Operation Family Truckster: Belter Skelter

We entered Jackson, WY on a hot, sunny day. The streets were lined with an strange mix of stores geared towards tourists ranging from fancy souvenir shops to fine jewelry to tapestry rug stores. It was clear we couldn't afford anything in this town except postcards, so that's why a few of you are receiving postcards instead of Pandora charm bracelets. We ate lunch at Taqueria Sanchez, where they had come highly recommended by my UrbanSpoon app. Turns out, they have preeeeetty good tortas. Nothing like a giant Mexican sandwich filled with pork in 80 degree heat. Peeling our fat selves off the sidewalk we decided to blow this popsicle stand for the real reason we came to Wyoming, the Grand Teton National Park.

Kai's not afraid of wolves

We had to pull over before we even reached the entrance to the park. I've seen these mountains in endless ski movies Kai has drug me to over the years, but the sheer beauty and ruggedness of these peaks was breathtaking. The first thought that came to my head was how anyone with half a brain could basically be Ansel Adams here, just switch the camera to the black and white function and let nature do its thang. It was so easy to take beautiful shot after shot of these mountains, clearly they must be professionals.

We camped that night at the northern most campground as most of the parks lots tend to fill up before noon. These old people we share the roads and RV parks with sure do get up early. So, since we don't really roll out of the van before 10:00 am on any given day, we are never at a campground until well into the afternoon, hence why we camped at the northern most campground. The following morning I had dropped the dog's large plastic food container on my left great toe and managed to hit my head pretty hard on the inside of the van, all before even leaving our camp spot... Despite starting my day off injured, we headed south back near the main visitors center to do some rock climbing. We thought it would be pretty bad ass to claim that we've climbed the Tetons, so we were prepared for the boat ride and short hike to the climbing area. That's when we heard the ting ting tinging coming from the engine. We pulled over as soon as we could and inspected the engine for what had sounded like a completely loose bolt flying about under the hood. Better yet, our serpentine belt was completely frayed with a large rip down the center and about a foot long strand hanging on by a thread to the rest of the belt. After consulting our mechanic, (my dad), it was decided we could make it the 30 miles back to Jackson to have it replaced. The real question on all our minds was why the french was this recently installed belt fraying with only 2200 miles on it?

Back in Jackson we found a CarQuest and acquired a new serpentine belt. The shop next to the CarQuest gave us attitude about fixing our van in their lot, so we crippled along down the road to a grocery store parking lot. There we parked, facing the hot 87 degree sun and lifted the engine. After burning several parts of his arms on the scalding hot engine, Kai got the old belt off (see below). Here's where it gets exciting, and by exciting I mean incredibly lame... So we're trying to put on the newly bought belt and we are reaming as hard as we can on the tension spring but there is just no frenching way this belt will fit. We take it off and compare it with the frayed POS belt and it's clearly about 3-4 inches shorter. Sonofabitch at CarQuest sold us the wrong belt. So Kai hoofs it back down the road a la Clark Griswold style while I stay with the non-moving van in the parking lot of a grocery store.... in 87 degree heat. Kai returns a while later with a new longer belt. We place the belt on, Kai under the van, me on top guiding him through the pulley system diagram that is clearly marked under the hood, only this time we have easily 2 inches of slack. "Does it just get tighter once you start the engine?" I ask hopefully. The dismal look on Kai's face told me that, no, that is not how that works. Off with this belt and back to CarQuest, Kai obtains the first belt one more time. I'm wondering at this point why we aren't at a shop paying someone to do this instead of getting 2nd degree sunburned... but that's beside the point. We place the third (first) belt, and this time with a whole lot of elbow grease and some swearing, we get it on. The reason it didn't fit the first time was because my husband was replacing it the same way the original belt had been looped through the pulley system (which was incorrect) instead of following the clearly marked diagram so of course it seemed way too short.. because the shop back in Portland that had put it in evidently just put in whatever worked and looped it through using their own made up diagram. Damn Portlandia. Ok, so I'm severely sunburned from being in front of a silver van on asphalt in direct sun light and 4 hours have now gone by. We decide to forgo the rock climbing, we already know we're bad asses- hell, we just replaced a serpentine belt 3 times in 4 hours! I wore part of the frayed belt as a bracelet that day as a trinket to remind me of the good times we had had together.