We rolled out of camp just after 8am in an attempt to beat the heat. Marc was in the lead, then us, then Joe in his hot rod and finally Forrest in the modern Surburban, keeping an eye on all of us. As we pulled the trailer up hill after hill without any issues, we were feeling pretty elated!
In the middle of the Nevada desert, between Wells and Jackpot, we saw Joe and Forrest fall behind. We called ahead to Marc on the radio to let him know we needed to pull over. He was too far ahead and could not understand us, but would not slow down, so we pushed the poor GMC as fast as we could to close the gap all the while watching cell phones to see if we could find a pocket of service. I finally got a call out a few miles down the road and told Marc we'd left half of the party behind. We found a nice place to pull off the road and tried to contact Joe and Forrest to see if we needed to come back or run ahead for parts. Again, there was no cell service, unless you climbed the hill along the roadway.
When we got a connection, we learned that Joe had run out of gas. We had the spare gas jug in our truck, so we turned back to fill him up. Marc continued on to Jackpot. We found Joe, filled his tank and let him lead the way. A hundred yards or so later, he was again sputtering to a stop at the side of the road. This looked all too familiar to us! Joe decided to limp it along, as we had, until the next town 30 miles ahead, but gave up that idea not 5 miles down the road. We needed to come up with a better solution. With the tools and spare parts we had with us, the guys re-routed his fuel line and installed a new filter. And still, he sputtered. We called ahead to Marc to ask about a parts store in Jackpot. His response? The locals laughed at him when he asked. Apparently they live 60 miles from the nearest parts store, which was behind us in Wells. Forrest unhooked his trailer and everyone except Andy piled into the suburban to ride back to Wells. Andy stayed behind to nap and watch our stuff.
Three hours later, Joe's car had a new fuel pump and we were on our way to Jackpot. We reunited with Marc, waited for half an hour for him to fuel up his car (not an exaggeration), and continued toward Nampa. Everyone was crusing along nicely, getting a little warm going uphill but nothing serious. The scenery was pleasant too. Maybe we could just relax and enjoy the drive now!
Then, as we were passing through one of the small towns near Bliss, we heard some indiscernible static over the radio. Something like "Iiislthween." What? "Iislth! Wreen!" We saw Marc pull over and park right downtown. We didn't know what was going on and there was no space for us and our trailer too, so we continued up the road. Forrest and Joe pulled off soon after, so we finally rolled to a stop at the end of the main street. Andy called back to the group to learn that Marc wanted ice cream. Now, I usually get abnormally excited about ice cream, but...we were only halfway through our drive for the day and it was only getting warmer. And, we once again had plans to meet up with people in Nampa. And! Why didn't he get ice cream while he was waiting nearly 4 hours for us to arrive in Jackpot? Not to mention fill up his slooooow-drinking car in the meantime? Needless to say, our patience for waiting on a dude with no car trouble had run out. Forrest had a similar sentiment, so we left Joe and Marc to use the buddy system and we continued on to Nampa.
When we hit the freeway, the sun was beating mercilessly on the hood and through our windshield. Our engine didn't cut out this time, but the temperature gauge did not look very good. We tried pulling off once at a rest stop in search of shade. We didn't find shade, but the rest area was air-conditioned (unlike the truck), and the stop gave the overworked engine a little break.
We finally pulled into Nampa, boiling over and sweating profusely, in time for dinner at Forrest's folks' house. They didn't seem to mind their travel-weary guests, and it sure felt nice to get out of the sun and eat something besides road food! After dinner, we headed to "Uncle Bob's" for a tour of his car collection and the possibility of finding a flathead motor for my Model A project. Bob is the uncle of one of Forrest's high school buddies, and they'd known each other for years. He is also a retired architect and U of I alum, so I could relate to him on that level too. We uncovered multiple flatheads and heard stories of the dozens of cars in his yard, and finally parted ways around 11pm! From there, it was off to Tony's to again camp in his yard before continuing home the next rmorning.
The last, and most dreaded, leg of the trip got underway early that next morning. Joe was headed back to Oregon, taking a different route, so we wished each other luck and off we went. That day, we had two grueling passes to climb - White Bird Pass and the Lewiston Grade. And the weather forecast said sunny and HOT. The cars were all pretty warm by the time we reached Riggins, so we pulled them into some shade in a park and enjoyed a picnic lunch. Marc suddenly decided we should stay for the afternoon and raft the river, and then drive the rest of the way when the sun was setting and it was cooler. That sounded fine and dandy, except the part about driving home in the dark. Cars are rather hard to work on when you can't see!
We convinced him that getting home was a better goal for the day, and off we went again, watching the vital signs of the truck as we neared White Bird Pass. There is a downhill stretch of road right before you hit the pass, and Andy pulled over at the top of this to cool the engine and prep to gain speed on the downhill to carry us up the pass. Marc didn't have an electric fan on his car, so this plan did not work for him and he went ahead. Forrest stayed behind as always to keep an eye on us. We cooled off a bit and then took off down the hill, nervous as could be. As, we were building speed toward the bottom to tackle the big climb....the truck died. From full power to no power. And, it wouldn't start back up right away.
It was 90 degrees outside, but the engine was relatively cool, and we hadn't even started climbing yet! A nice man pulled up and said people were breaking down left and right today with the heat and the hill, and he was running to get parts if we needed anything. We couldn't think of what part we might need, and the truck started up again, so we thanked him anyway and inched our way up the pass, sputtering like crazy. At the first pull-off, Forrest decided to run to the top and drop off his trailer and then come back and pull ours up the hill if needed. He left, and we let the truck rest for a bit and then continued slowly up the hill. At the halfway point, we pulled off with all the semis, motorhomes, and Volkswagons to cool off again. By the time Forrest returned, all the other overheating vehicles had continued on their way. After some deliberation, the guys decided the suburban could just hook right up to the front of the truck and pull everything up the hill! So, this was our view as we climbed to the top of White Bird Pass:
The face expressions we saw as we passed all the semis, motorhomes, and Volkswagons were priceless! That surburan was a towing champ!
On the other side of the pass, we met back up with Marc, made sure everyone had enough fluid and continued on toward Lewiston. As we entered the valley, the temperature was higher than anything we'd experienced during the entire trip! The vehicles were boiling over uncontrollably in the 104° heat, and the passengers were exhausted from the heat and stress of White Bird behind us and the Lewiston Grade right up ahead. We debated staying in Lewiston for the night, or even until the temperature started to drop, but everyone really just wanted to be home by this point. Marc took off to begin his slow ascent, and Forrest stayed behind with us until Andy's dad arrived to pull our trailer up the grade with his truck. The ol' GMC struggled up the hill even without the load of the trailer, but we made it to the top! There, Don gave the trailer back, wished us luck, and we were on our own. Together, Andy and I talked the old truck into climbing the rest of the hills to home. What a journey!
