The Adventures of the Green Bohemoth

I promise I will never go to Old Ephraim's grave ever again. Allow me to qualify that statement a hair. If given the opportunity to take the Green Bohemoth to Old Ephraim's ever again, I will not take it.

The Green Bohemoth, or TGB from here on out is an old beater truck that Shane drives around when he's not driving Reg, his Assault Jeep Commander. It's a beautiful truck, really. Green, brown (from where the metal has been eaten away by the rust), and for the most part runs really great.

So yesterday, Jade, Shane and I pile up in TGB for a short drive up Logan canyon to visit the old bear's tombstone and grave. Short. We get there, snap some photos. Since it's way pretty up there, we made a promise that we would soon go camping. Rumor has it, you can see the beast walking around in chains at night on a full moon if you walk around his grave 13 times a second for 333 seconds. Or is it you have to play a certain song on a tin flute while doing an irish jig 13 times (6 next to his grave, 6 next to his tombstone, and 1 exactly in the middle of the two). Me, I don't buy it. Then we cram back into TGB, which was OK since Jade was sitting in the middle.

We start driving back. About halfway between the bear and the highway, we are going up a certain hill. Near the top, it gets really rocky (like the small rocks that are insignificant alone, but in great numbers on a hill, make it awfully hard to drive) and TGB dies. It just kills over and dies. Just like that. Try to start it again. Nothing. So we rolled all the way back down the hill (it wouldn't start by popping the clutch, either) to flat ground, got out of the truck, Shane pulled his shotgun out and blew it up.

Just kidding. Some friendly people came by and we tried to jump it (we thought the battery might be the problem). Nothing. So they gave us a ride back into town. Jade was in the front with the two men (awkward!) and me and Shane froze in the back. On the (very painful) bumpy ride back, we figured out that we had run out of gas, even though, according to the gauge, we still had half a tank. So we get Reg, a 5-gallon gas can (full), a funnel, and a tow-rope, and head back up. Jade stayed home.

When we get back (now it's already well past midnight), we put the gas in and try to start it. Nothing. So we put the cables on and try another jump. Nothing! Can you see where I'm going with this? So Shane decides that maybe he should try cleaning off the battery connectors. Hook the power back up and.....¡¡¡VROOOOOOM!!! Clearly that means it started. So we're going for a bit, can't see a thing because it's so dark and the headlights (on high beam) didn't work too well. Hear a loud pop, truck dies. Try to start it again, completely dead. We jump it again and it dies again 15 minutes later. Jump it again, same thing happens again. This time, we tried to jump it and NOTHING. S-H. Out of gas again. By this point, we're close enough that I can just coast down the hill, in the dark, low light (the moon was brighter. serious), no power-breaks or -steering, and I was tired, cold and hungry. Made it to the bottom of the hill, onto the pavement, and didn't hit any trees or die.

By this time, it was 2:00 a.m. and we decided to try and tow it into town. This proved to be harder (for me) than we thought, so we just left TGB on the side of the road, ready to drink more gas to give it the energy to make it home.

Overall, it was a great experience. With the exception of 2 punk-kids in an orange p.o.c. car that almost ran us over, we had a lot of fun. We got better at jump-starting cars, learned that cars won't start when out of gas, prayed a lot, and had a hamburger when we got back to Shane's at 2:30. Thanks for the good times, TGB!

Peace.

PS - that was way too long. This was the short version, mind...

PSS - Go here. It's a brand new blog that I found and seems pretty cool.