Billings!

by Robison Wells

Several months ago I recounted a story of several bad things piling up: a leaky roof, a neice who didn't sleep, a son who peed on me during stake conference. And I said, "After a while, when problems pile up (or puddle up) it stops being aggravating and starts being funny."

Well, I was mistaken.

Several weeks ago we had a bit of a milestone on the old Frog Blog, wherin I used a bad word. Despite what you would expect--that a bad word would be used in a hurried, wild rant--I actually deliberated long and hard before using it. But I decided that it worked, and that it fit the post.

But the problem is that that kind of language would be extremely appropriate today, but now I can't use it lest I be deemed a potty mouth. Dang it.

Here's the story:

I left scenic Minneapolis on Friday afternoon, and I drove to Fargo, ND. The next day I drove from Fargo to Miles City, MT (home of Violet Beauregard). Along the way I stopped in at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and was surprised to discover it holds the record as the World's Most Boring National Park.

Sunday I drove down to Little Bighorn National Monument, which I found fascinatingly ambiguous. I took a great many pictures, and I was already fashioning a blog post in my head as I left the parking lot.

Then, on to Billings Montana for lunch and fuel, and then over the scenic Beartooth Pass into Yellowstone National Park. I've been to Yellowstone a million times--it's one of my favorite places on earth--but I'd never come in the northeast entrance. And the Beartooth Pass was once dubbed The Most Beautiful Road in North America. So, I was excited.

Here's a picture of the pass. The road doesn't go up the canyon floor, as you might expect. It actually goes up the side of the mountain in a series of wicked switchbacks.


Here is Google Earth's map of the switchbacks. In these steep roads, you climb just under 4000 feet. It's beautiful and crazy--one of those roads that makes you think civil engineers secretly want to be in the X-Games.


So I got to the top of the switchbacks, and there's a great little vista where you can pull over and look back at the road and be amazed that you actually survived.

As I pulled into that parkign lot, my car died.

It didn't start again. I know absolutely nothing about cars, so I enlisted the help of a fellow traveler, who happened to be an auto mechanic. He tried to jump start it, but to no avail. I finally called a tow truck. (And I did so on one of those roadside emergency boxes, because no one had cellphone coverage up on Beartooth Pass.)

The tow truck took me and the car back down the insane switchbacks, and on into Billings (all for the low low price of $430!)

It being a Sunday afternoon, I found a hotel across the street from the Kia dealership (did I mention that my car is a Kia? And were you aware that Kia sucks?). The next morning (yesterday) they gave me the diagnosis: timing belt.

For those, like me, who are unaware of the inner workings of vehicles, a timing belt is some thing somewhere inside the engine that makes the car work. When the timing belt breaks, then the engine stops working. (Sorry if that description is too technical for you.) But the fun thing about the timing belt is that it's like a villian in a bad mobster movie: the kind who says "If I'm going down, I'm taking you all with me!" So, the timing belt breaks, and it whips around smashing stuff and bending things and causing mischief.

So. Around 10:00am they told me that it looked like I lucked out and the belt didn't cause much damage. The repair bill would be painful, but not devastating. And then, I didn't see them for seven hours. When the mechanic (named Marv) finally came out of the operating room, he didn't look happy. Three times, he said, they tried to make the timing belt work and three times it didn't solve the problem. So, there must be something else wrong, deeper inside the belly of the beast.

I got a hotel for another night. And here I sit today, continuing to wait, in fricking Billings Montana.

Here's what stinks: this car is not a nice car. It has 110,000 miles on it, and has a lot of wear. Marv said that there's a very real possibility that the repair bill will be more than the car is worth.

Of course, if you were in my shoes, you'd say: "That's okay. I'll just trade it in and buy something else." But that won't work, because I'm a grad student, with no income. And my credit is about what you'd expect for someone with no income, massive student loans, and credit cards bills reflecting the fact that I have NO MONEY.

So, we just might be turning this stupid car in for scrap and then walking for a while.

I tell you: poverty sucks. Almost as much as Kias.