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We wake up with the sun - at
about 5:30 in the morning. At first it is cool but it stars warming up
almost instantly. As it is lighting up I take pictures of the
surrounding and David packs up our things.
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There are no trees around so we
use a sagebrush bush as a bathroom. Just as I get done I see a snake
right beside me! I was lucky I did not pee on it..
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We take off at about 7 and
start heading towards Spokane, Washington with an idea to stop on the
way in the Tri-Cities area.
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We drive and drive and drive
and somewhere in all this driving we take a wrong turn. Instead
of getting to Richland we drive towards the border of Oregon state
and there is no way to turn around until we cross the state border.
This
is somewhere where we did not want to come. We reassess our map and
make adjustments in our direction. We decide to skip Spokane and head
to Lewiston, Idaho instead.
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We drive and drive. It is hot
and not so interesting. And the bus develops a problem. The battery
[aku] light comes on and won´t go off any more. It is really bad
because it meant that the battery is not charging and if it gets empty
we can not start the bus any more. The way the bus engine is made you
can not start it with jumper cables either. David stops the bus and
studies his books to see what could be wrong. It seems the
problem could be in two parts either the alternator (which costs about
$150) or the regulator (which costs about $40). We hope it is not the
alternator.
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We keep driving and hoping
we´ll
find a car part store. This corner of the Washington state is pretty
empty - towns are very small and there are not too many of them. Mostly
it is just hills covered in sagebrush.
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It is about 5 o´clock in
the afternoon when we finally reach the Idaho border. The first car
parts store does not have either of the parts we need. But they point
us to the direction of a Volkswagen repair shop.
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We go there and they have a
regulator. David tries it on and we have to sigh. The battery light
still comes on. He gives the part back to the men in the repair shop
and keeps chatting with them. At one point one of the guys offers that
we can take an alternator out of an old Porsche 914 that stands in
their
parking lot. We can have it for
free but we have to get it out
ourselves because their workday is over and is is Friday evening and
they want to go and drink. David puts on his working on the bus clothes
and starts digging in the engine. The first great discovery is that
there is a wasp nest right in that car. So we go off the a grocery
store and buy a bottle of Raid wasp killer. He sprays the area and
keeps digging and prodding and banging. After about two hours he
appears
with an alternator.
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By now it is starting to get
dark so we go off to find a campground
because we can not really use our headlights - they would kill our
battery. The closest campground is full but for $7 we can sleep on the
parking lot. It has been a hot day and we are sweaty and stinky but the
showers are closed for the evening. We go and wash ourselves in the
dark in a river. We go to sleep and hope that the alternator will work
tomorrow.
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