the windshield. Would you count that as a travel miracle?
I didn’t want to mess with heavy traffic or driving with the sun going down. I was done feverishly hunting for anything. I meandered Salt Lake City. I looked for a park. I picked something easy. I probably asked at a gas station again. All I remember is there was no thought in it. I found trees and an empty lot to park in.
This is the only time I have ever attempted to sleep in my Bug. I curled up across the two front seats, padding around the stick shift. I was all covered up and the doors locked. It was my minimal attempt at safety. I even slept, until late in the night I heard a car pull up and some talkative teens get out. I debated meeting the locals. I could hear girls, so I felt safer but I remained still. Soon I could hear them gathered around admiring my totally awesome car (not their exact words). Then someone jiggled the passenger door handle. Do I stay still while they try to break into my car? I decided to get up. Maybe this would at least teach them to be less nosey.
I crawled out from under my pile in the front seat and shocked them all when they realized that this car was occupied. We made some introductions then I hung out and visited for a bit. I’m not sure what they were looking for but they had a short attention span. Soon they were off to rendezvous on some other adventure but guess what, they pointed out a nearby cabin before they left. This park had a historical log cabin, an unlocked cabin. A cabin that the kids often slept in. I grabbed my sleeping bag, locked my bug back up, and set out to camp in the cabin. I had barely settled in up in the loft when another teenager poked his head in from the loft floor. It was Dyllin.
Dyllin told me that his parents had gone away for the weekend. Their solution was to lock him out of the house and leave him with $50 because he “couldn’t be trusted home alone”. So it was Friday night and he had already spent all his money on drugs and had come here to crash for the night.
What Dyllin didn’t expect was a random young woman sleeping alone in a cabin in an empty park. I was instantly concerned about where Dyllin thought this night was headed. He was an eager and enthusiastic young man. Not much for being subtle. His side of the conversation went something like this: “ Do you have a boyfriend? No? Can we have sex then? Why not? I’m a cool guy. I’d like sex. You’re good looking. Sex?” Confession: I never did master assertiveness in this kind of conversation. I still don’t feel like I have a proper response. No, instead, I pulled the virgin card. Poor judgement on my part. The reaction I was hoping for was a hasty retreat from the “wierdo church girl” but instead I seemed to have presented him with the ultimate debate challenge, that if he just talked enough, eventually he would say the right thing that would change my entire belief system and then sex would be the prize. My rebuttal was to nosedive hard into religion with the hopes that talks about an all-seeing and all-knowing God would dampen the mood. We talked Bible and family upbringing and life choices. I was endlessly patient about deflecting The Other subject.
I assumed Dyllin was high on something since the first thing I had learned about him was that he had bought $50 worth of drugs that day and that it was around 3 in the morning and he seemed wide awake and talkative but I had no experience in the area of identifying drug use. You would think that as an artist and attending an arts high school that I would have been exposed to all that. But I’m pretty good at staying oblivious. Yeah, I heard of kids getting in trouble for drug possession. The brightest, happiest girl I knew got sent to rehab by her parents. My first and only encounter with pot and a drug of any kind up till now, had happened just off campus at the arts high school with a Native American classmate, who came down from a reservation way up in Northern Minnesota. He never talked to me or anyone in class but he invited me along to see the train tracks one night. We sat against some cement wall and he lit up what I now know is a bowl. He was this quiet kid with a squinty smile, long black hair, wearing a motorcycle jacket with wide lapels and all sorts of zippers. He only ever wore black. His art looked like heavy metal album covers but his laugh was a whispered giggle which is pretty much the only way he communicated. His name…was Beaming Sunshine. Ok, I’ve changed his name for my book but you’ll have to trust me that it was ironic.
When he dug out the glass contraption and went through the troubles of lighting what was already packed in it I wondered if I was about to witness a Jeckle and Hyde transformation and get murdered beside the train tracks. That was my entire adolescent “experience with drugs”.
Dyllin and I talked till 7:00 am. He remained on the far side of the cabin, coming to snuggle against my sleeping bag briefly but went back to his spot the moment I protested. I was quite impressed and grateful for the space he gave me. I let him take my sleeping bag and I used a different blanket. I’m a country girl. I’ve slept in barns and in hay bail forts throughout my childhood. I doubt this city boy was used to roughing it.
I spent the whole next day with Dyllin. We went to a grocery store where I watched while his cashier friend slid his food across the scanner and into a bag without ringing it up. He showed me a nearby waterfall and trails out of town, we met up with his friends and went driving in their clunky square car. “They smoked a lot” is the note in my calendar about this day. If it was pot they were smoking this is before I knew the difference. What I do know is that they took turns dropping acid onto their eyeball while I wondered about how sanitary that is.
I ended my visit in Salt Lake City by going to Taco Bell where Dyllin used to work. The employees were Dyllin’s friends, he was looking to get free food. But we were interrupted by a kid coming into the restaurant with blood pouring down his face.
When we had pulled into the parking lot we had seen kids playing on the grassy median. It looked like they were throwing rocks back and forth at each other. It turns out that’s exactly what they were doing. One of them was hit in the head by a miss-throw. Literally, could they not see this coming? With his head split open, his solution was to come into the fastfood joint dripping blood everywhere and stand at the cash register asking for help. Napkins and pressure were applied, the manager had the kid’s friend lead him back outside to bleed on the curb while help was called. The cops came. The fire trucks came. The ambulance came. Statements had to be made, hazmat gear had to clean up blood. It was well after closing before everything got sorted.
The Taco Bell workers had stopped to watch everything. The manager offered Dyllin and I free food to help make a speedy closing. The workers showed me their favorite combo, making a burrito and then frying the whole thing. I stood around a Taco Bell kitchen giving thanks that I didn’t work in fast food, and for free food. I thought Salt Lake City was run by Mormons but all I found was the teenage drug users, shoplifters, meddling teens with apparently no curfew, kids with no foresight, and Taco Bell. My big spiritual cross-country pilgrimage, finding spiritual wilderness retreats by accident, visiting remote communities that don’t interact with modern technology, and then coming to a religious mecca and only talking about God to a horny teenager trying to get laid was my idea of perfect irony.
Next. part 10: It’s the last chapter ya’ll!!! I’m almost done with my road trip story — but this is only the beginning of my world travels. Can you believe it? There is not much more for drama and high jinx on this trip. I sleep on a gopher hole. If you’ve made it this far you might as well follow the route from Utah to Minnesota, with a pit-stop in Texas.