Bust

This is a little story I recently posted on my own blog. I thought I would post here as well. My apologies to those who ended up in my group last semester and had to hear my other story about a car breaking down on the way to a concert.

May 23, 2009. I woke up to a rooster's crow for the first time in my life. It was 5:09 AM. The front of my sleeping bag and the half of my pillow not covered by my face were damp with dew. I was lying in a field behind an LDS chapel in Kennewick, Washington. It was too early to be awake, but the Sun did not seem to care about my need for sleep.

The previous day had been carefully planned out. Chris and I left his apartment in Provo just after seven in the morning for a 12 hour drive to Quincy, Washington where we would be attending a 3-day music festival over Memorial Day Weekend. Chris had talked about going since the beginning of the year. After seeing pictures and hearing reviews from his trip to Lollapalooza in Chicago last summer, I was determined to find a way to go to the Sasquatch Festival this year in Washington. The car was stocked up with our camping gear and food. We began to drive north accompanied by good music and interesting conversation. Perhaps when Chris got pulled over north of Salt Lake, that should have been a sign of things to come. Nothing resulted from Chris' conversation with the officer. He had not seen the car's temporary registration posted in the back window. Frustrated in his first attempt, he pushed forward on a different front.

"How much have you had to drink?" he asked Chris, peering over his official looking pen and notepad.

"Umm, none," Chris said.

"Okay, because your eyes are a little red."

"Yeah, that's because of my contacts."

Fully satisfied, the officer handed Chris his license and walked back to his car. Chris' eyes were not red. The officer must have been embarrassed that he pulled us over for no reason. How much have you had to drink? At 9:00 AM? Really?

I wanted to say, "Uh, yes, officer, we are very dedicated to our drinking. We got up at six, got our drink on for an hour, then sped up here so you could pull us over at nine." I kept quiet.

Everything was back on schedule until we pulled off the freeway in Boise to fill up with gas. The car briefly stuttered and lurched and then lost fuel pressure. We made it to a gas station and after a few minutes we continued west without incident. Hours later the car began to shake violently just outside of North Powder, Oregon. North Powder is the type of town where you are surprised to find anything. As we drove down the main stretch I became discouraged at our chances of locating a mechanic. We went into the town's grocery store which had the appearance of an under-stocked 7-11, but with an entire aisle dedicated to a variety of wines; we were definitely out of Utah. The store's cashier pointed us to a mechanic about a block away. In North Powder, everything was a block away. The mechanic suggested a problem with the fuel line, possibly a clogged fuel filter, and recommended a 22 mile drive to a shop in La Grande. We got back on the freeway and chugged along until we were 100 feet from the our exit. The car lurched and then stalled.

"I'm a AAA member," I said. "My parents gave it to me this past Christmas. I'm not sure how it works, but I think I can call for a tow."

I made a couple of calls and a half hour later Mike, the tow guy, dropped the car, Chris, and me in La Grande at All Imports Auto: Foreign and Domestic. They changed the fuel filter and warned that there were problems with the fuel pump and possibly the transmission. We did not have a day or two to hang around La Grande while they made these repairs. The music festival began the next day at noon. To stay in La Grande would mean missing much of the first day and possibly more. We decided to push on and hope for the best. A few miles down the road, the car began to demonstrate the same symptoms but then functioned normally for the next two hours until the car began stalling again. We exited into Kennewick, Washington and rolled into a McDonald's parking lot.

(Here's the Google street view of our McD's parking lot)

"Well, what now?" I asked. We sat in silence. I began to call through my phone's contacts list to see if anyone had a good suggestion.

After 15 minutes, we went inside. As Paige has made her way across Europe this summer she has frequently Skype-d me via McDonald's free wifi connections. I did not know what our new plans would be, but I figured an internet connection would help. I bought an obligatory small Coke, just so I didn't feel bad sitting in the restaurant. Only after I sat down did I learn that this particular McDonald's charged $2.95 for two hours of wifi service. I was ready to pay, but Chris thought we could do better. We moved across the street to Hastings Books. There was a cafe inside and a number of hip-looking young people with their laptops.

"We're in a bookstore and I don't even want to buy a book. That's how frustrated I am right now," Chris said.

We tried to reach anyone we knew with any possible connection to anyone in Kennewick. We had our camping gear with us. All we needed was a lawn to crash on. We failed to find anyone who knew anyone and began formulating our new plan. We would get Chris' car into a shop the next morning, rent a car for the weekend, then come back on Tuesday to drop off the rental and pick up Chris' car. I reserved a rental while Chris got up and began browsing bookshelves. We left Hastings Books a little while later.

"I looked in a few do-it-yourself books, and for all the fuel line repairs they more or less said take the car to a garage," Chris said as we walked across the parking lot.

"Did it say, 'Mess this one up and your car will explode'?" I asked.

The next day's plans were set. However, the car was still in the McDonald's parking lot and we still had nowhere to sleep for the night. We found the address of a local LDS church building about a half mile away. Chris coaxed his car back to life. It bumbled down the road which grew darker as we approached the church. We pulled into the parking lot behind the church when the car stalled again. It rested for the night where it stopped rolling. We found a dark field of grass behind the church. We pulled out our sleeping bags and sneaked to the back side of the pavilion that stood between the parking lot and the field.

(This is the field behind the chapel, pre-pavilion days. Courtesy of Google Maps.)

The view of the starry sky was breathtaking. I thanked God for letting us sleep on his lawn. Every sound, however, sent my heart racing and caused me to look around and make sure we had not been discovered. I finally turned onto my stomach so I could keep an eye on the parking lot behind us. A rooster crowed repeatedly as I tried to fall asleep.

The rooster crowed again. This time rosy-fingered dawn was creeping above the horizon. I had no idea what time it was. It was cold but I got up anyway. I explored a little bit. I plugged my phone into a post of the pavilian which happened to be wired. My phone had also died in the McDonald's parking lot. My phone's screen told me it was 5:09. It was too early to start calling around for a garage. It was too early to go pick up the rental car. It was too early for much of anything really, but too light to go back to sleep.