America Unchained by Dave Gorman

Author:Dave Gorman
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2012-03-31T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Press the red button

I SLEPT FULLY clothed that night. Partly because of the cold and partly because I felt very exposed being naked with only a thin pair of nets and even thinner bedlinen to protect my modesty. I didn’t sleep well. If I hadn’t had a few rums I don’t think I’d have slept at all.

‘You look shit!’ said Stef the next morning.

‘I feel shit,’ I said. ‘That bathroom looks disease-ridden. I haven’t showered. I’ve hardly slept. We’ve got to get out of here.’

‘Do you want to get some breakfast and go?’

‘I’d rather just go.’

‘What are we gonna do about the car?’

‘What about it?’

‘The heater. It’s screwed, remember.’

I’d completely forgotten. The sun was shining outside and if Stef hadn’t mentioned it I think it would have taken another night of cold torture to remind me.

‘Shall we head to Crescent Junction then?’

As far as I can work out, Crescent Junction no longer exists. I don’t know how substantial it had ever been but it was definitely marked on our map in bold enough type to suggest it was once a place of some size. And yet when we got there we found nothing but an abandoned Sinclair gas station, some burnt tyres, a burnt-out mobile home and some discoloured earth where other mobile homes had presumably once stood.

‘Shall we head to Moab then?’

With my eye keenly trained on the gas needle we rolled our way south to Moab. And what a blessed relief it was when we got there . . . not just because we managed it but also because, unlike the skanky Green River, Moab was a place worth getting to.

With red-rock mountains all around us we crossed over a tumbling stretch of the Colorado River and into town. There were bars and restaurants and lots of signs advertising white-water rafting, jeep treks, mountain bike hire and any other kind of adventure tourism you could imagine, which of course meant there were hotels.

Moab was clearly some kind of small tourist Mecca. I imagine that in the height of the season it must be full to overflowing with a young, mountain-biking party crowd but it was November now and finding a couple of rooms was easy. We chose The Virginian Motel – a large, two-storey affair sitting at the end of a small cul-de-sac. The rooms were huge, the furnishings were clean and basic but compared to our Green River experience it felt like we were wallowing in five-star luxury.

‘I think we should get the car looked at as soon as possible,’ said Stef. ‘What are we going to do if they tell us they need to order parts?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t want to be a nag but we’ve only just spent three days in Salt Lake City. I don’t want to end up spending three days here as well.’

‘You’re going to be looking at the middle of next week.’

They were exactly the words I didn’t want to hear.

We were in the front office of Arches Repair

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