In which the jeep shit the bed.

Tuesday, I got the jeep from the mechanic for a mere $500 (*gag*) and was on the road by two. I drove 460 miles or so to Burley, Idaho – the jeep drove perfectly the whole day – and on the third try I finally found a motel with a vacancy. By 11:30, the dog and I were passed out.

The next morning, the thing wouldn’t start. Same symptoms as before: it would try to turn over, but didn’t seem to be getting any fuel.

I pulled out my cell phone, booted up the Google Maps application I’d downloaded a couple of weeks ago, and found a nearby parts store. I had them deliver a fuel pump relay to me in the motel parking lot. You know, just in case. What the hell.

The new relay didn’t help. I put the old one back in, and mysteriously, the engine coughed and sputtered and finally lit up. It squealed like talons on a blackboard for awhile, but eventually the belt settled down and all was a go.

People call Chicago the windy city, but lemmie tell you what: driving I-84 into Boise is in-fucking-SANE. Driving straight up a steep grade with a brutal head wind SUCKS, and I’m not even mentioning what it does to your gas mileage. I tried to stop for food in Boise because I was starving, but the exit I took had nothing I wanted to eat so I only got gas. The interstate through there is under intense construction, so I didn’t bother with any of the other exists.

Soon we were in Oregon. We stopped in Baker City for gas and lunch – I got to eat at my favorite left-coast junk food chain, Taco Time. When I got back on the interstate, the jeep starting dying every so often. It was acting like it was full of bad gas, because it would choke and cough, and if I pulled over and let it sputter for a bit it would even out and I could drive again for another ten miles or so. But… coming down off of the Blue Mountains, there’s a stretch of 6% down grade. The jeep died, but since the key was in the ON position I had steering and brakes, and I just coasted at 60 MPH to the bottom where I pulled over and started it back up. Still, one’s freakin’ engine should not go CLUNK! every so often and die at highway speeds, it just isn’t nice.

For awhile I thought it was an electrical problem, because it wouldn’t die if I had all the electric items – like the heater – turned off. It’s cold in the mountains and the jeep’s cab is hardly airtight, so I was bundled up in coats and sweaters. Just about the time I’d decided I’d solved the fuel delivery problem – some electrical problem with the heater circuit causing the fuel pump circuit to fail intermittantly – it died again. With the heater off.

Crap. This is what it was doing before it died and spent three days in Rawlins. Something is killing my fuel pump!

I finally made it to exit 214 toward Milton-Freewater. Bindu was demanding to be let out of the damn car RIGHT THIS VERY INSTANT, so I stopped and walked her. We were less than an hour away! Please, jeep gods, just get me there. I loaded the dog up and pushed on.

20 miles later, the fucking jeep OVERHEATED. Overheated! WTF?! I’d been driving along, thinking, “Oh my ghod, I think we’re going to make it, PLEASE let me make it, I’m soooo close,” and then I glanced down at my gauges and was 20 degrees from being in the red. I pulled over and greasy coolant-laden steam washed over my windshield.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, FUCK!!! I had no water. I usually travel with a couple of gallons, because once, years ago, the thermostat decided to stick in the middle of Nebraska, but Bindu and I had already drunk it all. I banged my head on the steering wheel. So freakin’ close. Continue reading &$#*ing Thing! →

In which I’m sitting here waiting.

I just spoke with the mechanic. He says he hopes to have me “back on the road by noon. Earlier, if we can manage it.” Check-out at the motel is eleven; if I’m very lucky they’ll let me stay an extra hour so I don’t have to wait in the parking lot with my dog and my luggage.

If the jeep isn’t finished today, I’ll be going back to my mom’s house until either it is or we’ve determined that it’s dead.

In other news, I’ve just now talked to one of the ISPs and I have a phone interview as soon as I get to Walla Walla!

In which who the hell knows with these late model vehicles.

My alarm went off at the ass-crack of dawn: seven in the morning.

I’d been up ’til one, so I hit snooze twice. When my brain quit throbbing, I rolled out of bed and was about to shower when I realized I don’t have a hair dryer and it’s too cold to be outside with a wet head. I skipped the shower and got dressed.

With my coat on and Bindu on a leash, I walked across the street to meet the mechanic.

In the overly-warm lobby of the Sinclair station, I discussed the jeep’s recent behaviors with Larry and a customer who was loitering around. The customer decided the issue was bad gas. I said, “Uh, I’d gone 130 miles on that tank, and some of the symptoms preceded that tank of gas by, oh, hundreds of miles and two months.” (See why I shouldn’t be allowed to talk to folks before nine in the morning?)

I explained to Larry that I wanted to hear his thoughts before he proceeded with any repairs, and he said he’d run some tests on the jeep and give me a call.

We walked to McDonald’s and I got breakfast to go. Back at the motel, I entered my Monopoly pieces on the web site and won a copy of Monopoly for my PC from RealArcade – a $19.95 value!. I spent the morning watching TV and playing around on the computer.

I called the shop at twelve-thirty, but the mechanic was under somebody’s car so I left a message with the clerk.

I also tried to call both BMI and Pocket iNet, but the local cell carrier decided to be down this afternoon and I ended up sending emails explaining why I couldn’t.

At three-thirty, Bindu and I walked over to the grocery store. I tied her to a sign out front and went in and got another salad and another frozen meal. On the walk back to home-sweet-motel, we stopped by the shop and wandered right on into the repair bay.

The jeep’s front end is up on a lift, and the back bumper has an old tire under it. (This is the third time it’s found itself at such an acute angle – the first time being when it was being loaded onto the wrecker, the second being on the way off the wrecker – but my stuff seems to be behaving and not crashing around all over the place. Small favors.) There was a dude underneath it, and Larry was standing at a work bench… with my fuel pump.

“So you’ve decided it’s the fuel pump, have you?” I asked, and Bindu sniffed his ankle.

“Yeah, nothing was coming out of it at all.”

Squatting down and addressing the dude under my jeep, I said, “I bet that’s a fun repair to make.” He grinned at me. There was a bit of a puddle under his head. Fuel, probably. Stinky job.

I chatted with Larry a bit more. Because I found myself equally pleased by his initiative and totally irritated by it, I didn’t bitch him out for not fucking calling me before pulling my fuel pump. I mean, after all, it could be the fuel pump. It could be failing intermittently, sure. It could explain both the symptoms on the freeway and the difficulty starting.

But – and I’m no mechanic, me – I’m starting to suspect an electrical problem, even though the mechanic claimed to have tested those things, just like the Fairfield Tire did. And it’s not as if I wouldn’t have authorized R&Ring the fuel pump, it’s just that I’d told him to freakin’ call me first.

If it runs and drives after the new fuel pump goes in, I’ll be stoked. If it doesn’t, I don’t know what I’ll do. I really don’t want to pay dealership prices (everything that goes on my mom’s credit card is me further in debt) but if it’s some glinky electrical issue, I don’t know that any non-jeep mechanic would be able to find it.

So now it’s twenty past four and I’m sitting on the bed eating salad and a veggie pot pie and watching Stargate on Sci-fi. I imagine the shop’ll be calling me at five. If the thing runs, I suppose I’ll pay them and take it… and drive it around Rawlins’ infinite parking lots for an hour to see if it dies. (The problem with the symptoms are that they take somewhere between four and 130 miles to manifest.) The idea of getting back on the interstate tomorrow and having the jeep shit the bed after a hundred miles is unpleasant, to say the least. Not to mention that at one hundred miles a day, it’ll take an entire week to get to Walla Walla.

Yeah. Right.

In other news, I talked to The Ex this afternoon while my phone was working. (“I hear you’re stuck in the middle of Wyoming with a dead jeep,” he said. [The Fairfield grapevine! If only we could use its powers for good!]) He offered to come get me with a trailer and take me the rest of the way to Washington if I find myself in dire straights.

I was really moved by the offer. It seemed awfully extravagant to me at first, and I found it strange that a man who wouldn’t use a laundry basket to save his marriage would be willing to drive 2,800 miles just to help me out… but then I remembered he’s from the Driving Planet. People from his planet enjoy watching hundreds and hundreds of miles roll under their wheels! (People from mine drive only because teleporters haven’t been invented yet.)

I have no idea what I’ll do if the jeep merely seems fixed. If it’s totaled, okay, fine; I’ll abandon it and continue on in a rental car. If it’s fixed, truly fixed, I’ll drive it. But if its status remains utterly nebulous, I may turn into a total Libra and not know what to do.

Update: Larry called. They got the part pulled and tested and apparently it really was bad, but the replacement their runner brought isn’t the right one – naturally – and the proper part won’t be in until morning. I told him not to do anything else after the fuel pump goes in without consulting me. He said he wouldn’t, and further that he’s now convinced a new pump should get me back on the road. Whee!

In which my Sunday trapped in Rawlins is turning out to be pretty neat, really.

Standing in the motel’s parking lot, I can see a lot of nothing. Some blacktop roads – the one out front is five lanes and dumps onto I-80, but for all its size is lightly traveled – some businesses of zero interest to me (other motels, new hotels, fast food joints, a Pamida, and a Yamaha dealership), several of them closed on Sunday, large scruffy lawn areas overtaken with scrub, and literal acres of graveled parking lot.

This town looks utterly run down.

I put Bindu’s leash on her and we walked across the 5-lane to the jeep, to see if it was still there. It was, and unmolested. It doesn’t look like it shit the bed yesterday.

I put the dog inside it, and walked over to a grocery store I could see about a quarter of a mile away. It’s quite cold out, and I was struck several times with small, cold, frozen hail.

They had a wonderful salad bar in there! I made myself a huge salad and bought a TV dinner (Amy’s black bean enchilada dinner – yum) because the room has a microwave, and I also picked up a bag of baked buffalo liver dog treats for the blue one because apparently she’s grown bored of her regular food.

This town is small and in the middle of nowhere, but it’s not all white people (although every single white chick I saw was blonde, which is unnatural). I was bundled up against the cold in a fleece, a bulky sweater, a hat, and boots, but the Mexican dudes checked me out anyway. Heh.

I walked back to the jeep, liberated the dog and picked up a half-gallon of water (the tap water here tastes worse than Fairfield’s), and through wind and flurries we returned with our prizes to the motel. In case you were curious, Miss Bindu was stoked about the whole buffalo parts-baked-into-cookies thing.

In other news, I’ve been watching Sci-fi all day. Queen Mab is currently rather pissed off about something.

I just realized we left all the chocolate in the jeep. Perhaps another walk will soon be in order.

In which the jeep died.

Yeah, so, I was coming down a fairly steep grade, see, surrounded by big rigs and the wind blowing like crazy, and suddenly the jeep started coughing. Really hard. THUMP! THUMP! It was like it was trying to jump into overdrive but not making it.

I slowed down from 75 to 55. The symptoms went away… for a mile or so, but then they came back. THUNK!

Oh hell.

I pulled over. The engine died before I could even turn it off.

Oh fucking hell.

I sat for awhile, maybe 20 minutes, as the jeep rocked with the force of every semi passing it. Then I started it back up and made it four miles before having to pull over again because of the same THUMP!ing symptoms.

The next time I tried, I made it a whole mile to the next exit and its lone gas station.

I peed first because I’d been in the car for 130 miles, then asked the clerk where the nearest auto shop was. She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder and said, “Twenty miles that way.”

Twenty miles!?! Fuck. I’m starting to like Wyoming as much as I like Nebraska.

Outside, Bindu ran around sniffing weeds and posts while I sighed theatrically and cursed under my breath and opened the hood and checked everything I know to check: fluids, wiring, hoses, belts. I re-seated all the fuses. I got back in the jeep and sat in it for ten minutes, thinking. An unnecessarily cold rain began and Bindu got back in, too. Finally I started the jeep up and took a couple of tours around the parking lot. It ran fine, so I got back on the Interstate.

Two miles later, I had to pull over again. The thing was dead before it was entirely over the line onto the shoulder.

I called the ‘rents, and between us we finally found a wrecker who was answering their damn phone on Saturday afternoon. Two hours later, a wrecker came took us the last ten miles into Rawlins, WY. (Jack’s Towing Inc. totally rocks, btw.)

Dave was awesome. He let Bindu ride in the cab. He took the jeep to a local shop and me and my luggage and my dog to a motel where he told the girl at the front desk that I was a customer of his, thereby earning me the motel’s special “broke down rate.”

Here I sit in rockin’ Rawlins until Monday, when I have to walk across the street to meet with a mechanic named Larry and see what there is to see regarding the jeep. I have an interview on Friday with an ISP in Walla Walla, and I need a job more than ever now that I’m putting all this towing and motel-ing and mechanic-ing on my mom’s credit card.

But there’s an upside, which is that the motel takes pets (so Bindu isn’t locked in the jeep), there’s free wireless, and the cable seems decent enough. It’s cold and rainy outside (there have even been a few flurries), but the blue dog and I are warm and dry.

In other news, I’m starving. And as I already ate the brie and baguette my mom packed for me this morning, I’m gonna order a pizza.

…or not. I just called the local Domino’s (with my cell phone, which is on ROAM fer chrissakes, because the room phone requires $10 to activate), and – I shit you not – their message says, “Due to a shortage of employees we were forced to close. Sorry for any inconvenience. We’ll be open at eleven tomorrow.”

Thank God for Pizza Hut. They’ll be here in 40 minutes.