Breaking Down in a Heard of Buffalo

It was only our second day on the road when our van suddenly lost power in Yellowstone National Park. It felt like we had run out of gas, but our tanks were plenty full. We were stuck. In the worst spot. We were on a hill with no shoulder and a corner was right ahead. We cringed as traffic behind us passed us while oncoming traffic unknowingly sped around the corner. This was too dangerous, and we could never forgive ourselves if we caused a collision- we had to roll backwards down the hill.

Our plan was to wait until the coast was clear as far as we could see and then slowly roll our Wander Wagon in reverse down the hill until we saw cars again. It was awful and our adrenaline was pumping, but we managed to get down far enough to where there was a slight shoulder and we were further off the road and traffic could at least pass by more safely. But, now what? The van still wouldn’t start.

Next thing we knew, a car pulled up in front of us. A man hopped out and asked us what seemed to be the problem, explaining that he used to be a mechanic. Him and Corbin went right to work, trying to work it out and get her going again. I couldn’t believe it, here was this man obviously on vacation with his family, and still willing to pull over and help complete strangers out. They worked at it for a while, and came to the conclusion that we may be experiencing vapor lock- when the fuel evaporates before reaching the engine and creates an air bubble in the fuel line. So, they tapped on the fuel line and the fuel filter and repeatedly tried to start the van. Eventually, it worked! The van roared to life, and we graciously thanked the man for helping us and headed on our way again.

But, nothing had really been fixed and we knew it could easily happen again, so we turned around and began driving back to our campsite. Then, on our way back we saw a huge herd of buffalo right by the road. Cars were stopped on all sides of the road as buffalo crossed the road. We had to pull over to take some pictures, they were huge and they were right by us! They grazed and walked right by the cars, hardly taking notice of the crowd of people snapping photos of them. Some people even got out of their cars and walked closer to the buffalo, which I thought was probably not the brightest idea, but there seems to be a lot of not so bright ideas happening in Yellowstone lately...

We had just started the van back up to carry on our way, when it happened again! The van suddenly lost power and refused to start. At least this time we were in a safer area, as there was a shoulder and all the cars were going slow because of the herd anyways. But, now we were broken down in the middle of a herd of buffalo! Corbin eventually had to hop out and try to fix the issue like he and the other guy had before. Buffalo were still walking closely to our van, so he would have to hop back in if he felt they were getting too close. After awhile of the same sort of tapping on on the line and what not, the van eventually started up again. This time, we were not stopping until we got back to our campsite.

We knew we needed to see a mechanic ASAP, and though this was not exactly how we planned to spend our first week on the road things could have been worse. We still made some awesome memories in Yellowstone, and we learned an important lesson: Help will always come. It made me realize although it can sometimes feel like it’s us against the world, or that we’re all alone out here on the road, the truth is really quite the opposite. Good people are everywhere and the world is not the scary and evil place many would have you believe, and we only continued to learn this lesson as the week went along.

We eventually made it back to our campground in tact, but that night the thought of the long drive ahead of us on a skinny mountain highway to the closest mechanic taunted us like a pest that had found its way into our safe and cozy home on wheels.