So, besides my shitty luck yesterday, the day otherwise went well. Most of the road on Reservation Ridge is above 9,000 feet in elevation, and it was pleasantly warm (as opposed to the blast furnace of Utah Valley later in the day). I got FTF on two new caches up there, and found two others that have been around for quite a while. Didn't see any bears this time around, though I was hoping to. In fact, I saw very little wildlife--just birds and squirrels. When I drove along the same road three years ago, there were quite a few deer and no people, but this time it was the opposite.
I'm glad my truck didn't die while we were up in the mountains--that would have been an even bigger nightmare (breaking down in south Provo is no picnic anyhow). I still don't understand why it let go when it did--if anything, all that low-speed driving in the mountains, up steep hills, etc., should have done it in. We made it from Soldier Summit to Spanish Fork with no problems (doing about 65 MPH the whole way), stopped to eat lunch at McDonald's, then got on I-15. After about eight miles of 70 MPH, the engine suddenly started acting up.
I was pretty down yesterday, but today I've decided to adopt a new attitude--fuck it all. I don't really care what happens, and I'll just have to learn to live with it.