Stranded in Utah With No Money: A Trip Report

[rjoefish]

Okay, El D. you said little but I'm doing a full recap, I'll put cliff notes of just time/mileage at bottom.

We pack up and mostly clean our apt. on saturday morning. We have to be out by noon so a lot of stuff gets left in the kitchen, its not dirty, it just dishes and stuff. Yeah, we suck, I know, but we were so far behind and the landlord was there so we'll just move on.

The guy I'm driving with wants to eat before we leave town so we go to a mexican place. I only eat a thing of flan because I had a breakfast biscuit from Hardees earlier in the morning when I went to the bank.

We're on the road by about 1:30pm (All times will be central). At about Des Moines, or about 3:15pm my car starts heaing up and I get worried. From this point on I am driving with my drivers window all the way down, other windows cracked a bit so stuff doesn't fall out and the heater on full blast as hot as it will go.

We stop a few times and gas up and eat but we end up making it to Denver by like midnight. My friend's mom gave him money for a room but I tell him to keep his cash and have my dad get us a free room with his frequent stayer points stuff.

We get up at about 11am and head out on the road. We get through the mountains and at the top of the pass my [censored] is dangerously hot but then its all downhill and it cools really fast and I don't even need the heater on for a bit.

We stop in Grand Junction so I can check my car because its way hot again and I'm worried at about 3pm or something like that. There are no repair shops open so we continue on, it being sunday and all.

After we pass Green River my car starts getting all funky. This is like 100 miles from Grand Junction. I pull off at the Black Dragon View point about 20 miles past Green River and my car overheats. We put some water in and wait about 20 minutes and try again. About a mile down the road my car can't go any further, its too hot. We drive the 20+ miles back to Green River to get some proper coolant and water and go back to my car. We get there about 45 minutes after we left it and put the stuff in. I start it up and let it idle for a bit. Overheats again. At this point I know its over. It is about 7 or 8pm at this point.

I get a tow truck to take my car to the NAPA shop and my dad gets me another hotel room. My friend says he doesn't want to stay in a hotel again because of his lizard and had given me two options; leave my truck and try to cram into his car with all his stuff, meaning I'd have the lizard on my lap the whole way (have to hold it by the edges of the cage as the bottom is broken glass held together by duct tape. The other option is he'll take me back to Green River and drop me at the hotel and he says he'll come back the next day to get me if he needs to. I decide to stay here as I can't just leave my truck on the side of the road. (We decided to bring me back here before my dad got me the room and I got the tow number)

Friend leaves at about 8pm, I go into the room and settle in for the night.

Next morning, Monday, I check out at about noon, longest they'll let me stay and head down to the shop. I had called when they opened at 8 and they said there was a line of 2 or 3 cars before me. I get there and talk to the lady running the joint. Here's an awesome part of the story I didn't tell yet. She tells me its the water pump and that it'll be less tahn 350$ to fix and it will be ready by the end of the day.

I go eat at Ray's at about 12:30 and go back to the shop. I ask if they looked at the thermostat when I get there and the guy is like 'I haven't looked at it yet' I inform him the lady said it was the water pump and he says 'I have no idea where she got that, we haven't even looked at it yet.' WTF?? So I sit there for an hour or two and he finally gets it into the shop and looks at it. Tells me its wrecked. He says it might just be the gasket but if he takes it apart and the head is warped/cracked it won't be worth fixing as it will just break again and that I'll still have to pay him for all the labor taking it apart. I tell him just to set it outside and I'll get my friends to come get me and I'll leave the truck behing.

At about 3 I set up a reservation for a cargo van my buddies can pick up in Vegas and drive to get me. It will be there by 4. I get a call back and the one friend living out there says he has to help the other guy unpack his bags of clothes. I'm like why don't you go get the van while he moves in, he doesn't have anything heavy he needs help with. Friend won't do it. I get a call back at about 430 saying that there's a change of plans. They refuse to come tonight. I freak out and try to get them to come and tell them that its totally uncool for them to just leave me here. They won't listen and say they'll do it this morning (tuesday).

I call the rental place and tell them it will be picked up shortly after they open, 7:30am Vegas time. I get a call this morning at 9am Vegas time from the rental place asking if I'm going to come pick it up. I'm livid, I thought they were on the road already, but should have realized they weren't when they didn't answer when I called earlier. I finally get ahold of my friends at 10 or so and they say they overslept. Must have been a rough night. They're finally moving now and one is on his way as of like 1130 vegas time.

Its about 7 hours or so from Vegas so I'll be in the hotel lobby until about 7pm.


Cliff Notes:

Leave Iowa Saturday at about 1:30.

Drive about 800 miles to Denver, get there about midnight.

Leave Denver at about 11am next day and drive about 300 miles.

Car breaks down in Green River, Utah at about 5 or 6pm sunday night. Get hotel for night, tow for car, friend leaves all by about 7 or 8pm.

Find out car is totalled at about 2 or 3 pm Monday. Find out friends won't pick up van I reserved for 330pm Monday afternoon until 730am Tuesday morning.

Friend finally picks up van and leaves Vegas at about 11:30am Tuesday morning, has to drive about 400 miles or 7 or so hours to get me. Will repack truck immediately and take off for vegas, hope to be there by about 3 or 4am Wednesday morning.


In about 5 hours I will have been in this town 48 hours.

[El Diablo]

rj,

"In about 5 hours I will have been in this town 48 hours."

Look at the bright side, in about 15 hours you'll be in VEGAS, BABY!

[rjoefish]

Yeah, its weird, no matter how pissed I've been the past day and a half or whatever I'm still very excited to get to Vegas. Anyone wanna hang out? I need a new crowd.

[Dids]

I really really hate your friends right now.

[KotOD]

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry about missing the reference, never seen it, just went with the title hehe. Yeah, I'm from DPort, actually walcott originally. World's Largest Truckstop and all that. My dad is on the verge or driving from there to come get me lolz.

While I was typing this got a call from the friend picking up the van. He didn't bring his wallet so they have to go back and get his credit card so they can use it for the deposit. Not sure what else can go wrong here, but if you guys wanna make a list I'll check them off as they happen.

[/ QUOTE ]

These guys don't think of you as a friend, you know this, yes?

[rjoefish]

I think I'm coming around to that, its pretty hard to accept that they aren't my friends though. I've known them both since middle school and we've always been pretty close. I was 1000000x more shocked that the one living in Vegas already wouldn't come get me last night, I never saw that one coming. I figured I'd have some trouble with the one I drove out with because I know how he is. I guess I just didn't expect him to ditch me, if even just for a day, when I really need them to help me out. I don't think I could ever think of a situation where I would refuse to go help out a friend with almost no other option. I remember about a year ago two people I work with were stranded when their car broke down on the highway about an hour and a half from me, I was on the road to get them within five minutes of them calling, didn't think twice.

[amead]

The hair spray cloud anecdote really added some superb color to this story, kudos.

It's very weird that your friend left you there originally because of a lizard. Doesn't the lizard have like, a cage and lizard food and stuff packed? Or was he bringing the lizard to Vegas in his glove compartment, at which point he'd need to gear it up immediately on arrival? I'd think the lizard could spend the night in a hotel room just as easily as it could live in Vegas.

Further, I only passed through Utah once on a bus from NY to Los Angeles, and it looked really bleak and uninhabitable, but like, isn't there a car rental place at some point in the marginal vacinity that you could have gotten a rig from, instead of renting it in Vegas and driving to Utah and back?

On the bright side, it sounds like your dad is pretty cool, and doesn't want to disown you for getting out of school and high-tailing it to Vegas.

[rjoefish]

My dad and I both looked up car rental places, the nearest we could find was Grand Junction, which is about 100 miles away. There was a Jeep rental place closer but it was for local excursions into the desert. We also looked up car dealerships thinking since I need a car I could probably just buy one around here. Pretty far away again, a local might give me a ride to one of these places but that's way too much to ask of a stranger when I have two lazy friends that could easily do it if they weren't more concerned with what they were going to do in Vegas last night and not helping me out.

As for the lizard. He took it out of its bigger mesh cage and put it in a small glass tank. Its a bearded dragon that's about 6 months old or something like that, probably like 10 inches long. He had lettuce in the cage, which he feeds it at home to supplement the crickets he gives it each day. He said it wasn't eating and was really worried about it, but not worried enough to not stop further up the road. He might have wandered around outside and gathered up insects for it or something, but I don't see him ever doing something like that. Maybe he found a place to buy worms for it? I don't know. All I know is that he didn't want to stay here and was okay with leaving me here to wait to hear about my car.

I'm in a room in the hotel where they serve the breakfast, I think its a break room the rest of the day and they don't want people in here as they keep the door closed. But some people have walked in a few times and one of the ladies that knows what my situation is came in to say good bye when she went home so they're being pretty cool around here. I think I need to get a lot of Utahian??? friends, they seem really nice.

[punkass]

Are you white? I wonder what would happen to me (I'm Korean) if I was in your situation.

[Dids]

[ QUOTE ]
Are you white? I wonder what would happen to me (I'm Korean) if I was in your situation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Pretty much the same, but they would ask you do to more math.