People Say We Monkey Around. . .

Dateline: Kalispell, Montana. Thursday, August 16, 2007. 11:30 p.m. Mountain Time.

Ta-da!

And the Lord God Volvo said, "Let there be gears." And they were good. At least, we hope. For the work on the Volvo was completed around 5 o'clock this afternoon. Too late to make a break for South Dakota, naturally, and too late to test the new transmission on the route from Kalispell to Missoula, through a half dozen new wildfires. John at Celtic Motors beseeched us to wait until the light of a new day to test the new transmission.

Where am I? Back in the La Quinta Inn, of course. In fact, we got the last room they had. And it is the same one from last night. Bizarro.

Tomorrow (well, in about 5 hours) we leave before dawn, to make tracks, as it were. To get the hell out of Montana already. Gee, we love it here, but, enough is enough.

This morning we finally ascended the Going To The Sun Road in Glacier National Park (which we had attempted twice last week) and arrived at Logan Pass, some 6,000 plus feet up there at the Continental Divide. And do you know, we have crossed said divide so many times on this trip that it has become anticlimactic? True fact. Not only that, but we have done it at far greater heights (which is probably what blew the transmission to begin with).

At the Logan Pass visitor center, we hiked about a mile up above the tree line, saw marmots and ground squirrels and mountain goats, and then came back down. It was a trek, to be sure, since H. had Elliot on her back and I had the Tobester on my shoulders. But it was worth it, as we encountered our first batch of alpine air, devoid of the smoke that clouds most of this state and makes it stink like last night's cozy fire.

We were back in Kalispell about 2-ish, to learn the car was not yet ready. We killed time. We killed more time. We killed Time yet again (first degree manslaughter, at least). Then we were off to Celtic Motors, where H. waited with Stuart and Toby for the final tally on the Volvo while I went to Enterprise to return the Jetta (which looked like the inside of a box of Fruit Loops that had collided with a box of Cheez-Its in the Fourth Dimension of Matter and Magazines). Around 5:15, H. rescued Elliot and I, finding us out front of Enterprise looking like a pair of forlorn Okies who had failed to outrun the Dust Bowl.

To say that we are frazzled barely scratches the surface. Our patience and resilience has been tested too many times, and we now live in fear of another breakdown somewhere between Kalispell and Tyngsborough. That's what happens when your trusted new mechanic tells you it looks like the oil hasn't been changed in your car in over 4 years (we've had it for three and paid for numerous oil changes). That's what happens when your trusted new mechanic tells you the inside of your old transmission looked like a Civil War-era steam locomotive had collided with a back alley dumpster from Love Canal in the Fourth Dimension of Transmission Fluid and Dime Novels.

Our plan is this: Drive until our eyes turn purple. With a few stops (Wall Drug, The Corn Palace, The Spam Museum). It is our hope, remote though it may be, to be home by Sunday night. But it looks iffy -- iffy even in a world of 100 mph speed limits, empty interstates, and flawless seven year old Volvo station wagons.

I suspect this is where the fun begins. Although I thought the same thing at the Louisville Slugger Factory.

Do you think it's just that Pennsylvania has it in for me? After all those things I said? Well, it can't be helped. I meant what I said about the Keystone State.

(photo at top: Lake MacDonald, Glacier N.P. last week -- note forest fire smoke through the middle of the photo)