Whew! My quattro road trip-long (the post too)

[GaidosIII@aol.com]

 Okay, I'll try to keep this short. Yeah right.
First, other then the quattro having altitude sickness on cold start-ups and a
fuel pump I thought for sure has dying just outside of Durango, Colorado the
quattro never once failed. I put her through everything.
 We (wife, two kids and I) started out July 18, 2:00 am for Las Vegas. This
first stretch was 530 miles and it came right as the great southwest heat wave
took hold. It didn't effect us until we got to LV but other then a constant
130 C oil temp the urq was fine. The next day we experienced 120 F tempertures
at Las Vegas only to have that surpassed by the most amazing storm I've ever
seen. 12:00 am I'm with the family watching the pirate ship battle at Treasure
Island when a huge sand storm comes ripping down the Strip. While the quattro
was stashed safely away at the MGM Grand, we're racing down Las Vegas Blvd.
trying to escape the storm. By the time we got to our hotel a full monsoon was
upon us and my son nearly blew away. We had the ultimate show in the end. We
had a room on the 26th floor looking straight down the strip. We opened our
curtains and watched Las Vegas have the biggest electrical storm on record.
Very cool!
 Next we headed for Zion National Park in Utah. For the first time I began to
understand two things. One, the U.S. is enormous and two, most of it is
desert. I was really concerned the quattro would overheat because on the
asfault we were getting temps around 130 F. The oil temp always seemed high
but nothing came of it.
 I did find at Zion that I hadn't tightened my valve cover enough. While I was
working on that we experienced another of these fantastic electrical storms.
Unfortunately I was out in a parking lot and I was feeling a little hurried by
the thought of frying.
 From there we headed out to Monument Valley. Again this is desert country and
for those that don't know, Monument Valley is where countless western films
have been shot. We drove through one of those electrical storms on our way
there. That was pretty interesting. I noticed my volt meter and oil temp
gauges started flickering. I also got a pretty good taste of the quattro
experience too with the roads. Out there the roads become instant floods when
it rains but we hardly had to slow down.
 Along this route my oil temp guage became irratic. Sometimes it worked,
sometimes it didn't. My wife and I were pretty concerned by this because we
had the car load, a/c on and severe tempertures outside. Plus out in the
southwest where we were there is absolutely nothing. Nothing! Getting stuck
out there ment 110-120 F heat broken up by occational wild thunder storms. We
also lost the odometer along this stretch.
 The cool part (and I have pics getting developed) was a 17 mile dirt road we
took through the Monument Valley. The road is ment for 4 wheel drive but there
where a few who drove their Neon rental or Town Car out there. By the time we
were done wheeling through this area the quattro was a beautiful mess. I think
this is the only car I've ever seen that looks as good covered in mud, sand
and dust as it does clean.
 After that fun we headed out again. This time about 250 miles across the
desert to a place outside of Durango, Colorado called Purgatory. This was our
destination and it is one of the most spectacular places I've ever seen (with
lots of access to public lands via more killer dirt roads!). It is high up in
the southwest corner of Colorado in the San Juan mountain range which is a
part of the Rocky Mountians. Truly beautiful. Where we stayed we were at 9,500
feet above sea level. That took some getting used to as I am a sea level sort
of guy.
 It was just before Durango I thought the quattro was going to die. We were
stuck  in a road construction area when the fuel pump started screaming. Even
one of the road crew came up and said "sounds like your fuel pump is about to
go". It never did. After I got to Purgatory, which was a Thursday afternoon I
started calling the parts places in Durango for a fuel pump. The best the
locals could do was getting me one the following Tuesday. Unfortunately we
were supposed to leave on Monday.
 As it turns out I found a place called Santa Fe Audi Parts. This is
deceiving. They are near Denver Co, but their name implied New Mexico. Well
the guy there says he's got a fuel pump for me and can next day it right to
where I'm staying. I'm thinking very cool and no worries. I've got my tools
and can swap it out in a jiffy.
 But...the pup he sends me is a generic and not a Bosch direct replacement.
This would mean cutting the nice screw in connectors on my car. Not a chance
unless absolutely needed. The good news was I noticed if I kept my fuel tank
over a half tank the pump was realitively quiet. So with that in mind I tossed
the new one in the trunk as insurance. I never needed it. That fuel pump made
it all the way home and never made the loud buzzing sound again.
 The next interesting thing that happened to the quattro was as I was going up
some rocky dirt road to check out a beaver pond. All of a sudden a really bad
metalic sound started coming from the front of the car. It took me a few
minutes to figure it out. It was two rocks that had gotten between the front
rotor and dust sheild. I was able to remove them by driving backwards. They
popped out and my wife and preceded.
 The reason we went to Purgatory was to climb a 13,400 foot mountain about 15
miles outside of Silverton on another killer dirt road. I did this and I'm
proud to say out of 30 people making the attempt on the summit I was number
seven to reach the top. I had a great time. I hooked up with two teenagers.
With kids like those two the world still has a chance. We really coached
eachother up that mountain.
 Well from there it was off to the Grand Canyon and another 300 plus miles of
driving across the desert. This time we got nailed by a sand storm about
midway there. Visability was low and the wind blews us all over the place. No
sooner did we pass through that we got nailed by another thunderstorm. My son
was shaking he was so scared. We had lightening going off around us extreme
winds and heavy rain. This trip was turning into something more about weird
weather then anything else. Even when we were in Colorado we had heat then
thunderstorms. Very un-California like.
 From the Grand Canyon the trip got more frustrating the anything else. It was
impressed upon me the need to have my mother-in-law follow us back across the
desert in here Honda Civic. Our trip took us back to Las Vegas where it still
amazes me anyone would build a city. It is just simply damn hot there. What
are you people thinking?
 From LV we head through another 250 miles of desert until we reached Mammoth
Lakes, Ca. which is in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Other then long and
more desert then I can stand the drive was totally un eventful as was the
final drive today back home. The trip took 2 weeks and several thousand miles
and we are all home safe.
 Of note, I saw only 10 Audis outside the SF/SJ bayarea. 2 4kqs, a 5kq, a
handfull of 90 q's, an A6 and an 80.
 Also I have a ton of film to get back. If anyone wants to donate some web
space I'll see about getting some shots of the quattro scanned. I took quite a
few of the car through out the trip.
 Well, its late and I'm tired. So much so I'm not even going to check my
spelling. All I can say is the car ran great the whole time. Above 7,000 feet
I had to really crank the car over to get it to start but otherwise, even with
all the weight we piled into the car she was beautiful all the way.
Thanks
Anton