60horsepowerprophet

Man, some things happened yesterday. Some awesome things, some annoying things, some strange things and some frustrating things.

Black Hills

Woke up in the cheap motel in Hill City, loaded up the Bus and headed off for Wyoming. There were some things I needed to do before that, though. I had to do the patriotic American thing and visit Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse monument (a much more substantial, important American monument. More on this later.) It was also imperative that I visit one of my favorite places, Custer State Park.

I really love the Black Hills and the more I think about it, the more I think it might be a place to consider living. Blah, blah, blah, and more of that nonsense… It reminds me of Oregon but without the ocean (bad) and terrible gray season (good). The rock formations in the Black Hills, however, I find much more interesting. It’s also full of GREAT driving roads and a National Forest FULL of remote, free camping. The mindset/style of living there is more Colorado and/or Midwest. If you haven’t been, I highly recommend you steal a car and head out to Custer post haste!

Trip to Rushmore was no big deal. Bus pulled the hills quite well, no complaints. I’ve seen Rushmore two times before, so, I didn’t park and pay to walk up to the thing, I just grabbed photos of the Bus by it for future reference when my mind is shot, my back is shot, my hands are cramped and my pants are pooped. Here’s hoping that takes another 65 years instead of 3 or 4. I did the same thing at Crazy Horse. Not the pant pooping… Should have stopped and given them some dough, they really deserve it. I was in a relative hurry, though.

And it was on to Custer State Park. Last time I was here was a few years back with my friends Devin and Dan on an epic road trip to Glacier National Park. The roads up to the Sylvan Lake park entrance were an absolute blast to drive. Many, many linked corners, sweepers, and more than a few ten mph hairpins. I drove the Bus to its limit. A wise man once said “It’s more fun to drive a slow car fast than it is to drive a fast car slow.” It’s so true.

I didn’t have enough time to climb as much as I would have liked at Custer. The rocks there are PERFECT for bouldering/free climbing. They are extremely porous and grippy. Hand and footholds abound. I knew there was one spot I needed to climb, though. I remembered it from the last time I was there. Up to the top of a tall rock overlooking the entire Western (I think) landscape of the Black Hills, all the way to Wyoming. I decided that I was going to update the blog up there, it’d be a very good excuse for hanging out up there for a while. I loaded up my backpack with my computer gear and made the climb. It was a bit more difficult with the backpack but just as much fun. The view was as gorgeous as I remember it. See for yourself.

Oregon Weirdos in Wyoming

Time to turn around and blitz to Cody, Wyoming, which is right outside of the Western entrance to Yellowstone NP. I’ve never been much of a fan of Eastern Wyoming. Honestly, I only like the Western most parts of the state. All the rest seems barren and boring to me. A lot of what I would call “scrub desert.”

Made pretty good time across most of Wyoming. Took I-90 (blecch) most of the way. Stopped at a rest area to change out the points and condenser on the Bus. This ended up being much more than I could have envisioned.

The new points went in no problem but the condenser wouldn’t fit. I had to customize it via a pair of needle nose pliers and wire cutters. It took much longer than it should have. No matter, though, there was weird to entertain me.

When I pulled in I parked next to a baby crap brown 1979 Chevy (if I recall correctly) station wagon with Oregon plates. As soon as I pulled in, a goofy looking rube in frumpy clothes, wild, puffy black hair and a mean uni-brow began talking me up. (From this point forward he shall be known as BrowPuff.) He had a LOT of nothing to say. The first thing he told me after he got done gushing over the Bus was that he and his obese, burnt out shell of a redheaded wife (whom NEVER once left the driver’s seat of the car) had a “kinda famous car.”

“Yeah, this car was in the Goonies. It was an extra in the Goonies. You can see it in a few scenes.”

For all I know it could have been true. I haven’t seen the Goonies in a while. And I don’t often make a point to closely observe station wagon activity in fine cinema. He said that they were form Astoria, Oregon, which is where the Goonies was shot. Apparently they got it from “a friend of the people who own the Goonie house.”

The inside of the station wagon was strewn with odd belongs, mostly garbage. The inside of this miscreants mind was mostly full of bullshit information. I went along with it. Why call him on it and burst his bubble? The longer he goes on thinking this way unchallenged the more of a shock it will be when he hears the truth. I did have to correct him on his “knowledge” of absinthe. But, for you, the reader, here is an excerpt of his steadfast misinfo:

—

BrowPuff pauses his bullshitting momentarily. He’s been on a diatribe about poisonous horticulture, a conversation ignited by my corrections of his absinthe/wormwood misinfo. He looks over to the tree shading our “kinda famous” cars.

“You see that tree there? Those berries are poisonous. I had to stop a lady from eating one of them at another rest stop,” he says with the timbre of triumph in his voice.

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. It’s a Russian Olive Tree. She was going to eat one of those olives. She thought it was an olive but I told her ‘yes, it is an olive but it’s different, it’s very poisonous.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, she could have died if I hadn’t been there!” He pauses again to take a swig of his huge can of Monster energy drink.

“Just ONE of those things could kill TEN people.”

“Huh, wow.”

“See, the birds don’t eat them…” (As he says this we both look at the tree and watch a small blackbird eat one or two of the berries. This doesn’t seem to deter him from his speech at all.)

“…you see? They stay away because they know.”

—

All the while I’m cutting the hell out of the plastic bit of the condenser. He continues to yap on about crystals, drugs he’s done or other ridiculous bits of bullshit that obviously fit perfectly within his character. I’m probably being too harsh on the guy, he was just trying to be nice. I enjoy being harsh, though. So it will continue.

Thankfully a beaten up, Black, two-door Jeep Cherokee pulling a trailer with a Harley and a bunch of crap pulls into the lot. And BrowPuff begins anew.

“South Dakota, huh…”

Turns out these folks in the Goonie wagon along with the skinny, black haired, 30-something woman who someone used to think was pretty and the 50-something bearded, bandanna-ed man are vehicular drifters. Homeless but for their cars. I hear them speak of panhandling and ditching shelters in favor of the glamorous life of rambling alcoholism.

About the time I begin trying to push that bastard condenser into its place in the distributor, the Goonie wagon departs. Not much time passes before I hear the Jeep woman begin questioning the validity of the stories the wagon couple gave. In third person, none the less. Turns out her name is “River.” The man she’s traveling with is her brother from another father, Bob.

“…it was just strange, I said, ‘mama, you aren’t looking so good, are you alright?’ and he said ’she’s got a cold’ before she could say anything. She didn’t move at all, she didn’t look good. Do you think he kidnapped her? Should I call the cops,” she spouts, pacing the grass on the other side of the parking area. I can’t hear Bob’s response.

“Something just didn’t feel right. I said ‘mama, why don’t you scoot over and let daddy drive?’ and she said ‘he can’t drive, he’s got mental problems.’ What if he was psychopathic and I just didn’t catch it,” she asks frantically. “Something told me, River, this ain’t right.”

Their debate goes on for about 5 minutes before River marches over to visit me, huddled and cursing over the distributor.

“Did you get the plates on that station wagon? I think something weird was going on there.” (She mostly reiterates what is transcribed above.)

“Do you think I should call the cops? You’re a college boy, what would you do?”

“Well, I don’t know, she could have been just sick, she talked to me for a short time about hiking in Oregon, she just seemed sick or zonked out on whatever they kept in the back of that car.”

“You think she just had too much?”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t know. It’s strange. Do you think I should call?”

“Well, if everything is OK with them, I’m sure they’ve got some stuff in that car that they don’t want the police to find and I betcha they don’t know how to refuse a search.”

“Yeah, OK.” And she walks away.

She ends up calling the cops. I never ran into the wagon on the road, though.

Highway to Dissapointment

The Bus pulled on through most of Wyoming without even a hiccup. Everything was going perfectly, which usually means there’s a kick in the junk coming. I was having a pretty fantastic time cruising curvy Wyoming mountain passes and rolling Wyoming county roads under the milky way and the big, bright crescent moon. It was actually one of those moments when you think to yourself, “Yeah, this is it, this is true living.” And it was until 2 miles outside of Greybull, Wyoming.

The GENERATOR light came on. No problem, calm down, you’ve probably just lost a belt. I pulled off the road, walked to the back of the bus and opened the decklid. The belt was mocking me, sitting there looking perfect while the generator smelled of death and exhibited obvious suicide scars: metal shavings.

Now, you can run a Volkswagen with a dead generator for a while no problem, the belt will still turn the generator wheel which will still turn the fan that keeps the engine cool and happy. But, if you stall the car out or you need to use ANY electric accessories, including the headlights, you’re screwed. I checked the battery with my multi-meter and it read 12.43 volts, more than enough to get me into the next town.

The Return of VW Karma

I rolled into the small town of Greybull, Wyoming at around 11 p.m. I chose a motel at random, this one was aptly named the Greybull Motel. The woman behind the counter, Wendy, a tall, skinny blond with hair that fell a few inches above her shoulders came to the counter in her pajamas and informed me that she was just about to close up. There’s some luck. I told her my sob story and she gave me a discount on a room. Then the Karma comes in… Wendy and her husband, Mike own a ‘62 Beetle. Wendy told me that Mike has worked on VWs his whole life and that I should wake up at around 6:30 a.m. and come to the office to talk to him about the situation. I can handle a few 6:30 a.m. wake-ups every year and luckily I had at least one more to spare.

And now for some Bad Karma

Morning came too early. I drug myself out of bed, put on enough close to keep me out of jail for indecent exposure and walked to the lobby. There I met Mike, a stout 40-something in pajama pants and a t-shirt. He stood about 5 foot 8 inches tall and had the skin complexion and hair coloring of an Irishman. We can recognize our own kind pretty easily… Ohh, he also had a fantastic, thick goatee that ended at a bushy point about 4 inches below his chin.

Mike was a great help. He called all the local part suppliers to see if they had or could get what I needed. Nobody had a generator and nobody could get one for until next Tuesday, the day I’m scheduled to be in class. With that bad news he shifted gears and gave me the name and number of a guy who runs the local wrecking yard. Mike actually called him up and asked him if he had a 12 volt VW generator and if he did to call me on my cell.

Finally heard from the wrecker at 11 a.m. He informed me that he had crushed most of his old VWs (many mental F-bombs were dropped and continue to do so to this very moment.) but that he had two 70s Beetles with alternators. And with that, I drove out to a place that looked to my Iowan/Oregonian eyes quite like a martian landscape. Plus a lot of dead cars, of course.

I located the two Beetles at the back of the yard and went to work testing the generators by hooking them up to my still mostly charged battery. One spun very, very slowly and then quit and the other didn’t spin at all. Crap!

The hunt was on at that point. Made some calls to Aircooled Interstate Rescue Squad people, whom were very helpful as always, and heard that there was a VW shop in Powell, Wyoming. After utilizing google 411 (FREE!) I finally got the guy’s number. He wasn’t picking up. Well, I charged up the battery and drove the 40 miles to Powell. Sign on the shop said “OPEN” but there was no one there and all the doors were closed. The sign also left two phone numbers, neither of which got me anything. So, I called some more AIRS people and the next best option was to head to Billings to contact a guy named Randy who owns a shop there. Called him but got his voice mail. Left a message.

After hanging out for an hour in this shop parking lot, an elderly man in a Rabbit Pickup pulled up. I introduced myself and told him my problem. He said he didn’t have any generators but he’d be happy to charge my battery so I could get to Billings. He pulled open his garage and WHAMO! VW guts everywhere! While the battery was charging I began to scan the shop for parts I might need. I found 3 generators on the floor covered in dust. No generators? All were tested and none spun. I think he meant “no working generators.”

Got a call from Randy in Billings and headed out there. That’s where I’m at now. Randy has no generator and can’t get one anytime soon but he does have an alternator conversion kit. At this point, well, why not. I’ve got to be back in Eugene on Monday for school. You may not believe it, but I’m still having a great time.

-A