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Day 21

I slept in a little the next morning before getting up to pack the truck. After going through all the mud and grit yesterday, I noticed that the clutch was difficult to depress at times, and occasionally there was a grinding noise as I held the clutch in. That worried me, because I have had that type of symptom on another vehicle, and the problem turned out to be a bad pilot bearing. The pilot bearing is the bearing that takes the load of the turning transmission when you press in the clutch. A bad bearing in the transmission would not be a good thing this far out from a repair shop, but it was not the end of the world, because the pilot bearing is only used when you shift. As long as I drive in the same gear, it shouldn't cause any problems. I got underneath and tried to clean the grit off the clutch shaft as well as possible with my hands and some paper napkins, then smeared a little grease back on. That seemed to help a little on the hard-to-push clutch pedal, but only temporarily.

I warmed up the truck and continued on south. It was overcast, but the mountains were still very impressive, with long slender white trails of waterfalls streaming down the sides. The day was long and tiring, and I ended up in New Hazelton by nightfall. I drove around the small town looking for a motel, but all seemed to have "no vacancy" signs out front. After driving down one road a ways I turned into a dirt pull off to turn around, and a man on a motorcycle followed me and pulled up to the window. I cranked the vice grip slowly down while trying not to crack the glass any further. He asked about the truck and said he helped a friend rebuild a '53 Chevy pickup. The truck must have looked black in the darkness, because he said I was brave for painting it black -- that it shows up the dents in the body. White tends to hide dents. He said I looked like I was trying to find a motel, and that all of them would be filled up this time of night because this was the peak of tourist season.
I thanked him, and continued down the road about 30 miles and then turned on a dirt road. I followed it slowly , then turned onto a smaller, slightly rutted road with grass growing in the middle. This road/path I followed until it came out on some rocks, and then appeared to drop off into blackness. I brought out my flashlight and shone it around. I was on the shore of a river. I continued up the shore, the truck slowly crawling over lots of rounded rocks, until I found a nice flat spot with some sand for the tent. The sound of the rushing water lulled me to sleep that night.

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