Pete Ashdown

If I don’t turn up in Salt Lake County soon, this was my last location. According to my father’s type written instructions, if air gets into the fuel line of a diesel engine, you have to pump it out by hand. This wouldn’t be something new to me, I have had to do this task twice before, once over a decade ago on a trip with a friend, and last week coming back from Green River. The engine hasn’t been the same since last week.

The process involves strattling the right front wheel at the side of a busy highway. Reach in and work a small pump while adjusting a bleed valve to get the air out of the system. While you are doing this task, you consider the awesome implications as to whether any other U.S. Senate candidate has been put through this kind of wringer. I really hope Wellstone’s bus broke down somewhere on the trail, because I don’t want to be the first.

It’s also important to keep the thought of someone rear-ending the motorhome out of your head, but it isn’t easy because every truck that goes by causes the bus to sway back and forth from the air pressure.

This time, the bleeding process is not working. The roadside service found me a truck that is headed down from Cedar City in 90 minutes. So I write this entry via my Stompbox wireless and my draining laptop battery. Wish me luck.