Sunday November 14, 2004

Well, here we are in Las Vegas, which is about 200 miles off our route.

How did we get here? Ah… therein lies a tale of adventure, tragedy and the nobility of the human spirit.

On Saturday, we were just reaching the crest of the Panamint Mountains in Death Valley National Park when the car's brakes gave out. We chose to go forward rather than back to 395 (old route 6) where there are several decent sized towns. We wanted to meet the desert folks who were camping in Death Valley that day and hoped that a simple infusion of brake fluid would put our trustworthy Geo Metro back on it's feet.

If not… we were already planning to stay in Beatty on the eastern side of the park, where we could get help.

We didn't know that the down side of the Panamints would be hair-raising. It was eight miles of switchbacks and signs saying: "Trucks Use Caution" and "Steep Grade Ahead."

We drove down in first gear, got some brake fluid at store in the park and hoped our problems would soon be over.

But the problems were just beginning. The brake fluid didn't work - and we had two more mountain ranges to go before reaching Beatty. There was no way we were going back up the Panamints, which we were told was the worst of the three.

So we chugged along in first gear at about 15 miles an hour most of the way. We entered the park about 1 pm and left in the dark. We checked into a hotel in Beatty and found out there was no mechanic in town - and no place to get parts. Someone who said he knew something about cars said it sounded like a nasty problem to fix.

We decided it was the end of the line for a car that had served us well.

Now here's the noble part. My niece, Sue, who lives near LA offered to let us use her van. She and her husband would drive it to Vegas for us. They even took a day off from work to do it.

And, Travis' cousins in Vegas drove up to Beatty (over 100 miles) to ferry us to Vegas. They treated us to dinner (over our exceptionally weak protests) and put us up for the night. They barely know Travis and they certainly didn't know me (which is probably lucky for them).

A woman in Beatty offered to take the Metro off our hands and even agreed to keep it for us for awhile… while we get some paperwork problems straightened out.

Nice to know there are still good folks left.

And, now here's the tragic side of the tale… here we are in Pleasure City - lights, casinos, flash and everything it's know for… and the folks are headed out to the strip for some sightseeing.

"Are you coming?" they ask.

"No I'll just stay here and do some work," I reply.

Boy, have I gotten old. "Sigh!"

(We'll have a proper eulogy for "Ol' Metro" in our next weekly story).