I had a pleasant and uneventful drive today through the mountains of southern Utah. I went over some mountain passes that were more than 6,500 feet in elevation. The truck pulled the trailer up ok, although kind of slow. I stopped at a little town called Leeds in the south west corner of the state. Not much here - no gas station, no grocery store. It does have a big new Mormon church. Every little village has one and they are all new fancy brick buildings.
Although the truck runs fine most of the time and has no trouble pulling the trailer, it stalled again today just as I got into Leeds. It did this once before a couple of weeks ago in Lethbridge. I put a new fuel filter on and it has been running fine ever since. It is running fine again now. Just every once in while it decides to stall and won't start again for a while. Eventually it starts and then runs fine again. It whistles out the back end all the time now because when the guy in Lethbridge put on the fuel filter he got air in the gas lines which makes the fuel pump whistle. It is quite loud. I had it checked at a garage and the guy there said that it is nothing to worry about and would stop after a couple of thousand miles. Great!
Canada is way ahead of USA in internet technology. Half the businesses here don't know what a debit card is. Even some major gas stations on the freeway don't take them. In Canada every business, almost, takes both debit and credit cards. It has been years since I have seen a business that did not take both. Several times here I have asked in gas stations and campgrounds if they take debit cards and sometimes they say yes as long as it says Mastercard or Visa on it - in other words a credit card. They don't know the difference between debit and credit cards. At one gas station I had to pay in advance at the pump. The machine would not accept debit cards, so I tried a credit card and it would not accept that either unless I typed in a zip code. Some places take neither debit cards nor credit cards but will take a cheque. I have stopped at two camp grounds like that. They are a little behind the times.
Although half the business don't know what a debit card is, I must say that everyone is very nice and friendly and polite and helpful. Much more so than in Canada. Twice I stopped at garages to get a fuel filter and some tires and both times they took me in straight away. In Canada they would have said that I needed to make an appointment for some time next week. The guy at the tire store even wanted to come out and help me hook up the trailer. When I bought tires for the trailer in Spruce Grove, the guy came out and told me to hurry up and get my trailer out of his driveway.
Weather report - high of 21 and a low of 8. No more worries about my water freezing and I can put away my flannel shirts. Although if I were to stay here, it would get colder in December. Still need to go further south.
