There is a God

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Well at least today there is anyway.
My day started as usual cramming all my gear into the Jag, for the last time with it anyway.
I drove the 80miles to Salt Lake City full of dred expecting the car to die at any moment, it knowing that I was on my way to sell it.
Thankfully I made it to Salt Lake City completely uneventfully and found my way to the local Car Max dealer.
Arriving at 09:45 to find they open at 10:00am, so a bit of a wait in the carpark.
The whole process of selling the car was very easy, I had all my paperwork that was required, they had a look made me an offer and that was it.
Only got $250 for it but concidering that state it was in dirty, rattles, clunks, and hemoraging power steering fluid, and the small fact of the 205,000miles on it, that was a fair amount.
They even drove me the 20 odd km to the airport so I could get my rental. (not in the jag)
Things got even better here.
I went to the rental car firms desk, the paper work etc was taken care of for my replacement car.
I had booked this a couple of days ago on line and had booked a economy car (toyota echo or similar)
However they were suffering a shortage of cars and had none left, so still charging me the rate fo the economy car ($22 per day) they gave me a Nissan Murano, ye ha.
I've instantly gone from the bottom of the heap on the road to now being (or at least feeling like) a flash git.
One of those guys that I have spent the last rew weeks looking at and thinking "I wish I had something like that"
After the jag and all the paranoia it instilled in me on the road this is great.
It has a stereo that actually works, AC that also works, no rattles, thumps, leaks, and my best friend cruise control, that also works.
And unlike the jag all of the doors open to, quite a novelty really.
From Salt lake City I headed North on I15 and into Idaho, which so far is a pleasant looking place rolling green hills, feilds of wheat intersected by the occasional old lava flow.
At Idaho Falls I decided to top up the new steed with gas as I was heading into the wilds from here on and expected that I would be able to get gas but it might get a bit more expensive.
I wish things remained as easy as they were in the morning, the first gas station I went to the pump wouldn't work at all, it seemed it had an aversion to anybody putting their money cards in it, the pump at the second station would work but would only pump gas at the rate of about 1 gallon every 2 minutes, I gave up after the first gallon guessing that I would need about 10.
And finally the pump at the third one worked as normal.
I then turned east on highway 26 heading for the mountains.
As I got to the start of the proper mountain area I stopped on a corner of a side road to liase with my slowly disintergrating map as to where the nearest camp sites were.
Out of the road came a middle aged man with a small now rolled up inflateable raft, I asked him about the local camping and it turned out he had came down the river from a nice camping spot a few miles up stream and also need a ride back.
So I gave him a ride, he gave me advice on the local area and I gave him advice on New Zealand as he works for a company that Has an office in Auckland and has been trying to get his boss to send him there.
So I now have my tent set up by the Snake River Idaho in a very nice spot, with a camp fire burning thanks to some abandoned fire wood at the next camp site.
And hardly any mozzies.

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Photos

Da New wheels
They must have knowen I like these, favorite colour too

Snake River
Wounder where the snakes are, or bears for that matter.

Comments

[JB]

Hooray Stickboy has AC and flash new wheels.