On the Road Again

From the day I bought my first car, I wanted to use it to explore the wild areas of Utah. Janene and I drove our 67 Mustang through the dirt roads of the Uintas, even once going to the shore of Haystack Lake. That trip resulted in a hole in the oil pan. I longed to own the kind of vehicle that would allow me to truly explore. Shortly before Angie was born, we bought this 1951 Willy's Station Wagon. It cost $900 - a small amount that was dwarfed by the money we (I should say "I", because Janene was against it from day one) would eventually pour into it. It was in this vehicle that we first explored the Burr Trail, the Fisher Trail, and the Murdock Basin Road. Unfortunately, this was also the vehicle that broke down on just about every scenic road in Utah.

One trip on the Burr Trail with Julia and Tammy was particularly memorable because the rear leaf springs broke after we loaded up with petrified wood. Janene was badly sunburned, pregnant and miserable and she felt every single rock on that rough road. When we arrived home, it was time to repair the vehicle. While I was working on it, the vehicle fell off the stands with me under it, badly crushing my left hand. Janene and the neighbor came out to the sounds of my screams. Our neighbor picked up ( yes, I said "picked it up") the car while I scrambled out. Miraculously, though my hand was as big as a basketball, no bones were broken. I have since had to have three or four cysts removed from that hand. Maybe connected, maybe not.

,

For several years, every weekend was a new adventure for us. We went often to the Uintas with Steve and Sherry Kubisch in their 56 Ford truck. We used the CB radio to communicate with each other and to talk to people all over the world using the "skip" that we could reach from the high mountain peaks. We never camped in a campground, but instead searched for remote sites where we could be alone. Janene was truly a good sport about this. For a man, the whole world is his urinal. For Janene, with two kids in diapers, it must have been a great ordeal, an ordeal that she endured for my sake. I loved this car, but eventually we could no longer afford to maintain a vehicle that was older than I was, and we sold it to another young family for $1000.00. It was a steal for both of us.