Headin' for the Barn

Just before we left Oregon, near the crest of a mountain pass, the engine of the truck faltered a bit. The “engine” light came on. A quick check of the manual said “get it serviced immediately”; apparently unaware that we were on the Oregon-Nevada border, one of the most sparsely-populated areas in the lower 48 and hundreds of miles from the nearest Ford dealer.

Soon the light went off, everything seemed fine and we pressed on to Elko, Nevada where we stayed in an RV “Resort” that is so upscale it has its own street signs. I posted my final Oregon blog entry from the comfort of the Resort’s plush sitting room while one of the ladies did her Zumba exercises in front of the big screen TV.

Public art on I-80 in the salt flats of eastern Utah.

We pressed on across the vast desert known as the Great Basin, across the Bonneville Salt Flats and past the Great Salt Lake. On the outskirts of Salt Lake City the engine faltered again. The light came back on, flashing this time. I pulled over and the flashing stopped.

We had already made arrangements to stay at an RV Park near Provo so we called the Provo Ford dealer, limped on to the RV park, got the trailer unloaded and got the truck to the dealer before closing time with the engine light still on.

We’ve discovered that – in the modern age of computerized engines – getting the vehicle to the repairman with the engine light still on is critical.

They diagnosed the problem as a burned out coil and some fouled injectors caused by bad gasoline. We left the truck and got a rental car and headed back to the RV Park for the night.

The Wasatch Mountains, as seen from the Ford dealership in Provo, Utah.

Brig, you can't be serious? That is the place?

While they worked on the truck the next day (Wednesday) we toured the BYU campus. As one might expect, it is very clean and all of the kids are very clean cut and very white. It’s nice, but a little creepy. There are some things you just don’t see on many college campuses anymore, like a huge housing complex for married students. Betsy wanted to buy a Dr. Pepper but they don’t sell caffeinated drinks. Not only is there no alcohol on campus, we did not see anything that looked like a bar or pub anywhere in Provo, which is a good-sized city. Suffice to say, this is not your typical college campus or college town.

When we got the truck back late in the day Brian, our service manager, told us it was running like a champ.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

Less than five miles down I-15 the next day the engine light was back on. We turned around, went back to the RV park to leave the trailer and went back to the Ford dealership in Provo.

Brian said it needed new plugs and a tune-up; that that was the cause of the burned out coil. What could we do?

The RV park was nice enough to let us keep the trailer parked there and we hung out at the dealership and caught up on our reading about Ted Cruz and the the bang up job he is doing of representing Texas in the U.S. Senate.

By mid-afternoon we were back on the road and decided to try to press on to our already-reserved campsite at a state park in western Colorado. Despite a lot of wind and arriving after dark the drive was not too bad.

We had planned to arrive in Colorado on Wednesday, which would have given us a full day to explore Colorado National Monument. Instead we did a morning drive-through on the scenic road, stopped at the visitor center and pressed on to Buena Vista.(Apparently we were so focused we took no photos of CNM, but it was spectacular).

En route to BV the truck performed like a champ; passing through two mountain passes over 10,000 feet, easily the high point of our journey, where the Aspen leaves have turned a bright yellow.

Soon enough we were settled into the friendly confines of the Snowy Peaks RV Park where I spent four months (and Betsy two months) last year. It felt good to be back; albeit a bit chilly with temps in the 30s and winds whipping at 20 MPH plus.

After that the weather has been perfect with highs in the 70s and sunny.

On Saturday we re-visited favorite shops in nearby Salida and checked out the local marijuana store only to discover that a prescription is needed for at least another year. 

Sunday the Texans played, we did some laundry and hiked up Midland Hill overlooking BV (no 14ers on this trip). Later in the day we took our favorite evening drive along the Arkansas River.

Monday we drove over Cottonwood Pass to Crested Butte and had a serendipitous lunch with some college friends. Some have said that the colors in the trees are about a week from peaking...but you couldn't prove that by us. It's beautiful.

During our stay here in BV we’ve been cleaning up the trailer and getting things organized so we can leave it in Oklahoma for service and repairs at the place we serendipitously discovered on the second day of our trip, three months ago; a hot July day when the air conditioner decided to quit on us.

We’ll come back in a month or so to pick it up.

I’ll probably do one more post after we get back home (ETA is Oct. 4), to wrap up and provide some trip statistics and rankings of our favorite places.