"Houston, We Have a Problem"

You know that scene in the movie Apollo 13, when Tom Hanks and Kevin Bacon are in their spaceship, going through their standard checklist procedures, and all of a sudden all hell breaks lose? Well, I’m not in a spaceship trying to land on the moon, but I am towing a trailer, for 10 weeks, by myself, and I’m here to say, “Houston, We Have a Problem.”

As many of you know, I upgraded from a Subaru Forester to a new 2018 Outback for this trip. I wanted a more powerful engine, a wider wheelbase, and a back-up camera for towing. I also wanted the GPS navigation system, so that when I’m out of cell phone range (which is often in the National Parks) I would still have good point-by-point navigation. With these features, I feel a lot of confidence to find my way safely in unknown territory and to hitch up my trailer on my own. These special features would not be as important to me if I were traveling with a partner to help me, but traveling alone is a different story. It makes a huge difference for a solo traveler to have these things.

On my 4th day in Yellowstone, my entire navigation system, audio system, nav screen and back-up camera died. Did I mention this was on my new 2018 Subaru? I thought to myself, “Well, this is odd. Surely there’s a quick way to fix this. This car is 4 months old and only has 6,000 miles on it. It must be a loose wire or a bad fuse or something simple like that.” Sadly, this was not the case. It was far more complicated. The nearest dealership was hundreds of miles away and they may (or may not) have the parts I needed in stock. I spent a day and a half (of my Yellowstone time) driving to a mechanic outside Mammoth Hot Springs and then to 2 dealerships in Bozeman and Helena trying to get help. I won’t bore you with the details, but it was an epic marathon of negotiations, diplomacy, trouble-shooting and hardball with Subaru to get them to work outside their normal protocol. The final diagnosis was that the “head unit” had failed and I needed a new one. But, (wait for it), they said it would take a week to 10 days to get the part shipped from Georgia. This would mean I would miss my reservations in Glacier (that I made a year in advance) and I would need to pay for a hotel for a week in Helena. In my most gracious tone of voice, with a smile on my face, I said to the 2 men at the dealership, “I’m sorry guys, but I simply don’t accept that. We can ship things back and forth to China faster than that. We have to find a way to get it here sooner. I need you to work some magic, find someone who can influence the system, to make this happen.” They said there was nothing they could do. No one at the Bozeman dealership or the Helena dealership could help me. I was in tears. I called my brother, Andrew, to get some emotional support and then I got ice cream (those two things usually get me back on track).

I left the dealership late that night not knowing what to do or how to proceed. I made the long 4-hour drive in the pitch dark back to my campground in Yellowstone. I was so discouraged, deflated, and exhausted. I hadn’t felt lonely on this trip until that night. I’m usually very effective in situations like this. I can trouble-shoot and influence and get things moving in the right direction. But this situation wore me down and I couldn’t get anyone to do anything to help me. I knew there was a solution, but despite my best efforts, I was at the mercy of men who understood cars and none of them were willing to think or act outside the box. I felt alone and vulnerable and ineffective.

As I was driving back into Yellowstone, with tears running down my face, I could hear the voice of my dear friend Bill Koll (who is 77 years old and a retired Delta pilot who lives on Whidbey Island). I could hear his voice in my mind saying, “Back in the day, we used these things called paper maps and a compass!. . . and what the heck’s a back-up camera anyway?”. I laughed out loud to myself, thinking about what Bill would say in this situation. He flew planes before all the fancy technology now "flies the plane for you.” I knew it was possible to continue my trip without the GPS and without the back-up camera, but it would be challenging to do so alone. Yes, I could use a map, but there was no one to read it for me and give me prompts while I'm driving. It’s not always safe for me to pull over on the side of the road to check the map, when I'm towing a trailer. I have to make sure there’s enough space to pull off and pull back out again. And then there’s the hitching up blind scenario. I knew I couldn’t figure this all out that night. Sleep. I needed sleep.

I woke up the next morning faced with the realization that I was checking out of my campsite in Yellowstone, and I had to hitch up my trailer on my own, without a back-up camera, for the first time. Normally, I would just ask a fellow camper to help spot me. But by the time I was ready to hitch up, all of the people camping in my area had left for the day to go hiking. There was not a soul in sight. So, I made myself some coffee and then gave myself an attitude adjustment and a pep talk. Resiliency! Flexibility! Creativity! I could do this. I could figure something out and keep moving forward. The last year and a half of my life had taught me that. So, I channeled my inner MacGyver and began to get creative.

Just like the NASA engineers in Houston got creative for the men on Apollo 13, I got creative with whatever I had in stock, to come up a crazy solution to hitch up my trailer alone. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked, and I was on the road again. Sometimes it’s just easier to show a video of something than write about it. This is one of those times. It was a great lesson for me in self-reliance, innovation, and thinking outside the box. Once again, I’m grateful for the challenge and the strength I found within myself to forge a path forward. Onward!