the not so easy up

When I was much younger, a decent part of every summer was spent camping on either lake mead, or lake flaming gorge. It was almost a yearly tradition that we would spend at least a week on the lake, often times joined by steve and wendy and their daughters shawnee and courtney. These were always great times. These were the days I learned the importance of things like balance, endurance, recovery, and moose juice! The early mornings were filled with skiing, knee boarding, and wake boarding, since thats when the water has the best glass. Once the water started to get too choppy to ski, or once everyone was too tired it was usually time for the morning bath, when we were all forced to jump into the usually freezing cold lake with a bottle of shampoo to help cleanse us from the previous days activites. After this morning swim, sometimes there was riding around the lake looking for more good water to ski, other times there was fishing, for the most part lots of relaxing took place till around noon, when it was time for another swim call. This usually involved diving off the bow, or when we were anchored close enough, a swim to the cliff like rocks on the waters edge for some cliff diving. After lunch, if we were close enough to shore, we would spend a lot of time catching crawdads, and exploring the shore line. In the late afternoon there was usually more skiing to be had, and then we would either return to our campsite on the beach (if we had one) or we would anchor the boats in a small cove and tie them together using an innertube as a ferry between them.

The summer of 96 was an interesting time. On this particular trip we were at lake mead. The thing that made this trip different from all the previous ones, was that some friends and I had managed to blow ourselves up the previous fall and as a result I could not be in direct sunlight. Everywhere I went I was covered with sunscreen so thick that I looked the guy in the movie powder. I also wore a hat at all times, even while swimming. For those of you familiar with watersports in which you are towed behind a boat, you are aware that stopping is rarely a gracefull thing, and most times involes a violent collision of your body and the not so soft water, usually resulting in the body bending and smashing in ways you never would have thought imaginable. This makes for cicumstances that are perfect for the loosing of hats, glasses and anytihng else not strapped or bolted to the body. Since I couldnt take the risk of loosing the hat and being directly exposed to the sun, if I was going to ski that summer I would have to find a solution. After some deep thought by all those in attendance, the solution came in the form of a blue beani. It was decided to cut holes for the mouth and eyes and then a could just wear it like and ski mask. Even after a great crash, this would still keep my head protected from the sun. after a few cuts and a little stitching, my new face mask was ready. At this time in my life, I was attempting to learn the art of slolom skiing. After many failed previous attempts at getting up, it was suggested I try a contraption known as the “easy up”. This ingenious device is a tow rope with a small bouy near the handle end. The rope splits into 2 at the bouy and then come back together forming a small triangle for you to slide the ski into. This is suppose to keep the ski in place while you are getting up, and then once you start to plane the bouy slides off the ski and you are free and clear. At least that is what is suppose to happen. So im out there in the water, got my blue beani mask on, and ski in the easy up. I yell for them to hit it, and hold on as the boat lurches forward. As the boat starts to pull me up and out of the water, I lose my balance, fall, and let go of the rope. Normally what would happen at this point is that I would come splashing to the surface after a few seconds gulping in air. Instead, when I let go of the rope, the easy up got caught on the ski boot and continued to drag me behind the boat. I tried desperately to free myself from the rope, but couldnt. Due to the impact of my fall, I was pretty much out of air immediately. In my attempt to get more air I ended up taking several large gulps of water instead which did not help my situation as I continued to be dragged deeper and deeper in the water. Then all of a sudden I was free! I made my way to the surface as fast as I could, and as soon as my head came out of the water I took a deep breathe, only to be rewared with another mouthfull of water and darkness. I was confused as I floated there choking, till I realised that during my ordeal, the face mask had twisted on my head and the eyes and mouth were no longer lined up properly. In essence, I was temporarily waterboarding myself. As soon as I realized what was happening I ripped off the mask. About this time the boat had circled back around to pick me up and find out what had happened. As they were pulling me into the boat I eplained my near drowning. After we pulled in the ski, we noticed the end of the rope that is supposed to be tied to the boat was frayed, and had been cut. I had been dragged under the water so deep, that the rope hit the prop on the boat, getting cut in half which is what freed me and allowed me to find my way back to the surface. Of course I have never used an “easy up” since.

"I's thumbin' through the want ads in the Shelby County Tribune"

One summer when I was working at the tanker base on fox air field, I had the opportunity to get to know several of the pilots who were also working for the U.S. Forest Service. One of them had been driving around an older honda civic, and then one day I stopped seeing it in the parking lot. Towards the end of the fire season I asked him what had happened to his car. He told me that it had just stopped running one day and that he didnt know what was wrong with it. It was currently sitting in a field at his house. For those of you that know me, it should come as no surprise that my eyes lit up at the possibility of a broken honda that I might be able to buy for cheap! I asked him what his plans for it where, and when he told me he was probably just gonna get rid of it, I immediately asked him how much he wanted for it. He seemed a little confused as to why I would want to buy a car that was not running, and told me he was pretty sure that it would not run and that he doubted I would be interested in it. I told him that it didnt bother me that it was not running and again asked how much he wanted for it. He told me I could have it for five hundred, if I really wanted it, and that I could come by after work to take a look at it to make sure. After work that day (around 19:00) I headed to his place out in Leona Valley. It took about 30 min to get out there, and then another fifteen to find his place. By the time I got there it was already getting dark. He came out and met me in the yard when I pulled up. We then walked across a field to get to the car sitting in grass that was about knee deep. I took a good look at the car with a flashlight, even though my mind was already made up before I got there. The car was a 92 civic hatchback hf, meaning it was one that was suppose to get great mileage. The door handles had been broken off when someone broke into it sometime before and had been replaced with some metal levers off of what looked like the inside handles for an old impala. The original ignitions system had also been ripped out, including the key hole. It had been replaced with one out of an old forklift, so there were different keys for the door and the ignition. Other than that, the inside was in great shape. After I told him I would buy the car , he asked me if I was interested in having a truck as well. I asked him what kind of truck. He pointed a few yards away to a 79 chevy luv that was also sitting in the field. I went over and gave it a good look over, while I was doing this he told me it didnt run either. He had been using it to move fire wood, and one day after loading it up, it wouldnt start anymore so it had just sat there since. The truck was a sky blue color, and had several rust spots. When I popped the hood, the engine was covered with dirt and cobwebs. I couldnt see any leaks and everything seemed to be in order. I asked him how much he wanted for it, and he told me I could have both vehicles for five hundred bucks. Of course the word score! Was flashing through my mind. I told him I would take them both. We worked out the details of when and how to get them to my place, and then I was on my way home. I had made it up and over goade hill road, and was coming down the straight away when I heard a pop and then a dragging noise as I came to the stop sign. After coming to a complete stop, I went to put the car in gear and instantly found that the shifter was moving freely in all directions and would not engage any gear. I pushed the car through the intersection and then steered it to the side of the road as it coasted to a stop. I pulled the e brake, grabbed my flashlight and climbed out to see what was wrong. As soon as I stuck my head under the car I could see the shift linkage hanging down and resting on the ground. That explained the dragging sound I had heard. There is a small pin that holds the linkage to the transmission, this pin is a pain to take out and requires a special punch tool and a hammer, so I was quite confused as to how it had managed to come out on its own. I called up my good friend tom, who luckily for me happened to be in the area. I explained the situation and asked if he wouldnt mind swinging by my place and grabbing a role of P-cord that I had in the garage. Being tom, he of course responded that it would be no problem and that he would be there as soon as he could. After about fifteen minutes, tom shows up with the roll of cord. We grab the jack out of the back of my car and begin the process of getting it off the ground. At this particular time, my car had about 4 fingers of ground clearance, and a regular jack would not fit underneath unless someone was lifting up on the front of the car. After getting the car jacked up far enough for me to slide part way under, I tied up the linkage to the transmission to keep it from dragging on the ground. Since I didnt have a replacement pin on me, I grabbed a screwdriver and used it to shift the transmission into gear by hand. When I thought I had it in first gear I climbed out from under the car and we lowered it back down. After getting everything put away, we decided tom would follow me back to my place to make sure I made it all the way without further problems. I jumped in the car, fired it up and when I tried to go I immediately discovered that I had missed 1^st gear and had actually put it in 3^rd. Not wanting to do everything over again, I figured I could limp it home in 3^rd. This required lots of revving the engine to high rpms and then burning the clutch to keep it from stalling every time we came to a stop sign or stop light. After about 20 min we managed to make it back to the house. The next day I dug out a spare linkage pin and put it in. another rescue made possible by tom. (for those that are wondering, the car needed some sensors and fuses replaced, and the truck just needed the needle valve in the carburator cleaned)

E.T.

One night the captain (chris), rene and I decide to go out geocaching. For those of you who are not aware, we are all members of Team Nightwatch ( geocaching adventure group) and most of our excursions take place well after the sun has gone down. On this particular night we decided to find several caches that were located near a ridgeline a little northeast of devil's punchbowl. We manage to get to the creek at the bottom of the trailhead a little after 2200. its a decent length hike along the trail of switch backs to get to the top of the ridge, and there are several sections where the trail is sorta missing cause it has been washed out and all that is left is a steep drop off. Usually I hike a lot faster than the majority of the group, so on this night, as on many others I was wearing a 40 pound wieght vest to slow me down. It was a pretty bright night, with little cloud cover, with the moonlight reflecting off of all the snow along the trail and mountain side. Around 2300 we are near the ridgeline. We pause to look out over the valley behind us. As we are doing so, I notice a car driving on a road about a mile or so away. I ask chris if he happens to have the laser pointer on him, which he does, he quickly pulls it out and hands it to me, I grab the laser and scramble off the trail and up the ridgeline a little ways, when I get to a good spot I shine the laser at the car. Now this particular laser has a green light, and on a previous adventure we were using it to mark a friends position so that he could locate us up on a hillside. This is when we discovered that at a distance of about a mile the tiny little light ends up covering about a ten foot radius of whatever it is shined on. As soon as the light hits the car, we see the break lights come on and the dust start to rise as the vehicle comes sliding to a stop. I gradually move the light around the outside of the car in a circle motion. Then I shine the light back on the car for a couple seconds before turning the laser off. The car sits there for a min or so not moving. Then the car slowly starts to move forward. I immediately shine the laser back on the car, and instantly there is a cloud of dust that rises up as the driver of the car slams his foot on the gas. I keep the light on the car for a few seconds as the driver tries to outrun it as he races away. By now the others are laughing hysterically as I turn off the light. After this short break, we continue the rest of the way up the trail. When we reach the ridgeline, we lost the trail in the snow. None of us expected there to be so much snow still on the ground. As we refer to the gps, we realize the cache that we are looking for is farther up in the snow on an adjoining ridge. Normally this would not keep me from going after it, but after some slipping and sliding on the snow, I decide it is too dangerous for everyone to try for it so we decide for safety's sake to head back down (I know, since when am I safe). We decide not to pass up all the fun, and instead of taking the trail back, we decide to try and slide down the snow filled draw. We all climb down a small drop off, and then I take a giant leap out into the draw. I immediately discover that this was a bad move as I land in a pile of rocks that are barely covered with snow. I continue on down the mountain, discovering new rocks with each slip and fall. The others follow me down, with the same luck. Instead of gracefully sliding down the mountain, we manage to bounce and tumble down the whole way while ripping some clothes and bruising our bodies. When we get to the bottom we find whats left of the trail and work our way back to the car. The way home we again laugh at the car we scared with the laser, and we make plans to look in the paper to see if there are any local “UFO” reports. Definitely an entertaining night.

going all out!

A long time ago, my brother jake called me into his room. When I walked in, he pointed to a new poster he had on the wall. This poster was a map of all the major ski resorts in the united states, and it had informations about each resort. As he was pointing to the map he looked at me and said “so what do you think?” I told him it was a cool looking map, to which he replied “ we should try and ski as many of these as possible (by ski I mean snowboard). I looked closer at the map and started to list off all the ones I had already been to, which was a small number when compared to how many were on the map. We both decided that would be a pretty sweet thing to attempt.

Now fast forward a couple years. At the time, my brother was living in las vegas, and I was living in southern california. He calls me up one day and tells me that he has a plan. He knows that I am coming up to visit in the near future, and pitches the idea to me that when I am up there, we should hop in his car early one morning and drive to the Elk meadows resort in utah. we can snowboard all day, and then drive back that night. Plus he gets an awesome student discount there! Since I am never one to turn down adventure, I tell him that I am in. over the next couple weeks he finds out all the important info, like how to get there (this was before the days of everyone owning gps and navigation systems) and how much it will cost. We got up early on the morning we had planned to leave, and loaded up our snowboards, some fat kid snacks, and also some snow chains just in case the roads were bad, and then we were on our way in the smooth blue 84 volvo. Now this car was a typical “first car”. Seems like we worked on that car all the time and by work on I mean search all over the county to find almost non existent parts that were over priced. There was almost always something wrong with it whether it was the constant oil leak, or broken sensors or pcv needing replaced. My brother used to joke that the only way to fix everything on his car was to just turn the radio up till you couldnt hear any of the noises. All in all a good car to learn that cars are lots of work. So there we are making good time flying down the road, jake behind the wheel, and me leaning over making sure to keep the wires hot wired together. ( another one of the peculiarities of this car was the overdrive would not stay in gear unless someone physically held the wires coming out of the center of the stick shift together. This became the passengers most important job when on the highway) we made great time getting to utah, and soon began our ascent up the windy mountain roads to the resort. The roads were clear, so we were doing about thiry five miles an hour around the switchbacks, when all of a sudden we lost traction and began to slide. The car suddenly learched forward once the rear wheels cleared the black ice, only we were no longer facing the same direction that the road went. We shot forward into the giant snow burm on the side of the road. Upon impact we didnt stop, but rather were launched up and almost completely over it. Snow came flying over the windshield so that neither of us could see, while all our stuff in the back seat came flying forward. When we finaly came to a stop, the car was no longer in the upright position on the wheels. It was not completely on its side, but pretty darn close. My brother opened his door till it hit the ground and then sorta fell out of the car. I pushed me door open and then held it in place so it would not come crashing back down on me as I attempted to exit the car like I was leaving thru a hatch in a submarine. As soon as I stepped off the car into the snow I sank up to my thighs. I made my way back to the road where both of us stood staring at the car in disbelief, jake just smiling away the whole time. Our first reaction was the typical “holy crap I cant believe that just happened!” and was shortly followed by, I hope this doesnt ruin our trip. After a few moments we both begin trying to figure out how we are gonna get the car back to the road. We grab the chains out of the trunk and begin putting them on, only to discover that since the back right tire is in the air, it spins while the other one remains motionless. We figure people get stuck all the time, so the resort should have a tow truck. Jake starts heading up the road to the resort. After a few min I see a tow truck driving by, he slows down when he sees me on the side of the road next to the car. By this time, jake has returned to the car and is in good spirits at seeing the truck. The guys asks if we need help, and of course we admit that we do. While he is hooking his truck up to the car, he tells us that we have made it farther up the snow burm than anyone else he has seen, to which jake replies without missing a beat “if your gonna do something, might as well go all out”. The tow truck driver laughs as he climbs back in his truck to pull us out. About this time another car comes driving by. As they roll down their window and slow down to make sure we are alright, we make sure and let them know that we now hold the record for distance off the road up the burm. They just shake their heads as they drive away. Eventually we are back on the road and continuing up the road to the resort. We have a great day of snowboarding, and get in some good practice working on 360's and 180's. Sometime in the late afternoon we decide we should probably start heading back. We get in one last run, then load up our gear in the car. We do a quick once over on the car to make sure nothing important is falling off or destroyed and then we headed back out on the road. Everything was smooth sailing till we got a little ways past st george. We managed to get to the winding canyon road at the same time the sun was sitting a little ways above the horizon which made it impossible to see the road ahead of us. Normally this wouldnt be too big of a concern, except that there are huge drop offs that lead to certain death. We tried using the sun visors, and our hands to block the sun, but it was of no use. I looked out my side window and tried to keep an eye on the lines in the road while jake hugged the inside and used the bumps on the side of the road as his guide. My eyes were strained for what seemed like forever tyring to keep track of the road, before we finally made it out and were able to finish our drive. What a great trip!

three amigos

Ever since my cousin mike got his liscense, it seemed like almost every other weekend him and his brother dan were coming out to our place on the weekends to go to dances, or magic mountain, or whatever else seemed to be going on at the time. Back in the tale end of the 90's my cousin mike had just gotten off his mission and had come to live with us for a while. At the time he was driving a 1982 chevette. On this particular occasion we had stayed at uncle joe's house. Mike, dan, and I were driving back to palmdale. Like usual, we were taking the back way, since it was quicker and had less traffic and cops. We were making great time, we were around 230^th st E on palmdale blvd when all of a sudden there was a loud bang, and instantly the windsheild was covered with coolant/water. We slowed down and pulled over to see what had happened. Upon first inspection we could not see anything wrong, so we all piled back into the chevette and were on our way again. After about a mile the car started to bog down and stalled. Since we could not get it running, we decided it was time to push. So the 3 of us started pushing the chevette up the road (was literally uphill at that spot), after pushing the car for about a half mile, we dicided to try and start it again. This time it started, so we quickly jumped in and were on our way again, though we did not make it far before the car died again. Once again we climbed out of the car and popped the hood, and this time we could see the huge tear in the radiator hose. Of course we didnt have tools or anything needed for fixing such a problem, so we took and old rag and tied it around the trear in hopes of preventing most the water from leaking out. In this area there are several farms that run along the south side of the road, the ones with those giant watering systems that sort of resemble rows of canons. We looked through the car and found an empty 2 liter bottle of mt dew. I grabbed the bottle and took it over to one of the huge trenches along the side of the road that was full of water. I filled the bottle up the best I could without filling it full of mud at the same time. We filled up the radiator, then topped off the bottle and again headed on our way. After several miles, the chevette started smoking like crazy, so we pulled over on the corner of palmdale blvd and 170^th st e. to fill up the radiator again and look for more water. As we were filling up the radiator, a kind stranger stopped by to see if we needed any help. They happened to have a cell phone we could use (now this was back before everybody had them, we were quite surprised they would let us use it. We thought through our friends trying to pick who would most likely be home that had access to a vehicle. We ended up calling jacquelle, only to get an aswering machine. We tried a couple other people as well, but had no luck. We thanked the kind person and then let them continue on their way. After filling the bottle again we hopped in the car and continued down the road. After a few more miles it started to smoke again, this time there was no water in sight, and once we turned the car off, it would not start again. So we started pushing the car again. After a few minutes of this, I saw a car coming down the road and decided to try and hitchhike back to my house and get my car and some tools and come back out. I told mike and dan my plan and then stuck my thumb out as the car got near. I was surprised that the car stopped! This older lady and her daughter were heading to palmdale. I explained the situation and they agreed to give me a ride. So I hopped in their car and away we went. After a few miles they told me they had to make a stop real quick, so we pulled into this large building that looked abandoned from the outside. The inside was crammed full of junk. They talked to a couple guys with beards in overalls, and then we were on our way again. When they dropped me off I offered them gas money, but the politely turned it down and headed off on their way. I grabbed my emergency kit and a can of fuel and headed back out to find mike and dan. When I got to the spot where I had left them, neither them or the car was there. I thought I must be mistaken ,so I went farther out. After a while I turned around and started heading towards town. As I started to get near 90^th st e. I happened to look at a school off to the left only to see the chevette parked in the parking lot with the hood open. When I pulled in, they told me they had gotten it running again and this was as far as they made it. We used some duct tape to “fix” the radiator hose, filled it full of water. After several tries we got it running again, so mike and dan hopped in and started heading to the house as I followed in my car. once we got it back to the house, it was discovered that there was no oil in it and that the block was pretty much destroyed. That was the end of the chevette as far as I recall

jeep flat

so one night i was driving home from work on highway 138 aka Blood alley or California deathway (lots of horrendous accidents) keeping up with the flow of traffic (between 60 five and 70) when all of a sudden the back end of the jeep drops about 6 inches and pulls drasticly to the right. i immediately grab the wheel with both hands and let my foot off the gas , avoiding the brake so that i don’t flip the jeep. as soon as i pass over the bridge for the aqueduct, i pull off the road to inspect the damage only to discover that i had completely blown out the side wall of the tire... no good its now starting to get dark, so i go to start grabbing the jack (so that i can hurry up and get back on the road) and remember that i had taken the jack and all the tools out of the jeep when i was washing all of the ash that has been falling like snow from the local fires out of it. and of course a regular scissor jack for a car will not work so i cant just flag down a random motorist for help. so i called my buddy tom, who is usually my partner in crime when we go out to rescue others that get stranded. he had just gotten out of class at the college, which just happens to be only about five miles from my house. i tell him that either Amanda or amber (2 of my room mates) should be home and that the jack is in the front room under the light switch. so he heads over there to get it and then come find me. while i am waiting it gets dark. so i climb up on top of the hood and lay there looking at the stars waiting for tom to arrive. after about 40 min he pulls up. we pull out the jack, put on headlamps and start pulling out tools looking for whichever one will fit the lug nuts. an of course none of them do! so being the preparedness dorks that we are, we pull out our ham radios and try to see if anyone in the area had the appropriate size tire iron for a jeep. i think this is the first time that no one else has been on the repeater ( listening with their radio in the area) so we do the next best thing and call my dad (he lives about 10 miles from where we were) to come and bring us more tools. while we are waiting for him we decide to pull off the spare to get everything ready. the wind has started to blow and it is getting cold. so normally spare tires  should come off easily... not mine! we pull, we push, we pry. after several min of teamwork and one broken pry bar later, the spare tire is off and on the ground, and of course it is flat! so i call my day up and tell him to bring the portable air compressor with him also (since i left mine at home with all my tools). now we have nothing to do but wait. so while we are waiting, we start talking about guns and cars and emergency preparedness stuff (tom is the guy i am suppose to move in with in December) and other random topics. after about 20 min my dad arrives. we grab the tools, find one that will fit and get to work. after we get the jeep jacked up most the way, it becomes extremely difficult to push down the bar that does the jacking up. so much so that i put all my weight on it and all it did was lift me off the ground (and im not exactly a lite person), so my buddy ( who is slightly overweight, but more importantly heavier than i am) puts all his weight on the jack and is able to slowly get it to move, so we both lean on it and are able to jack it up high enough to pull the old tire off and put the spare on. after that we hook up the mini compressor the cigarette lighter and start filling up the spare. my dad was standing there watching and laughing at us the whole time. after several min it is ready, so we unhook everything and get the tire on and put everything away. then we all go our separate ways. upon further inspection after i got home, i found that the steel bar contraption i have on the back of the jeep to hold the spare tire and the gas cans is bent and all jacked up. so i get to spend the next day welding and getting tires, and then roll into work a few hours late. 

"whistling in the dark"

 I come home from one of my soccer games one Saturday morning to find my housemate Chris in the driveway on his cell phone loading up the blazer. His brother mike is supposed to be driving a jeep up for him that he bought recently. The look on his face tells me something is not going right. I put my stuff in the house and change into some regular clothes, then head back outside to see what is going on. Turns out his brother and a friend were almost to st George when the jeep lost all oil pressure and died. Their dad had come up and towed them the rest of the way to mesquite. They did not know what to do from there, hence the call to Chris. Chris told me he was gonna drive the blazer out there and see what was going on, and tow the jeep back if he had to. Since I had nothing else going on for the weekend I offered to go with. After filling the back of the blazer with tools and grabbing some mt dew we headed off. The drive to mesquite was nice and easy, and we made decent time. When we got there we met up with Chris' dad, brother and brothers friend. After some brief introductions we started checking out the jeep. We discovered a pretty bad oil leak near the rear main seal, other than that we couldn’t find anything wrong with it. Since there was nothing more to be done to the about the jeep, we decided it was time to get some food. We all went and ate at one of the hotels that was offering an all you could eat shrimp buffet. After at least an hour of over filling our stomachs, we decided it was time to get back on the road. We hooked the trailer with the jeep up to the blazer. It was well after dark by the time we started on our way back. About 20 min outside of mesquite we started hearing this horrible knocking sound, with a huge loss of power, so we pulled over to investigate. After looking around for a bit, we discovered that the blazer had some bad spark plug wires. We tried taking some of the wires off of the jeep, but found out they were the wrong kind. I made a couple calls, and was able to get a hold of a couple of my cousins (mike and Dan) who were living in St George at the time. Dans wife dawn was nice enough to drive to the nearest store and get some spark plug wires for us that would hopefully work. They they drove out to find us. After waiting about an hour or so on the side of the freeway, a truck pulls up and Dan and mike along with one of their friends climb out. after swapping out the plug wires we fire it up and notice the problem is still there. After some deliberation we decide we are not gonna be able to fix it here on the side of the road in the middle of the night, so I call up my mom that lives about 45 min away and explain the situation and ask if we can crash at her place for the night. She says yes. So we decide to unload the jeep, and have the jeep tow the trailer, while mike and Dan tow the blazer with their truck and a tow rope. Since I am the one who has the most experience driving a vehicle being towed, I get to ride in the blazer and operate the brakes and steering wheel. So there we are caravanning down the highway in the middle of the night, with me being towed in the blazer about 6 ft behind the truck, eyes as open as I can get them so that I can keep an eye on the tension in the tow rope. We pull into my moms neighborhood, and as we are coming around the last turn, the tow rope snaps. We tie it back on and finish pulling all the vehicles to the front of the house. After giving mike and Dan many thanks, they head off back to st George. The rest of us are shown were we can sleep. After about 4 hours of sleep, I awake to find Chris sitting at the table pouring over a tech manual. We head back outside and start trying to figure out what is wrong while the others are still asleep. Not too long after, I notice that one of the spark plugs is broken, so we start checking all the plugs only to find that one of them has completely broken apart on the inside and the pieces have fallen into the cylinder. Now everything is starting to make sense. I call up my buddy Chris v who lives in Vegas, and ask his wife if its ok if we steal him for the day. Soon after Chris v is on his way out to meet us with some new spark plugs from auto zone. When he arrives, we put the plugs in, and fire it up only to find out the problem is not fixed. We decide the next best course of action is to get the blazer back to mesquite to auto zone. We pull the blazer, with Chris V’s blazer. Once we get to auto zone, we notice that the tension pulley is not operating as it should, so we figure that might be the what is causing the problem. After several hours of no luck, Chris calls his dad. New plan is for his dad to come back and we will put the blazer on the trailer and he will tow it back to Utah. Chris and I will take a chance and drive the jeep back. We stock up with several five qt jugs of oil and some coolant, and hit the road with Chris v following us. We leave chris' brother and his friend with the blazer to wait for their dad and ride back with him. On the way to Vegas, I keep a steady eye on the oil pressure gauge. Every time it makes a sudden drop we pull over and add a couple qts of oil. We have to pull over twice on the way to Vegas. We stop by Chris V’s house and his wife Kim is kind enough to make us dinner. I pass out on the couch while she is cooking. After we eat, we decide its time to get back on the road, especially since Chris has to be to work in the morning. As we pull out, we find that the headlights don’t work, so we make another stop at auto zone to pick some up, along with more oil. Then off into the night we go. Now one of the qualities that the jeep has, is a levitating roof, meaning of you are not actively hanging on to it, it wants to fly away, and when it starts to lift of the body is when the doors are free to open on their own. Obviously this caused some interesting moments going down the road. When we got to stateline we stopped and filled up, and of course added more oil. We also bought some bungee cords. Before hitting the road again we took off the snowboard rack from the roof and hooked the bunge cords through the holes and then hooked the other ends to the roll cage. We also found a way to bungee the doors shut. This made the rest of the drive much easier. We then continued down the highway going about fifty miles an hour the rest of the way home taking back roads so as to stay off the highway and out of every ones way, stopping about every hour or so to top off fuel and add oil. After a while we stopped switching off back and forth for driving, and I drove the rest of the way so that chris could get some sleep since he had to work in the morning. It was around sun up when we rolled into the driveway, what a weekend....... we later found out that the blazer had thrown a rod, which I should have guessed right away.