Confession

We headed toward Divide Montana, home of Brax Euro Parts, late on a Saturday morning to pick up new brake rotors for Gertie. We had some entirely different business to attend to in Anaconda, and Divide is just another 45 minutes past that so we thought we'd take a nice drive instead of paying shipping on the (heavy) rotors.

Ludwig strained to power over Deer Lodge Pass (5879 ft) but no more than I would've expected; he only had to go into 3rd for a minute. It was bright and cold when we stopped for an Atlanticward potty break a couple miles beyond the pass.

Brax Euro Parts is quite a place. Wise to the fact that Californian junkyards get picked clean pretty quickly, he and his wife scout other ACVW resting places away from  our continent's Western fringe. He's amassed quite a collection, not of cars, but of parts. See, that he doesn't have a "junkyard license" dictates his dismantling non-running cars soon after he hauls them home. From an anti-junkiness standpoint, I'm not sure how a pile of two dozen Type III front beams (for example) is much different from a pile of two dozen Type IIIs, but maybe that's why I'm not in politics.

After we got the rotors (off a '69), some wheel bearings, and a chug of gas (I misremembered there being a filling station South of the I-15/I-90 junction), Brax suggested we take the more scenic and only slightly longer way to get to Anaconda from Divide, along the Big Hole River. So we took it. (Also, and I hate to mention this lest I be thought reckless in light of What's Coming Up, it was a chance for Ludwig to scale another Great Divide pass. Two in one day!)

The Mill Creek Pass (6760 ft) area was still blanketed in decently thick snow. The road was a patched up lightly rolling table up to the pass, and then fairly steep dive down the other side.

Business attended to in Anaconda, we headed back to Missoula. A brisk, cool early Spring wind was at Ludwig's back and he seemed perfectly happy tooling down I-90 at 70mph.

Then out of nowhere there was a quite a din from aft: Clankety CLANK! Clank Clinkety Clunk Clankety CLINK! The gauge lights when on, meaning there was no oil pressure and the alternator was no longer turning. Since we were going toward the shoulder and she couldn't see the lights, Melissa thought, "flat tire". My own "thought" was that maybe Ludwig's starboard CV joint--the cheap Chinese one--had succumbed to shoddy offshore quality control and given off its death rattle. I put him in 4th again (I'd put it in neutral at the noise) and popped the clutch. There was a brief pathetic burst of power and more of the same noise. Okay, back to neutral, hazards on, pull over, get out of Ludwig, have a silent nervous breakdown.

Clearly Ludwig wasn't going anywhere, so Melissa did heroine duty and wrangled a tow truck (from Butte) who would tow us all the way to Missoula and take on a car seat. Thanks Melissa. We had to ask the driver the name of his black truck, "Blackie"--clearly made up on the spot--so we could help Esmé wrap her head around what was about to happen. She told me she was really worried that we were going to leave Ludwig there and said she just wanted to get back in him and go home. It brought me to tears, I'm not ashamed to admit.  A few minutes facing backward in Blackie, seeing that Ludwig was indeed following us home, calmed her down. If you ask her about it now she'll tell you how Ludwig was sick and Blackie helped him get home. (Thanks, Gilboy's Towing of Butte Montana.)

In any case, this major development means this blog will be taking on an even more mechanical flavor for the time being. Wish us luck. And Happy April Fool's Day (though we wish this were a joke).

(miles 223,051-223,256 and r.i.p., Mofoco engine)