Waylaid in Butte, Montana

Now, don't let the title make you think that I don't like Butte, because it's a nice town full of nice people. It's the "waylaid" part I want to talk about.

For our summer family vacation, we decided to take a cross-country driving trip from Seattle to Grand Fork, North Dakota (for a family reunion) and back. We planned our days so that we wouldn't drive too long on any given day. Although we considered taking our family station wagon, a sporty and comfortable Saab 9-5 Aero, we decided to rent an SUV for the space. So we started off in our rented Lincoln Navigator, with a deluxe package that included unnecessary options like air conditioned seats and an automatic rear gate.

We spent an enjoyable 4th of July in Missoula, our first stop. On the 5th we headed out toward Billings. About 50 miles outside of Butte, the car began to sputter, and lost a lot of power. We limped our way to Butte, to the Ford dealer, since Hertz seemed incapable of finding us a replacement in or near Butte. We checked into a hotel down the block, unloading EVERYTHING from the car that was packed for a two-week trip. Since our master plan was to keep everything in the car and take in only an overnight bag and a few other things, it was a lot more work than we had planned. When the car was finally emptied, we dropped the car at the dealer, who diagnosed the problem as two failed injectors.

Five hours and multiple phone calls to Hertz later, we were told that a car could be trucked to us from Salt Lake City. WHAT? This was an option, and it only took them five hours to mention it??

We stayed overnight in Butte, and the next morning another Navigator (this one without air conditioned seats and with a manual rear hatch) was dropped for us at the hotel. In record time we had the car packed and we headed out, ready to go over the Continental Divide and down out of the mountains. On the way down, the brakes shuddered and the transmission clunked. And it kept on clunking for the rest of our trip. In vain we tried to get another Navigator.

Fortunately, the car made it to Grand Forks and back to Seattle. But for the rest of that trip, we felt like Han Solo as we intermittently muttered, "Come on, baby, hold together."