There is something about a road trip that requires a breakdown of some sort. Call it fate, call it the law of narrative causality, call it "just plain weird", but whenever a road trip is embarked upon it is inevitable that your vehicle will have trouble. In my case it came early, 350 miles into my 750 mile day. Climbing over the last pass out of Oregon on I-84 my check engine light started flashing and I lost a major portion of my power. Power. That is a relative term when talking about a 15 year old Saturn with 150K miles and in desperate need of a ring-job, but none-the-less, power is still the right word.
I was close to Ontario, Oregon so I didn't stop or pull over, and just kept going. I broke several driving rules, both real and of the common sense variety, and started checking the interwebs on my phone to see what the possible causes could be. Low oil pressure? Cylinder mis-fire? I was spoiled for choice. Either way, I located an auto parts store in Ontario that was open and limped in to get the code checked on the engine. Lo and behold, it was a mis-fire. #3 to be exact.
Turns out I had a bad spark plug wire but the Auto Zone didn't have any in stock. Did my helpful clerk send me on my way to fend for myself? NO! He called the O'Reilly just up the street, found they had the parts, and got them to price match! This was fantastic service and I highly recommend these folks if you need parts. I then limped my ailing car a few more blocks and went into the O'Reilly's to get my wires. Again I was greeted with fantastic service! Not only did they already have the parts on the counter, they didn't question a thing and rang me up at the lower price with a smile and an offer to help if I needed it.
Let me be clear folks, that is two competing businesses that were willing to work closely together for no other reason than I needed a part to hopefully be able to keep going on my way to D.C.! The staff at both stores were amazing and I have nothing but high praise for their work.
Oh yeah, the part worked and I was able to keep going.
Unfortunately I lost all faith in my old Saturn to make it further than Salt Lake City. I planned ahead though, and had brought the pink slip with me to donate the car when I got to D.C. Turns out I will be donating it, or selling it for salvage, 2000 miles earlier than planned. I will be getting a rental car to take me the rest of the way and my mileage and per diem should cover most of that. Good thing I am staying with friends and family for the whole way. :)
Sheepdogs!
I am staying in SLC an extra night to spend time with my mother and brother, and I was asked if I would like to spend part of the day at the Sheepdog Trials in Soldier Hollow, UT. With no other responsibilities than getting to D.C. I said yes and we drove up this morning to see what was going on. I tell you what, I was not expecting to see that many people out to watch dogs herd sheep, but the stands were packed and it was really quite amazing to watch. These dogs are very well trained and their owners send whistle signals to them to tell them which way to go, when to stop, and when to run. The field of play is several acres of hillside that were part of the Cross Country skiing course in the 2002 Winter Olympics and the dogs have to find two separate herds of sheep, bring them through a set of fences, then run both herds together through two more fences, followed by separating them out and getting five into a corral. Truly amazing work. On top of that there was great food and dogs that were competing in dock diving, so a great time was had by all. Additionally, there was a documentary being filmed about sheepdogs so I may just be in the movie!
Tomorrow begins the longest stretch of my trip, 1200 miles, so we will have to see how that goes.
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