The Great Vacation Migration
This has been an interesting trip in a lot of ways. Per our usual, we have brought along our camping trailer and enough electronics to open a small store in a 3rd world nation.
Three mp3 players stocked with various tunes and talks that are of prurient interest to whomever they belong to and here I will confess that TWO of them are mine.
Because of the need to bring the essentials that Jared will require to get along well for a couple of weeks on the road, we have enough diapers (I hope) and wipes (again, hope springs eternal!) in order to keep up with his needs. The funny thing is, a couple of boxes of diapers don’t seem like that much when we are at home, but here on the road we opted to loose pack the individual bags from the case instead of keeping the case intact to hog up the room in the truck. Admittedly, it does look odd to peek into the back windows of the camper shell and see them lying helter skelter around the back of the truck, but there you have it.
The camping trailer is packed on Friday with more than enough food to stave off starvation on the road and includes the some of the lunch fixings we’ll need for the day we are hosting the lunch activities. The Saturday of drive time begins. I honestly believe the Host of Israel traveled lighter than we do …
Unfortunately, the vacation trip took a turn for la-la land about the time we hit a little wide spot in the road called Vega, Texas on Sunday and the strange just kept coming. While I was driving along at about 70 mph as Rick was resting and Jared was watching a movie on his DVD player, the right trailer tire blew out in an impressive shredding that left me more than a little shaken.
Hearing the uneven rumble of the tire on the road, Rick got awake really fast and we got off the side of the road on a ribbon of shoulder that left barely enough room to park without getting sideswiped by passing cars, trucks and semis. That fact in and of itself was enough to set my teeth on edge as Rick migrated around the truck and trailer checking on the condition of the other tires and of the mini caravan itself.
After a quick assessment of the damage, Rick deployed the jack and had to move Jared up to the front passenger seat just get at the tire iron which DID NOT FIT the dang-blasted tire lugs! Always alert to the possibilities of life on the road, Rick then retrieved his socket set from his ever present tool box and selected the socket that would do the job and the remnants of the tire were removed. Getting the spare out from its handy little box in the back of the trailer, Rick began to install it and then discovered its underinflated status when the weight of the trailer descended upon it. Damn, damn, damn!
These little towns in the middle of nowhere don’t have cell phone reception.
Did I mention damn?
So, there we were back on the road with about 50 being the top speed we dared to contemplate as we headed to the next town of Tucumcari, New Mexico, which I was told by the nicely tattooed and pierced man at the Texaco (which did NOT have tire service – grrr!) had a Wal-Mart.
Finally pulling into Tucumcari after watching everything and its dog roar past us with enough velocity and force to remove the clear coat of paint from the truck, we came to a gas station and asked them where to find the Wal-Mart. Kindly, they informed us that they did NOT have a Wal-Mart. Time to deploy another colorful metaphor since I have already used my quota of the “D” word. The older I get the more I understand why my Aunt Jewel’s favorite swear word was ‘shit’.
A junk man overheard the conversation and told Rick he might have a tire that would fit the trailer at his junkyard. So we followed him to his place. Although he was a nice man who tried to help us, all we got out of the exchange was a wet shoe (Rick’s right shoe since he stepped into a mud puddle) and the understanding that the man raised chickens for the eggs they would lay each day.
He did give us the instruction that there WAS a tire shop over on the other side of town. He said he didn’t know if it was still open but that we could call and have them come back and pay a ‘road fee’ for them to help us. Delightful. Can you spell suckers? It resembles the spelling for travelers and also a close kin to ‘out of town plates’. Hoping that there would be ways to have God intervene in our behalf, we said a prayer so that we would be able to get the help we needed without any more undue duress.
We got there just as the man was loading up a mower in his pickup and closing up shop. Kindly, he didn’t lay rubber and peel out while offering us a “Hawaiian hello” when he saw us coming but instead stayed well past his hours of operation sign indicators and helped us out. Being that it was a Sunday evening and past the time of his open hours, I am quite sure he was not excited about staying. Truth be told, we weren’t excited to be there either. We managed to buy a new tire for the trailer and get the spare inflated according to Hoyle, or whomever it is that determines correct tire pressures, and on our way. Since we were running HOURS behind schedule, we stopped into a fast food place for a bite to eat before pushing on and hoping that no one got our reservation instead of us. Since the ox was in the mire or the flat was in the tire or whatever proverbial saying fits the best, we bought our dinner on the road and prayed that our late hours and ill fortune on the road would be mitigating circumstances enough to warrant our purchases on the Sabbath. If not, since I was the one behind the wheel, the fault will be mine. I can hear Queen warming up on the chords to “Another One Bites the Dust” even now.
Arriving at a late hour and basically going in to collapse on the little beds in the KOA Kamping Kabin we rented was pretty much all that was left for the night. But the fun was not over. This was but a preview of the coming attractions. By the way, for the record, it is always more exciting to hear about this crap than to experience it.
The next day, the idea was to leave Albuquerque, New Mexico on I-40 and make serious progress toward St. George in time to enjoy a delicious home cooked meal at Grandma and Grandpa Merrill’ house. The kind people driving on I-40 were having other ideas about that. While Rick was napping again and Jared was again enjoying a movie, I was heading out toward the west on I-40 out of Albuquerque and cruising on 70-75 mph and the next thing I knew pieces of car were flying around in front of me. A Semi tangled with an SUV towing a Toyota Celica that got a little loose and started to swerve. Since we were still in Rick’s truck and towing our camping trailer, me getting us to the side of the road was a load of fun. NOT! When I started saying ‘Oh, uh-oh!!!’ Rick woke up just as I got our rig over on the side of the road. Rick hopped out and got across the road to where the cars were piled up to see if we needed to help them. I called 911 and the operator got the EMS dispatched.
No one had any serious injuries and despite the amount of debris all over the highway, there was not much further damage. There was, however, NO WAY that I would be driving anymore for a little while. I needed to take to the passenger seat and whimper for a while.
I just have to ask at this crucial juncture, why does this crap ALWAYS happen when I am driving??? At this point, I was not only shaken, but stirred. James Bond’s martini had nothing on my emotions at this point. Needless to say (although I am going to say it anyway), Rick took over the driving at this point.
We finally made it in well past the dinner hour to the Merrill home and once again ate dinner on the road Monday at a Subway restaurant in order to keep from waking the household at midnight. So much for that well stocked pantry in the trailer. Oh well. The good news is that Rick was able to make a roast beast sandwich from the roast Grandma cooked for us so at least someone was able to enjoy it for a bit.
Tuesday morning (yeah, all of this happened in 3 little days) the fun wasn’t quite over. The battery backup for the electronics for our propane camping trailer died. Deader than a doornail. So that meant the propane cooling function was hampered in its ability to do the job. So we got to make a side trip to Wal-Mart in St. George (YEAH!! Civilization at last!!) to pick up the food we were going to make for lunch for the reunion later in the week and to spend all of that delightful money for things like new batteries. It’s important to have a hobby but dang it, this is turning into a pretty doggone expensive one!
Good thing we are related to the Getty family. Oh, wait… must have slipped into a dream state. In actuality, we are more related to Ma and Pa Kettle but we have high hopes.
The reunion itself has been a nice reminder of just who belongs to who since children tend to grow and change over time, and an introduction to the new munchkins who now inhabit the various homes of the erstwhile children who had the temerity to grow up and have lives of their own since last time we saw them. It was good to see the old faces and to see the new faces. What hasn’t changed over time is the relatively easy picking up where we left off the last time we met.
I enjoyed recallousing my fingers while I played guitar with Lanny. We manage to get together and jam about once a decade or so. But it seems like we can just go from there without noticing the interlude of time in between. He has a new guitar which is FABULOUS. I admit it . . . I have string envy. Lanny honored me with a chance to play his guitar and it was a fine instrument with a lovely butter smooth feel to the action and a resonate rich sound from the box. I hope to get another chance to play some tunes with Lanny before the arthritis which is creeping into my hands makes it impossible to do so any more. But only time will tell.
Maybe the whole point of these events is to determine levels of perseverance. We don’t all get to be around each other enough to know who we are as well as we might. Distance and the reality of life’s circumstances keep us in separate orbits. We are a lot like planets in the solar system. We are in our own path until it’s time for the planetary alignment.
But reunions are a time to align as many planets as can come to the party. Sometimes it’s a partial alignment, sometimes it is just a few.
Despite all of the aggravation of the road portion of the trip (I am TOTALLY ready for beaming technology), this is turning out to be a nice break from life.
