I love Mormons, but do they love me?

Day 83

Stacey and Billy were too busy jacking around playing tennis and doing 100 yard dashes to join Mike and me for an ice cream sundaes at the restaurant where Billy works. So we ate them alone, sad that our friends didn’t have the time to join our merriment.

Day 84

As is the case after a day of ice cream sundaes, we spent almost the entire day making sure our figures stayed trim. And although Stacey didn’t partake in the eating of ice cream covered in either a caramel or chocolate sauce and topped with crack (homemade toffee), she too joined in. Mike actually went running in the morning, which was a mistake since we decided to do a gauntlet of fun exercises. First up: the inner-tube hold. In this event Mike and I had to hold an inner-tube out the window of a car going 55 mph while the wind tried to whip it out of our hands without letting go. Task #1 was a success, and we delivered the tube to Stacey’s aunt unharmed. Second: hike 5 miles up a mountain with an elevation gain of roughly 4000 ft. Task #2 was a failure. After 1.5 miles Stacey thought she was going to die from dehydration and/or low blood sugar. She powered through it, but after about 3.5 miles we realized that the gondola that we were planning on taking down the mountain was not in service because there was a Steve Martin (the comedian) concert down in the park below. Thus, we turned around and hiked back down like chickens. The silver lining was that we got to walk past Steve Martin doing a sound check while the security guys made sure we kept walking, which we did very slowly. Thirdly: exercise at the YMCA on empty stomachs. Task #3 was a success. While I was busy climbing black diamond routes, Stacey and Mike hit the weight room and did some other unknown exercises that were probably all pretty wussy compared to clinging to small crimpers 14 feet up. Reward: burritos for all. We ate until we were slightly sick and then back.

There was an old-timey bluegrass band playing in town that Stacey simply had to see, so we biked over to give them a listen and relax for a bit. A few other people ended up joining us, and we hung out for a couple of hours while the old-timey band (comprised entirely of truly old-timey human beings) strummed their sweet mandolins/guitars/banjos.

Day 85

Sitting and waiting best explains what happened today. The van should be done. But it takes a while longer than anticipated, so there’s quite a lot of sitting and waiting. And watching TV. And waiting. Come on van! It’s like it’s at the hospital and we just don’t know if it’s going to make it. I have a really good feeling that everything will be OK, but stranger things have happened. Something might need to be amputated. It might never be able to drive up a hill again. Starvan! NoooooooO!

End result of the waiting: I’m still in Idaho.

Day 86

I woke up very, very optimistic. And then I called to see about the van. I was told that German Transaxle, who did the repair on the transmission, didn’t ship one of the parts back. So my options were to either pay Matt the labor costs to remove that piece from another van, or to wait another day while the part is shipped. I chose to have Matt strip the part from another van so that we could be on our way.

I get a call at 5:00 from Matt. He says that he wasn’t able to get that part. The van will be done tomorrow.

I went to bed much, much less optimistic that I’d ever leave Idaho.

Day 87

The van, which was supposed to be done by noon, was eventually completed around 4pm. This meant a late start. The saddest part was that since we had to haul ass down into Utah so that we could see everything that we wanted to and not have to leave the national parks before we were ready, this meant leaving Hailey, ID, which had become my home, a little too quickly. It sounds weird, I know. But I got to spend three weeks in Hailey, hanging out with Stacey (and bunch of other great people that helped enrich the entire experience) and getting the sensation of belonging to a place. Even though I told everyone that I met that I’d be in town as long as the van was broken and not a moment longer, I really was sad to leave. It was another leaky moment for VanGuy, saying goodbye to Stacey and hitting the road. I absolutely loved being around Stacey for the first time in over a year. We had a great time in Idaho and I can’t thank her enough for letting me overstay my welcome on her floor in her studio apartment. Bye Stacey. I miss you already.

But I didn’t have time to feel sad or miss Hailey. Mike and I needed to jet the hell out of there. And we did. Matt and I took the van for a test run, everything was great, and Mike and I drove for about 4.5 hours down into Ogden, Utah. But we had no intention of sticking around in Ogden - a glorified suburb of Salt Lake City - so we drove toward the small town of Huntsville through this really cool, really windy canyon. The reason that it was cool was not because it was beautiful. Heck, we couldn’t see a darned thing it was so dark out. The reason that it was a great place (and great drive) was that we drove through it during a thunder storm, and with every bolt the entire canyon lit up for a split second, giving everything a very fleeting, ethereal feel. The mountains seemed to pop up out of nowhere, and they held this amazing glow in the brief moment that lightning illuminated them.

The only problem was that the campsites that we had directions to were all full by the time we got there. So we had to turn around and head back down the canyon until we found a sweet little pull-off to stealth camp in. Mike was a little nervous, having never done this before, but we were in a good spot (essentially a trail head) and no one bothered us. We were too tired to make dinner though, so we ate PB&J sandwiches with Ranger IPAs. Trip to Utah: success.

Day 88

Trip to Utah: less successful that I hoped. We woke, ate breakfast, and drove down to a coffee shop to take advantage of their facilities (an old standby from the good ol’ days with Micah). We went in, but Mike reminded me that we needed my computer to check the directions to our next campsite, located roughly 4 hours south near the town of Beaver (which proves that even people from Utah have a sense of humor). As I got my computer I figured I might as well check to see everything in the important section of the van (the rear end) was doing alright. And, lo and behold, it wasn’t! There was a coolant leak, and a pretty good one at that. I opened the cover and saw that one of the hoses was saturated and leaking coolant at a much too rapid rate. So I left Mike at the coffee shop and drove to a Napa Auto Parts to get this whole thing fixed up. It was a simple fix: Step #1 - take off shitty hose, Step #2 - put on new hose. Piece of cake. Except that when I took off the hose I also took off the nipple. This meant that the hose had nothing to attach to, making it impossible to fix unless I replace the upper section of the thermostat housing. I went into Napa and said the only one was in Salt Lake City, and they had no way of getting it. I nearly broke down at this point. How could all this shit be happening to me? I’m a (relatively) good person. Just let my van work already! I didn’t break down and cry (as much as I wanted to), and the guys at Napa helped me out a ton by having their store down in Bountiful pick it up from Salt Lake so that at least I had a shorter train ride. Mike, stranded back at the coffee shop) had to bike to me so that we could get on the train and go to Bountiful.

The train ride went smoothly, and the dude from the Napa store actually met us at the train station to sell me that part, which was awesome because it saved us from having to walk 3 miles, and because he sold it to me in the parking lot at 2:05, meaning we caught the 2:07 train back to Ogden instead of the 3:07 train (or later) had he not met us. On the train ride back we met a dude, Charles Bale, who had walked across the U.S. in 3.5 months because he was bored. He also tried to sell me some “spice” - something that looked very suspicious, but which he claimed was not - and told me to call him if I needed any VW parts because he had a van that he couldn’t get to work and would be willing to give me parts off of it. I can’t express just how nice everyone is. Other notable people on the train: 1) a nice girl who offered me a cookie, and who expressed that it was good in an effort to convince me when I declined the offer, 2) two young teenage girls that told the most mundane stories you’ve ever heard (mostly about boys) and couldn’t stop giggling for the life of them, 3) a little boy who told his mom (after coming out of the bathroom) that he forgot to wash his hands, at which point his little brother confessed that he too forgot to wash his hands in an obvious attempt to be just as cool.

Back at Napa I worked for close to 2 hours getting the part in place and refilling the coolant. It sounds easy, but putting coolant in a Vanagon is a serious ass pain. Had I not called various folks, and talked to some passerby about the procedures, I surely would have screwed up. As far as I can tell, I didn’t screw up though, and I haven’t seen a leak yet. This marked the first time that I did an actual repair by myself. It was scary as hell, but I’m starting to gain some confidence. Look out VW world, I’m starting to figure out your tricks.

Mike and I celebrated at a brewery, but the beers in Utah have to be 3.2%, which is lame. Very, very lame.

And, just like the night previous, we left late and showed up at our campsite after dark. This time, however, there were actually spots for us, waiting, hoping we’d show. Even though we had yet another van setback, we busted through the repair and ended up remaining right on schedule to Bryce Canyon the following day.

Day 89

Woke up, no van problems (unless you count not being able to fill the water tank for some strange reason, which, I guess you could count), and hit the road early so that we could get to Bryce and get a camping spot. It wasn’t too hard to hurry either. It was Sunday in the small Utah town of Beaver, and nothing, save a single diner, was open. So we got the hell out of crazy Mormon Utah and into beautiful amazing Utah.

I can’t really put into words what Bryce Canyon is like. It’s absolutely stunning. The red rock formations, the visible horizontal lines cutting through it all, the holes in the rocks, the bridges, it’s all just so very cool and so very strange. We hiked a nine mile loop called Fairyland, which gave us a great view of the entire canyon - both from above and down inside. We nearly got caught in a lightning storm, but managed to get out with only a few sprinkles to show for it. It was easily the most amazing rock formations I’ve ever seen, and the hike seemed to fly by. It’s just an extraordinary place. I put it on the top of my recommendation list next to the Yellowstone/Grand Teton area as far as national parks go. So very worth seeing.

Day 90

The second day in Bryce, while not quite on the same level of spectacularness as the first, was quite enjoyable nonetheless. We drove down to the southernmost point in Bryce Canyon - Rainbow Point - and proceeded to do a 9.5 mile hike that took us around the upper rim of the canyon, and down into the forested bits as well. The views here were the best in the park, providing a panoramic view of the entirety of Bryce, the Grand Escalante region of Utah, parts of Arizona, and (although I couldn’t figure out which direction to look exactly) part of New Mexico. The rock formations weren’t as unusual or breathtaking, but the hike was really fun, though quite strenuous. The highlight in my opinion was when I came damn near stepping on a rattlesnake. Having never seen one before, I was quite excited, especially once I was a safe enough distance that it couldn’t bite me. And, unlike my encounter with the grizzly bear while hiking in Yellowstone with Micah, I could take as many pictures of the little devil as I wanted. I took two.

After our nearly 10 mile hike, in addition to the 8 mile hike the day before, we needed to take a shower. We got to the public showers, and for some bizarre reason, the showers only take $1 gold coins. Who even uses those? There was a sign that said you could get gold coins in the laundry room just around the corner. So Mike and I took our quarters (because that’s the logical coin to use) to the laundry room. But the machine in the laundry room only takes dollar bills, and, supposedly, when shoved into its mouth, shits out gold coins. But we had no dollars. So we had to go to the gift shop and get some gold coins. This, at least, was successful. With our gold coins in hand we walked back toward the showers only to find 4 French boys headed for the shower ahead of us, forcing us to wait for minutes before one became vacant. Damn. I said to Mike, “hey, maybe they’ll shower together,” what with them being French and all. And they did. My prejudice payed off!

Day 91

Though it wasn’t a long drive from Bryce to Zion, the short 13 mile road through Zion took forever. The road was practically one lane the entire way, and it was on mostly unpaved, windy switchbacks through crazy mountains and canyons. We snagged the very last (out of 124) campsites, and though it wasn’t 100% level, it wasn’t bad. We wanted to go for a short hike since the last two days had been rather strenuous, but there really aren’t a lot of hikes down in the southern section of Zion. So we postponed hiking until the following day, and instead enjoyed some beer in the shade down by Virgin River. Of note: two large lizards of unknown variety, some very small frogs of unknown variety, and a small bat (presumably hurt) of unknown variety crawling along the ground. It was nice to just relax right underneath some really cool rocky, craggy, mountains next to a(n) (admittedly unattractive) river. To top off our day of sloth we did some major carbo-loading with huge portions of spaghetti to be fully prepared for an actual hike the following day.

** Funny side story: We had to stop to get groceries, and all the towns between Bryce Canyon and Zion are, well, undesirable. But we managed to find a “grocery store” that sold some of the most awesome brands of stuff you’ve ever seen. Mostly it was Western Family, the Denny’s of food brands, but at one point a guy whom I assume to be foreign asks us which barbeque sauce we would recommend. Here were the brands to choose from, and see if you would have as much confusion as he did in trying to pick out the BEST sauce: 1) Western Family, 2) A&W (as in the rootbeer), 3) Bulls-eye, 4) Dr. Pepper. I’m sure you’re thinking that this is some sort of trick question, thinking that perhaps I mistakenly gave you soda choices instead of real life barbeque sauces. Nope. Those were the barbeque sauces. And only someone from another country would be fooled into thinking that those brands produce anything edible.