Road Trip Halts in Salt Lake City
September 21th, 2009
The trip was going well. Very well in fact. We spent a few great days in Yellowstone. And on Day 4 of our trip it was time to move on, the goal was to get to Salt Lake City. The day was going swimmingly, we got out of Yellowstone despite the fact that they had the stretch between Norris and Madison closed, forcing us to go from the North entrance all the way around the south side past Old Faithful to get to the West Entrance adding a few hours to the drive.
After that it was easy sailing, we made through Idaho, the new little pop up trailer was pulling fine. It was a windy day and I was glad that we weren't pulling that big 35' fifth wheel. We crossed the Utah line and then onto Salt Lake City. We had made our goal so it was time find a place to call home for the night. Just as we start looking, a horrible grinding noise came up from underneath the truck. The 4x4 started to try to jump out of gear while going 60 mph down the interstate. We immediately grabbed the next exit, found a room, and decided to let it wait till morning.
In the morning, once everyone was open, we took it to a transmission shop. I consider myself a bit mechanically inclined from what I learned from my dad overhauling engines and restoring cars growing up. But we lived in Florida, 4x4s aren't really big because of our lack of hills and snow, they don't prove to be real necessary. So I have zero experience in troubleshooting them. Once we got there and the guy checked it out, he agreed that it was something afoul in the transfer case and it would be $500 plus parts to get her right. So, beaten, we shuffled back to the hotel and re-upped for another night. A few hours later we got a call from our bad-news-delivering mechanic, and keeping with par he then proceeded to give the news that the parts we need are going to cost $600. Making our grand total for this little hiccup $1,100.
That amount of money isn't a drop in the bucket for most of us and was a bit more that we planned for. So to keep it safe, we've decided to cut the trip short and make a straight shot to Florida so that we can start rebuilding our funds.
The original trip was to leave the Black Hills, go West and spend a few days in Yellowstone, go down through Salt Lake City to the Grand Canyon. Then shoot a bit more South through Phoenix, hopping on I-10 across Texas making a quick stop in Austin, to keep moving to walk Bourbon Street in New Orleans with the trip ending in Florida. Sounded like a good trip. But now it looks like we are going to grab I-80 East in Salt Lake and take the fastest route through Kansas City & St Louis, followed by Atlanta then on into Florida.
It can be disappointing when a wrench gets thrown into your plans, in our case, a monkey wrench 5 feet long. But the best that you can do is keep your head up, roll with the punches, keep breathing, and some other feel-better saying would work here as well. The plan now is to press on and cut corners as much as possible to help keep our heads above water. We'll see you on the road.
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