Day 10 - Dinsoaur National Monument, UT to Salt Lake City, UT - The end of the whale

If you’re a negotiator, you know you want to be in a position with limited options and a hard deadline.  Oh wait, that’s the OPPOSITE of what you want to be in.  Regardless, that was the position we found ourselves in this morning.

Neither Amy nor I got great sleep last night. Imagine that - embarking on a journey that starts with a potentially smoking engine knowing that you need to come back with a different vehicle.  Isn’t that the thing that dreams are made of?!!!


Fortunately, the boys DID get a good night of sleep and we had them prepared for a long day in the car (well, cars really we hope!).  So, we fully emptied the van contents into the camper and started our journey.


If you looked at yesterday’s flow chart, you’ll notice that one of HUGE questions of the day was whether or not the van would smoke, or potentially get worse.  So, all of us had our noses on full alert, but thankfully, the smell did not return - at least not strongly.  Amy was driving and Brian was frantically trying to create options for both a vehicle sale and a purchase.  Thankfully, the used car market has recovered from the pits of the COVID era and there were actually a few options available to us that would tow the trailer and last us at least 5 years (until we estimate we could reasonably get a 7 seater electric SUV).


Most of our options were at Carmax, but we couldn’t get an appointment there until 2 PM.  So, we decided to make a stop at the Nissan dealer in Orem, UT.  They showed us a couple of options including a Pathfinder that didn’t have towing capability and an Explorer that would work great.  We test drove them and took the Pathfinder to lunch at the food court of Utah Valley University (Taco Bell if you must know how classy our eating habits are).  When we returned we had an offer to trade in the van and get a new vehicle.


From there thoguh it was time to visit Carmax.  There were many more options, but the leader was a new-ish Pathfinder that already had the towing package installed and could tow almost 2x the “tail”.  We got to Carmax and took this Pathfinder for a ride while they evaluated “The Whale”.  They made us an offer to sell the Whale and then to buy the Pathfinder.  We left to consider it compared to one last option we had.


However, as we sat in the parking lot of Carmax, we decided that the other option wasn’t worth it and we were happy with the Pathfinder we just looked at.  So, we were off to the bank to get a cashiers check for the purchase.  It was then that we found out that the bank closed at 4 PM and it was currently 3:30!  Good thing we made the decision when we did.


Bank of America helped us out and we were soon back to Carmax to purchase our Pathfinder.  After a few hours of paperwork, we had bought a new vehicle and sold the Whale!  And that ends the Whaletail adventures.  From here we proceed to www.roveranddover.blogspot.com





Total miles travelled - 2,595 miles

# States (Provinces) - 10

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