Suck

I was expecting to have a lot of fun on my trip to the cave yesterday, but it turned out not being fun. When I was almost to the top of the hill that the cave is in, my rear driveline broke on my Jeep (actually, the slip yoke broke, which in turn broke the extension housing on the transfer case). I think the yoke was already cracked, and the torque just snapped it. Luckily, I brought my toolbox, so I was able to remove the driveline and make it home with only the front driveline working, which really sucked because I didn’t dare go over 40 mph for fear I’d burn out my transfer case. I think I blew a seal on the transfer case ’cause it’s leaking oil now. On the way down off the hill, I had to stop and move some rocks that I could have normally made it over in 4WD, but thought better of it since I only had 2 wheels gripping…anyway, I hurt my back really bad getting those rocks out of the way, and I don’t think I’ll be able to do the work on my Jeep myself (which is really gonna cost me).
So, as you can probably guess, we didn’t get to rappel into the possible second entrance to the cave (we were going to use my Jeep to tie off on). We used some guy’s cell phone (there were tons of people up there) to call into town and have Mike and Matt’s dad come out and follow me home just in case my transfer case froze up or some other disastrous thing. While we were waiting for him, we dropped down into the main entrance and crawled around for a little while. There were so damn many people there that I decided that I’d never again go on a Saturday. It was so crowded in there that we had to wait for 5 minutes just to clear a path to get out.
I think I talked my wife into getting her ham radio license, which will make it a lot more fun for me. Right now, Ryon is the only other ham I know around this area. I’m thinking about joining the Utah Amateur Radio Club, but their members are primarily in Salt Lake County, and their monthly meetings are always in Salt Lake. I’m sure I could find another club located in Utah County, but I doubt anyone has as good of repeater coverage as UARC. I’m also thinking about buying a mobile radio for my Jeep…my hand-held has a hard time reaching most of the local repeaters, but the mobile should have no problems hitting them.

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