Ogden, UT: Day 8 of the move

Where to begin…

So, we spent Day 7 of the move in Salt Lake City yesterday and aside from the frustration that nothing was happening with the truck, it was a really lovely day. To sum up yesterday, here are my twitter posts from then.

• 06:59 Heading out to have the truck looked at. #
• 08:02 They say it will be an hour before they can look at the truck. We’re at a deli having breakfast. #
• 09:50 Chapter 22 = finished. Still at the Rose Canyon Deli with no word on the truck. #
• 10:35 We are taking a cab back to @Bethwodzinski and @Seanmarkey’s. Still no word on the truck. #
• 14:23 We are staying in SLC one more night. #
• 16:18 Novel = Finished. #
• 16:36 In other news, just talked to the truck place and they haven’t even looked at it yet. sigh… #
• 17:23 Visited Gilgal Garden with @seanmarkey and Rob. Really interesting. #
• 21:37 Truck update. Needs a new radiator cap. They’ll pick that up tomorrow. Hope to roll by noon. #

Now, I do need to stress that Budget’s customer service has totally rocked on this.  Tricia, the woman who was on call when we had trouble Wednesday night got up at 7:00 am to call the repair shop to make sure we could get in.  I’m pretty sure she wasn’t still on duty from Wednesday.

Anyway, after not hearing anything today, I called the truck rental place at 10:00 this morning.  They needed to “check on” the truck.  About half an hour later I found out that they were just getting to replacing the radiator cap and told us to come on down.

Amazingly, the truck was ready when we got there, we loaded up our luggage and the cat and were on the road by 12:30.  Not that far off our original estimate.

We were on the road for about an hour and a half when the engine overheated again.  In the middle of nowhere.  We called Budget, who again, were totally on top of things.  The gentleman I spoke with found the closest shop, patched us into a conference call and we were on our way.

Backwards, admittedly, but only 20 miles to Tremerton.

Here’s the only serious bit of miscommunication. They didn’t accurately describe how tall the truck was.  It wouldn’t fit into the shop.  Now, the folks there tried gamely for an hour to figure out a way around it and talked with Budget to see if there were any options.

The only choice? Drive back to the next town, Ogden, and a shop that could accomodate us.  Utah Truck and Trailer Repair rocks.  I mean, these guys are great.  They offered to drive to us to repair it, with the caution IF we could get the truck to them, it would be a more efficient and faster repair. It was a half hour drive on level ground, so we chanced it.  Since the overheating only happens on an uphill grade, we thought it was fairly safe.

We arrived and they put the truck straight into bay.

This was a mistake on our part. We should have pulled Marlowe out of the truck first. The noises were so deeply traumatizing to him that he buried himself under the seat. I had to fight to get him out and into the carrier so I could take him to a quiet place.  Er. Quieter place.

The diagnosis is that it is probably the radiator fan clutch.

The problem is that this is Labor Day Weekend.  The UT&T folks are willing to work tomorrow, they just don’t have the right part.  He’ll know by noon if he can get it, but his initial parts search only turned up one place that carried it.

In Pennsylvania.

So, basically, he’ll know by noon if he can get the part closer. Otherwise, they won’t be able to ship it until Tuesday.

Which means we’d be here for another week.

Oh, don’t worry. I’m going to talk to Budget tomorrow, but I’ll wait until I know what is happening with that part.  Meanwhile, Rob and I have the jacuzzi suite at the hotel and I’m going to take a good soak in the tub.

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