A ride for a ride

I arranged my trip to Alberta in such a way that I would be able to catch a ride back to Utah with Sam, an acquaintance with whom I had lots of mutual friends. Anyway, it was determined that we would take off the night of Canada Day and drive through the night so as to arrive back late Thursday morning. But alas, things don't always happen as you plan.

It started out well. We passed through customs at around midnight, and headed south. There were three travelers, so we worked it out so that there would be a driver, someone to keep the driver awake and the third person who was free to sleep. For the first three hours (from 11pm-2am) I was the keep the driver awake person. Then, at 2am, it was my turn to drive. I drove through the mountains, filled up at Butte, and was still driving when the car started acting funny. And when I say 'funny', I'm not talking about it exhibiting an active sense of humor. Rather, it was acting uncharacteristic of a well-functioning automobile. You see, as we were approaching the town of Dollan, it started emitting white smoke, first from the tailpipe, and then from the engine. I pulled over. It was about 5:20am.

A tow truck, mechanic shop, a phone call and several hours later, it was determined that we had likely blown a head gasket and that repairing the problem would take more money than the vehicle was worth. So we got to problem-solving. Sam called the Greyhound Station and several rental car agencies for estimates. We soon determined that our best option was to rent a car and drive it one-way to SLC out of Butte, Montana. Problem was, Butte was a good hour or more north of us and we didn't know how to get there. We considered the option of renting a car for the day from the town we were in to go up there, but it was crazy-expensive. We wondered if the place we would rent from would drop off the vehicle. They would, but it would cost over $100. No thanks. And then I proposed another option.

The tow truck driver who'd taken us to the auto shop earlier had mentioned that if the car ended up being beyond repair, and that if we wanted to get rid of it, that he had a junk yard and could take it off our hands, but couldn't pay for it. Well, we decided to call him and ask if he'd be willing to give us a ride to Butte, in exchange for the ownership of Sam's now retired ride, the broken-down Honda Civic. And he agreed.

So, we rode for over an hour with a small-town tow truck driver. It was beautiful. He had a great accent, and some fascinating ideas. He was very talkative, and a salt-of-the-earth good guy. He was incredibly conservative in regard to his stance on guns. He told us about Planet X. And a quoteable quote from the ride was "It's about time that Mother Earth flushed the toilet again." He was a gem. I got to talk to him for a while while the others were arranging the rental car. It was fun to hear about how he and his wife got married, how he ended up starting his own tow truck business, etc. I serioulsy loved it. It reminded me of being in India and doing ethnographic interviewing. So interesting.

Anyway, we got home safely to Provo about 7 hours later, safe and sound. And it is quite lovely to be back in the States. And I was very glad to have a good night's sleep.