After a four hour drive, we were only one hour away from our weekend at the beach, traveling in my ex-wife’s accursed Audi, two couples and a cranky infant. A massive deluge of rain poured from the skies and when I turned on the windshield wipers, I heard a snapping sound and the wipers did not work. Getting drenched in the process, I investigated and discovered that the wiper linkage had popped off the wiper motor and with no tools was not readily repairable. The sky was dark blue/black as far as the eye could see and the screaming infant and petulant wives precluded waiting out the storm. So I took a piece of rope and tied it in the center area to the driver side wiper blade, leading one end of the rope through the driver side windows and the other end of the rope through the passenger side window, which were cracked open 1/2 inch. My buddy then operated the wipers by pulling alternately on each end of the rope, manually clearing my vision until we pulled into the beach.
As a student at Bangor Theological Seminary, Bangor, Maine in the early 1980's I owned a 1969 Chevy Impala which was out family?s only car. Bangor Seminary supplied many of the small Maine churches with pastoral services or just a supply preacher on a Sunday morning. There was a famous book, at least among seminary students, which was written by Dr. Walter Cook, Director of Field Education, which was titled Send Us a Minister, Any Minister Will Do. It chronicled the adventures of many seminary students who had gone into the field to work in the churches or preach on a Sunday morning. I wasn?t in the book because I came along much later, but Dr. Cook assured me if he ever wrote a sequel to his book I would be the lead chapter.
On a Thursday in May I received a call from Dr. Cook inviting me to make the trek from Bangor to Jackman, Maine, to preach on that Sunday. It was my first ever sermon outside of the class room and I was just a little nervous. The trip was about 130 miles along Maine?s many two lane roads, and on a good day, the trip took between two and half and three hours. I was up early that Sunday and on the road by 5:00 a.m., not wanting to leave anything to chance. The service at the Moose River Congregational Church was scheduled for 10:00 a.m. I had plenty of time. Not so fast Fritz!
After I was on the road for about ten minutes, I began to hear a rumbling noise and I remembered that my wife had said I should have the exhaust system checked out before the trip. Now, well on my way there was nothing to do but keep going. After all it was now 5:15 a.m. and only I and few other early birds were on the road.
Not long after leaving I 95 and heading West on Maine?s Route 2 I hit a bump in the road just outside of Palmyra, Maine. The bump was followed closely by a ?clunk? which was followed by the sound of metal scraping against asphalt. I pulled off to the side of the road. I was totally not prepared for this. Dressed in a two-piece suit, white shirt and tie, I opening the trunk and found an old blanket so as least I didn?t have lay on the ground. Sure enough the muffler had come loose from the manifold and I was pushing it down the road. Without thinking I reach over and grabbed the muffler to see if I can push it back into place. So now, not only has my muffler come loose, but I also have third degree burns on the ends of three fingers and thumb of my right hand.
After saying a few choice words unbecoming a person in my profession (I do believe I called upon the name of the Lord for assistance!), I did find an old oil rag in the trunk. With
that in hand I again approached the muffler and pushed it back into place. It looked like it might hold for a mile or two, which was exactly correct. Every mile or two for the next twenty miles between Palmyra and Skowhegan I would stop, throw the blanket on the ground, and push the muffler back on.
I arrived in Skowhegan around 6:30 a.m. and found a service station. It, of course, didn?t open until 7:00 a.m. I stopped a lone motorist and found out that there was a coffee shop just up the block. In the rest room as I was letting cold water run over my incinerated fingers, I happen to look into the mirror and discovered that I was beginning to look a great deal like Charles Schultz?s Pigpen.
I drink a coffee while I waited for the guy to open the station. He was actually five minutes early so things were looking up. I explain my plight and he put the car on the hoist, put the muffler back in place, put on a new clamp, and welded it just to make sure. He?s a great guy and because I?m a poor seminary student he doesn?t charge me. Wow! It is less than 75 miles to Jackman so I was in great shape. Not so fast Fritz!
About 40 miles up route 2 the coffee began to come into play. I had just past ?The Forks? and there is literally nothing between me and Jackman, Maine but pine trees and highway. About ten minutes later I no longer needed a bathroom, I was near desperation! There was very little traffic at that hour of morning so I pulled off the side of the road, jumped out of the car, ran off into the tree and find sweet relief. I returned to the car, slipped it into gear, stepped on the accelerator and felt the rear end slip sideways in the soft sand. The wheels began to spin and I panicked. I hit the gas hard and can felt the whole rear end sink in the sand up to the axile. I got out and looked. Sure enough, I was not going anywhere.
Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed my robe and papers and started walking. I couldn?t have been more than 20 miles away and maybe someone would come along and give me a ride. Now it was close to 8:45 and I was getting a little concerned. It was long before the days of cell phones and there was not a house in sight.
I walked for maybe a mile when a Maine old timer pulls over in his pickup, and gave me the once over.
?That youra ca back they?a, young fella??
?Yes,? I answered.
?Ya headed fa Jackman to preach??
?Yes,? I responded.
?This is youra lucky day,? he says, ?I?ve got a chain in the back. Let?s go get youra ca outta they?a!?
Back at the car I got behind the wheel as he put the chain on his truck and my car. He
climbed behind the wheel of his truck and began pulling. All of a sudden there is a snap, crackle, pop sound, and my bumper was fifty feet down route 2, but I was still stuck in the sand.
He came back red faced saying something about that never happening before. He reconnected the chain and gave it another try. This time the car weaves and bobs right and then left and then came out and I was in the middle of route 2.
I put my bumper in the back seat, say thank you to my new friend, and headed off toward Jackman. It is now 9:40 a.m.
With exactly two minutes to spare, my car looking like I had gotten it from the junk yard, and me looking like I?d slept in the street in my suit that night, I mounted the steps to the pulpit of the Moose River Congregational Church and preached my first sermon to a congregation.
As I told the story of my trip the congregation laughed until they cried, and at the end one old Deacon said, ?You could have skipped the sermon and just told the story of your trip. That was worth the price of admission.?
Oh, yes, I forgot to say, the trip back to Bangor was totally uneventful. Thanks be to God.
The Rev. Dr. Jerry Fritz
Edgartown, MAIn 1966, my new husband and I, just 22 years old, decided to make a road trip to visit my parents in Omaha, Nebraska. We lived in San Francisco Bay area and drove a brand new VW camper. We decided to take our dog and our cat on the trip complete with a sandbox and all their food plus our food and camping gear.
When my sister, who was 18 and in college, heard we were going on the trip, she asked if she could go with us. We said, fine. We knew it would be crowded, but…the more the merrier. We decided we would find a campground each night, so she could sleep outside. We would sleep in the camper.
You can imagine our surprise and dismay when we went to pick her up and she not only had a lot of luggage, but she had a life-sized stuffed bear that her boyfriend had just given her. Well, my husband took one look at the bear and said, “that bear is not going!” With that, my sister broke into tears. We ended up taking the bear.
So, here we are on the trip: me, my husband, my sister, a bear, a dog, and a cat. I suddenly remember something very important: Mother told me once never to go on a long trip without taking ex-lax gum. So I convinced everyone except the animals that we should do this too.
To this day, I don’t think my sister has forgiven me. The first night we ended up in some God forsaken roadside park in Wyoming with no lights. My sister and the bear were in the front seat, we were in the back, parked just outside the stinky lavatories so we could dash in every few minutes!
After stopping at every rest stop along the way, we finally made it to Omaha. After the visit with our parents, my sister decided not to join us on the return trip. She flew back to California with the bear.
In the early 80s, I drove to Wyoming in my 59 red Ford Fairlane (the same model, thoug not the same car that my father had that he painted himself and was always gritty grey). I was meeting a boyfriend for a canoe trip on the Green River. We left the Ford at the end of the trip in the middle of nowhere and drove his Subaru to the beginning of the trip. It was a pleasant trip of a couple of days, except for the fact that I’d forgotten a hat or any sunscreen. By the end of the trip I had severe burns and blistered lips from the reflection on the water.
The last leg of the trip was against the wind through a canyon. It took two hours of constant paddling to go 1 mile. We were exhausted by the time we got out and disappointed to find out that I’d left the keys to the Ford in the Subaru at the beginning of the trip. My friend hotwired the car and drove an hour-and-a-half to Rock Springs. I enlisted the aid of an old boyfriend to drive us in his converted school bus to the beginning of the trip to retrieve the keys. Something about running the school bus required the use of a pipe wrench, but I don’t remember what.
By then it was late and very dark. We thanked me friend and drove the Subaru back to the Ford. On the way, we hit a deer. My current boyfriend kicked the deer and it bounded off into the dark.
The only other thing that I remember about the trip is that the Ford overheated on the way back to Denver, in spite of keeping the heater on high in the middle of the summer. Not being knowledgeable about cars (stupid) I opened the radiator cap to put fill it with water and added steam burns to my pain. I was in trouble at the oil company where I worked because I was late getting back.
I am married, but not to either of the gentleman involved in this adventure. Go figure.
Cheryl, now from Minnesota
Tom and Ray,
While attending your alma mater in the late 70?s, I agreed to drive the car of a Wellesley student to her home in South Dakota during the Christmas holiday since I lived in a town not too far from hers. She could afford to fly home and I couldn?t, so this arrangement worked for both of us.
She dropped the car off at the end of final exam week and off I went. Halfway across the Harvard Bridge the tailpipe was on the pavement. I stopped at the first repair shop I could find for a quick fix. The mechanic ran it up on the lift to reveal a sea of undercarriage rust. While up on the lift, the right rear tire blew along the sidewall. Shortly thereafter, with new tire and freshly repaired tail pipe, I struck out again for South Dakota, secure in the knowledge that nothing more could go wrong.
The alternator started to fail just outside of Newburgh, NY as dusk was falling. I spent the night in a lovely establishment whose name escapes me doing my best to hover above the sheets in order to avoid contracting a communicable disease. Late the next afternoon I was off again. Nothing could stop me now.
By the time I reached Chicago it was clear that I had no heat. I could tell because the large scented candle that was to be my mother?s Christmas present had frozen and shattered. I put on every bit of clothing in my duffle bag and drove on, stopping occasionally to scrape the windows (inside and outside) and singing Christmas carols and college drinking songs, some of which you may know, at the top of my lungs in order to stay awake.
By the time I got to Minneapolis it was early evening on Christmas Eve. There was no guarantee I was going to be able to find gas between Minneapolis and my destination so I filled the tank and an additional gas can, used my last quarter to call my parents from a phone booth and tell them everything was fine, and struck off on the home stretch.
Five hours later I was crawling through a whiteout along Highway 12 at ten miles per hour when I stopped just short of running into a post in the middle of the road. Except it wasn?t in the middle of the road, it was on the shoulder and I had been headed for the ditch without knowing it. I got out and read the sign, which said ?Summit?, telling me that the tiny town of Summit was somewhere off to the left though obscured by the blizzard. It wasn?t looking good for getting home that night as I had hoped, so I found the road into town, drove in, and looked for signs of life.
It was late and the only light on in town was in front of a church. I was seriously cold by this point so thought I?d see if I could get inside at least long enough to thaw off some of the beard and clothing frost I?d accumulated. I pulled on the door handle and it opened right up. I stepped in to see a darkened church full of people with lit candles in their hands. At first I thought maybe I?d died and gone to heaven, or at least someplace warm which was an even better option right then. Then they turned around as one and their eyes got big as they saw what must have looked a little like the Abominable Snowman. It occurred to me then that it was midnight on Christmas Eve and this was their Christmas candlelight service.
The pastor didn?t miss a beat, invited me to join them, and continued on with his recounting of the Christmas story. He was at the part about the innkeeper inviting Joseph and Mary to spend the night in his barn. I?m not religious in any traditional sense of the word, but I must admit I?ve pondered that set of circumstances more than once in the intervening years. I sat in the back pew for the rest of the service, melting frost dripping everywhere, was invited to spend the rest of the evening at the parsonage, woke to sunshine, and made it home on Christmas morning.
Best regards,
Kurt Cogswell (?78)
P.S. ? I flew back to Boston for the spring semester.
This story is about a ruptured disc (in my back), a wonderful van that nevertheless broke down three times, the Red Sox, a new puppy and my dad! This trip was actually a combination of the road trip from hell and one of the best road trips ever! It came about, sadly enough, after receiving the news in June 2000, that my dad had cancer again, and was told he had about 6 months left (little did the doctors know that being the stubborn old coot he was, he’d last an additional year over their estimates!). My wife and I decided to drive out there to visit, for what we thought might be the last time, over Labor Day weekend. We live in Boulder, CO and my dad lived in Falmouth, MA. When the day to leave came, we started out at my typical crack of 3PM start in our 1989 Dodge Ram Van with 185,000 miles on it. We made it all the way to the first state park we came to in Nebraska a few hours later and spent the night. So far so good,…until the next morning. While stepping backwards out of the side door, I missed the intermediate step and came down on my leg hard on the pavement. The shooting pain up my leg and through my lower back left no doubt, that for the third time, I had ruptured a disc in my lower back! My wife came back from her sojurn to the outhouse to find me lying on the ground writhing in pain. However, rather than cancel the trip, we headed to the nearest emergency room where I manged to talk them into giving me a prescription for pain meds and muscle relaxers. As they would only give me enough for a few days at a time, the remainder of the trip revolved around trips to the closest ER every three days for refills! In the meantime, my wife, who doesn’t like driving our full-sized 3/4 ton van with a camper top under most conditions, was relegated to driving cross-country while I, in a drug induced stupor, navigated from the bed in the back.
All was fine until we got into St. Louis late one rainy night a few days later. When we started bouncing down a cobble stone street, then backing up, I knew we were in trouble. I realized it was even worse than I originally thought when I sat up just as my wife finished pulling into a parking spot, noticed the very dim headlights and heard her turn off the key before I could get any words out of my mouth. Sure enough, the van wouldn’t start, because we’d been running without a working alternator for who knows how long and the battery was dead. Not only that, but we were on a one way street with too low a bridge ahead for the camper van to get under. Fortunately, a kind soul nearby loaned us her cell phone and after a bit of manuvering, AAA managed to get us out of that street and to the furthest repair shop headed east that they could take us. They plopped the van down in front of the shop’s garage doors where we spent the night only to be awakened by the mechanics getting organized the next morning. As luck would have it, it was only a missing bolt that had allowed the alternator belt to loosen. A quick fix and we were on our way.
Other than an increasing roughness in the engine (subtle foreshadowing intended), we made it to our destination, my dad’s place in Falmouth, with no futher ado.
While planning the trip, and wanting to do something special with my dad, I had thought of two things. Fishing and baseball. My dad’s days since retirement had been scheduled around fishing trips and watching the Red Sox on cable. Given his health, I figured going to a Red Sox game would be the better alternative to having him bouncing around in the back of a boat. As luck would have it, there was a day game on Labor Day at Fenway. I called the box office, only to have my hopes dashed when finding that the game was sold out. Undeterred, I wrote a letter to John Harrington, then CEO of the Sox. I told him about my dad’s condition, that he had been given only 6 months to live, and about his lifelong passion for the Red Sox. I mentioned how he had listened to the Sox on the radio the last time (at that point) they had won the World Series in 1918, how he had seen all the greats of the game including Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Ty Cobb, and Lou Gehrig, etc. Much to my amazement, a few weeks later, I got a call from Mr. Harrington’s office, telling us they had set aside 4 tickets to the game on Labor Day! I was so thrilled, I didn’t even bother asking where the tickets were. It wouldn’t have mattered if they were the furthest seats in the ballpark. When the day of the game came, we headed up to Beantown in plenty of time, fortunately for us because the van was struggling. A stop at a gas station though and a couple of bottles of engine additive later, we made it. It was when we picked up our tickets I realized, that not only had Mr. Harrington had given us 4 VIP seats on the front row right next to the the Sox’s dugout, but it was also the day they were retiring newly elected Hall of Famer Carlton Fisk’s number! We had a great time. Not only did the Sox win, with Pedro beating my wife’s home town team of the Seattle Mariners, but after the on field ceremony featuring Sox greats such as Fisk, Yaz and Rico Petrocelli, Mr. Harrington even came over to greet us! I can never thank him enough for what he gave us that day.
Eventually, the visit with my dad had to come to an end and we started our trip back home. After a quick trip to visit friends and relatives in New York city, which involved a little greasing of the palms at the local garage in order to gain a secure parking place in one of the few covered parking places that could fit the van, we headed west. It was that next night, in nowhere Pennsylvania, with the van running so rough it was barely doing 25 on the highway, that I decided to pull off at the only gas station in the area, a one pump affair with a dirt lot. The next morning I pulled off the dog house to discover that one of the two carburator fuel injectors wasn’t working. Fortunately, having had one of them fail in the past, I had thought to buy a replacement before I left Falmouth. Unfortunately, it required a star drive which I didn’t have. I went into the rundown convience store and much to my surprise, they had a star drive set for sale! A few minutes later, and we were on our way with a much smoother and fully powered engine!
All was going well as we got to Bismark, South Dakota. We had taken a northern route back, as we had made arrangements to pick up a puppy in Great Falls, MT, the next evening! (That’s another long story which I’ll save for a later date!) However, once in Bismark, as we started searching, unsuccesfully at first, for a hotel with a vacancy, at each succesive stop the van was getting harder and harder to start. Finally, we found a hotel. The next morning, a Sunday, of course the van wouldn’t start. Time to call AAA again! This time they towed us to the only place in town, a gas station, with a mechanic on duty on a Sunday. A local parts place, also the only one open on Sunday, had the starter we needed and after sending us over to get it, the mechanic dropped what he was doing, rolled under the van (in the dirt where the tow truck had dropped it), replaced the starter and in a half an hour and with only a $40 bill, sent us on our way!
We made it to the house in Great Falls to pick up the puppy at 11PM, 5 hours late, where the people we had never met, and despite my drug induced stupor from the medicines I was still taking for my ruptured disc, were very gracious hosts. The next morning, with puppy in hand, we were on our way and with no further incidents, made it back home to Boulder the next afternoon!
This was truly a road trip that my wife and I will never forget!
As a little epilogue, since my dad lived for another year and a half, we were able to visit once more, and I could give him a frame with a letter that Mr. Harrington had sent me, along with a photo taken of us at the game and a couple of the tickets.
With Great Fondness,
Andy
I had just lost my job in San Diego in Febuary of 2005, fortunately I was given a stipend (hush money) so I took a driving trip through beautiful Baja. I loaded up my '92 VW Golf and headed south. The first few days were delightful. We then headed east across the peninsula and onto a road that our guide book described as “not up to US Highway Standards.” What they neglected to mention was that we had just turned onto a 250 mile stretch of the Baja 1000 course. My little VW did the best it could, 20 miles into the offroad section, we left our muffler behind, a sacrifice to the desert. It was ripped off the car as we crested over a hill that was steeper than the Golf’s breakover angle. It was a little loud, windows down, no AC and the Golf would not handle the severe conditions any faster than 15mph. After 5 hours in first gear, we needed a drink some sleep. We pulled of to camp and promptly got stuck axle deep in the pituresque white sand beach. There was no sign of life other than a mobile home which had been flipped on it’s side and burned. We dug around inside it for some carpet or anything to give us traction. Being from WI I am well versed in getting stuck in snow, and the method of rocking the car out - switching between first and reverse, rolling only a few inches each direction, like getting going on a swing - it works pretty good in the snow, in the sand, I burned up whatever was left of the clutch. My girlfriend was crying convienced we were goners, my hands were bleeding from digging in the sand without a shovel and it was getting dark. I had resigned myself to sleeping with a stuck car when an angel appeared, “Y’all stuck?” belched a middle aged woman with skin like aged leather. Never had I seen a more beautiful sight. She lived 3 miles away and walked to see us Her husband had spotted us with his telescope and came along shortly in his pick up truck. They pulled us out and got us drunk. We were saved.
We had only driven 100 of our 250 mile stretch, we had 150 to go without a clutch. We left early in the morning, with the promise of “better roads” from the leather skinned angel and her husband. The roads were better, we were easily crusing for long stretches at 25mph…that’s when the engine temp started getting ornery. I pulled over and noticed that I was low on coolent, with no store of any kind within 50 miles, we poured in some water from the Sea of Cortez and charged on. This worked, we drove about an hour or so, pulled over, added more water and kept going. Late in the day we had made the entire 150 or so miles and were now cruising along at 70mph stopping occationally to refill the coolent with seawater. At one point I noticed what I thought was the culpert of the leak, a seal with bolts around it, I figured the bolts had come loose from all the offroading, so I tightened them and cracked the seal in 2, we had a real good seawater leak now and were stopping every 30 minutes to add water or let the engine cool off. I was driving as fast as possible to get to the nearest town when I noticed that whenever I went over a bump, there was an odd “crack” sound and the rear of the car kind of swung out to the left…like an unintentional drift. We eventually made it to town, got the “right” seal from a junkyard and made it home. It was 2 days of the worst hell I could have imagined, but I survived. And am now 100% dedicated to the durability of VW’s…I mean, could a 13 year old Camery have gone though all that abuse with any less damage…I think not.
I know this is long?but so was the fun vacation.
My husband and I had eagerly been awaiting our Grand Canyon rafting permit for 10 years. When it came up in the year 2000, we gathered our friends and planned the 18 day trip. Parts of the arrangements were to pick up some gear in Idaho, a bit of a side trip for my husband and a friend, and I was to drive to other friends in the San Francisco Bay area and drive to the Grand with them.
At noon on the day my husband and his friend left for Idaho, he called. He was at a remote ranch beyond Klamath Falls with the truck on its way to the dealership in Klamath Falls. They had hit a deer and smashed up the front of the truck. ?Can you get in the suburban and come get us?? I was tentative about our 1972 green suburban. I will state now, I had complained that the suburban did not seem to have much power on hills, and was breezily brushed aside. But, I threw in my river gear, called my friends about the change of plans, and sped off?on flat land. I realized as soon as I began the long ascent to Klamath Falls, that the Suburban definitely had no guts going up the hills. In fact, people were passing me at every opportunity, and I pulled off at every turnout to let red-faced, gesticulating drivers behind me go around. AHA! I was right, I seethed, but it was cold comfort as I chugged toward the smashed truck and my husband and friend.
I finally made it to the dealership to transfer the stuff from the smashed truck into the Suburban and we took off for Idaho. ?Oh, by the way?, I told my husband with a smirk; ?It doesn?t seem to have much power?. He paused for a nano-second and continued on his merry way. We eventually came to some significant rises in elevation and with all the gear and the three of us in the Suburban it rose to a top speed of 20 MPH! We crawled to Idaho, no stops except to fill up and use the restroom?we now had to rush. HA! Got to Salmon, Idaho on a Sunday, pulled all the gear from the warehouse, attached THE TRAILER we now had to tow, asked around about the possible problem with the car ( no conclusions and no garage open) and the only advice we got was to invert the air filter, as it might give us more power. We were now in a panic. We had to make it south in record time, with a suburban full of river gear and three people, towing a trailer full of more river gear with lots of mountain passes to navigate.
We got up extra-early and hit the road. With-in the hour we encountered the first long ascent up to Gilmore Summit, elevation over 7,000 ft, and we chugged along at varying speeds of 20 to 5 MPH. The loud WHRRRRRRROOOOOO of the inverted air filer only added to the fun. We traveled non-stop, except to fill up with fuel increasingly often because even though we were only going 10 mph- we were only getting 5 MPG of gas! We ate gas station food because we were saving every second of time, and at one point in the middle the particularly dark, windy section of road, we realized that here, in Nowhere Utah, we were low on gas, in other words, half a tank. Not only was there an awful lot of rocks and sagebrush, but that the few gas stations we passed were closed. As we were arguing over our options, an open station came into view. Ahhhh?we filled the tank, and even had hopes for a gas station hot dog. As my husband approached the car with three white cardboard hot dog trays our spirits soared. Alas, all they had, and what he brought us, were two pickled eggs and an old stale chocolate Easter egg. I took the chocolate egg. I knew it was going to be a long, gassy night. At 2 AM, after over 20 hours of driving, we knew we could stay awake no longer and pulled over at a turnout outside of Kanab. We curled up amongst the piles of river gear and slept the sleep of the dead. At 6 am with the sound of semis rushing past at 70 mph, we got up, with upset stomachs, cramped backs, seriously sleep deprived, and got back on the road to Flagstaff, AZ. I never knew that Flagstaff had such a steep vertical ascent into town until were drove our demented suburban, the leader of a pissed off parade of other vacationers, into the mountain town. In the late afternoon, at 5 mph with the WHROOOOOOOO of the inverted air filter announcing our arrival, we finally met our friends in Flagstaff. After much discussion we actually had a friend who diagnosed the problem as the carburetor. We bought a rebuilt carburetor, and while we shopped and packed the trip, he installed it.
As we left the next day on the way to Lee?s Ferry ( the put-in spot for the trip), the suburban purred along?at a cool 20 to 5 miles per hour at any uphill section!!! Nothing had changed- except the absence of WHROOOOOOO of the inverted air filter. Not nearly so festive! We made it to put-in, loaded out, and launched the trip but not before we scribbled the shuttle driver a note, stating that the car- would- run, slowly, but it- would- run.
After 7 days, we called my mother from Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon to check on the kids. She then informed us that the shuttle drivers had rejected our suburban at the parking lot in Lee?s Ferry. They didn?t want to shuttle it and there it sat, 150 miles from where it should have been waiting for us at the end of the trip! After the cloud of doom had lifted a millimeter, we gave my poor overwhelmed mother the Herculean task of remotely arranging for a tow from the bottom of the Grand Canyon in the parking lot of Lees Ferry. She also had to arrange for repair in Page, Arizona, and remote means of payment. I could hear the kids racing around and yelling in the background??Oh they?re just roller skating. It?s raining so they have to skate in the house?. I wanted to instruct her to command the tow truck driver to tow that green demon to the edge of the cliff and let it drop off into the canyon, a fitting end to it all, and to take the money and the kids to the REAL roller rink!
However, mom came through and it turned out it WAS the carburetor. The one our friend had installed was defective, and the new carburetor worked like a charm. My husband drove the suburban to Alaska that summer. Now he listens to me when I say something is wrong with the cars?NOT!
In August, 2007, my wife and I took our two sons (17 and 12) and my mother-in-law on a road trip from Dallas, TX to Yellowstone National Park. We were traveling in our 10 year old Chevy Suburban. At one time, we had said we would drive the Suburban till the wheels fell off, but by the summer of 2007 we were planning to sell it after the Yellowstone trip.
The trip had lasted about 10 days, and we were on our way home. About 80 miles north of Cheyenne, in the middle of nowhere, I was sleeping in the back and my wife was driving, flying down the road just above the 75mph speed limit. Suddenly, it feels like we have a flat, and she pulls off the highway onto the shoulder. Just as we get out of the car to see what has happened, it starts raining - one of those strong, sudden downpours. I walk around and check the front driver side tire. The tire is OK, but the hub has completely disgorged itself. There are parts hanging out in a very scary scene. Totally soaked, we climb back in the car and call AAA.
The rain has stopped by the time the tow-truck arrives. We pile back out of the car, and I take the tow driver aside. I say “We’ve been on the road for 10 days. I’ll give you $200 to say there is not enough room in the truck for all of us, and I (the dad) will have to wait behind for another ride.” He replies, “Everyone says that.”
He tows us north to Wheatland, Wyoming, a little north of where the wheel fell off the Suburban, and takes us to the Chevy dealer. They are about to close, but are very nice. They give me the keys to a van, and tell us to keep the van overnight and even give us coupons for dinner discount.
The next morning, the dealership calls and tells me that the repairs on the Suburban are going to cost around $1500, which was just about what I hoped to get when I sold it. Plus, it was going to take several days to get the parts and make the repairs. I really didn’t want to put all that money into the vehicle. So I drove back over to the dealership to discuss my options.
The fatigue and stress of a 10 day family vacation start taking their toll. Logic starts to fail. I’m formulating my plan as I go. I decided we would just sell the Suburban to the dealer, and find a way home. They offered me only $100 for the vehicle, but I took it (it beat pouring even more into the Suburban, I thought). The challenge came became “now, how to get home.” Turns out, there is no place to rent a car for a 1000 mile one-way trip in Wheatland, WY. A couple of phone calls later, I learn there are no cars available to rent in Cheyenne or Denver, either. And, there are no flights available back to Dallas. I discuss the situation with my wife and mother-in-law. We all just want to go home.
I asked the dealer what he had on the lot that I could buy. My new plan is to buy something here, drive home, and then either sell it or sell one of our existing vehicles. They pull out a used Suburban (you can only find 4x4 Suburbans in Wyoming). I lean over the front passenger seat to look into the car, and when I press down onto the seat, a small round piece of dog poop rolls out onto the seat. Nonetheless, we took a test drive, but were not impressed and are not convinced it is really up for the trip, either.
Next question: “What do you have NEW?”. He points to two 2007 Tahoes. My wife says “I like that one”. Two hours later, I’ve bought my most expensive car ever. Absolutely no research, comparing, or dealing. We unload all of our stuff from the Suburban into a huge pile on their lot, and the new Tahoe pulls up. We can barely cram everything into the Tahoe, and I’m thinking “Boy, this is a LOT smaller than the Suburban”. We had too much stuff to use the 3rd row of seats, so my two boys and my mother-in-law are lined up in the back seat. Yes, it is a roomy vehicle, but we have a long way to go. The dealer takes a photo of me and my wife next to our new Tahoe, and we are on the way back to Texas. It is about 2 in the afternoon.
We start calling ahead trying to find a hotel room for the night. We could not find a room closer than Amarillo. We drive before 12 hours before arriving at our hotel. What an exhausting, expensive day.
We finally arrive home, and just as we are turning into our neighborhood, the odometer on our Tahoe turns 1000 miles. We decided to keep the Tahoe and sell my wife’s other vehicle. We like the Tahoe - it is a great vehicle for trips and hauling kids, instruments and other stuff around town. Today, we laugh alot about our Yellowstone souvenir. That was our Road Trip from Hell.
Van Neinast
Richardson, TX
To Timbuktu and back!
My worst road trip took place in 1988, while in Mali, West Africa, to carry out field work for a Master’s thesis.??Having about a week of spare time I decided with a few other students to go to Timbuktu from Gao, where we were based, a 200 km drive west in the desert.? Our supervisor somehow managed to borrow a Toyota Landcruiser 4 wheel drive pick-up from?some very nice brothers belonging to a religious order in the area.
Just as we were about to go, the local guard of the compound where we were staying asked if he could ride with us to Timbuktu. A widower of three weeks, he had just heard from his family back in Timbuktu that they had found him a new wife.
So, the six of us crammed into the cabin and the box with our baggage, and headed west along the Niger River.? Of course, this being on the edge of the Sahara, there was no road – just a sandy trail with a few scraggly bushes here and there.? It was hot, often around 120 degrees in the shade – if you were luck enough to find any.? We were warned that there were lots of sharp needles along the trail from the bushes and that flat tires were to be expected, so we brought along two extra spares.
Sure enough, we got a couple of flat tires and had to change the wheels. ?We got stuck in the sand a couple of times too, and our engine died once, forcing us to sleep in a small village, and endure a massive sand storm while waiting about 15 hours to be rescued by the first vehicle that came by – for an exorbitant price of course. ?Turned out we only had an easy-to-fix carburetor problem. ?
But that was only the beginning of the fun…
Finally arriving in Timbuktu, we found a nice small hotel for the night. Our friend the guard left to find his family, promising to meet us with his new wife in the morning for the drive back. In the meantime, my friends decided to go for a camel ride with a guide that had been hassling us for while, but I opted to relax at the hotel instead. While they were gone, not having taken the time to settle into their rooms, all the stuff they had left in the truck got stolen.
The next morning, our friend the guard arrived on time with his new wife and mother-in-law in tow. It actually turned out that his original prospect had already married somebody else, but fortunately for him, his family managed to find him another fianc?e in the few hours he had! His new wife was very young, probably about 16, and did not look at all happy at having to pack up and go spend the rest of her life with a stranger at a couple of hours notice! She cried as she waved her mother goodbye and we drove away.
As we were heading back to Gao, we had to drive on the only stretch of paved road in town. As soon as we got on the pavement, we heard this loud crack and then a?terrible racket from the front end.? There was no way to continue, but we somehow managed to get the landcruiser back to the hotel. ?
It took several hours but we found a mechanic in Timbuktu. ?He set himself up on the side of the road (there being of course no garage in town) and took apart the entire front differential box as well as both wheels and carefully laid down all the small parts on a large mat in the sand and in various improvised containers.? (see attached photo)
We eventually found the problem: the pinion had broken.? After much debate about the cause, we figured out that the extra spare wheels we had brought with us were actually larger than the originals. ?This caused the wheels to turn at slightly different speeds – we didn’t notice a problem in the sand, but it became obvious once we hit the pavement with the resulting stress breaking the pinion.
As Timbuktu has the same number of Toyota dealers as Gucci outlets, we spent the rest of that day hunting for abandoned vehicles all over town whose parts we could cannibalize – there were quite a few, giving us a preview of what may happen to us if we did not find that pinion!? Fortunately, Landcruisers being one of the most common trucks at the time, we managed to find one from which we took apart the differential box and extracted the pinion.? We went back to our Landcruiser to install the new part and rebuilt the differential making sure to wash every single piece in gas to remove all traces of sand.? Once everything was put together again, we ended up with a couple of extra bits and pieces which didn’t seem to belong anywhere, but what the heck, we were all keen to get back home by then, so we went ahead and tried the truck.? Everything seemed fine, but it was by then too late in the day to leave. With barely any money left following the robbery, we bedded down in the sand with the scorpions for the night.
The next morning, we repacked the truck and headed out again.?
We came to the same stretch of pavement, but having re-installed the correctly-sized wheels, did not expect any problems.?
Ha.
As soon as we hit the pavement, the truck started jerking violently with the front and back wheels locking and releasing alternatively making a loud screeching noise.? We switched to rear-wheel drive and headed back to our trusty mechanic who proceeded to once again take apart the front differential along with both wheels, laying it all out on that mat in the sand again.
We were stumped – everything looked fine and we were running out of theories as to what went wrong when we noticed that the original pinion had 9 teeth and the new one had 11!? So, the front wheels were now turning faster than the rear wheels causing the jerking on pavement.? We tried again to find another Landcruiser in town to get a pinion with the right number of teeth but to no avail.
We figured out that it would be okay to keep driving on rear wheels and only use 4 wheel drive on soft sand where a difference in the speed of the wheels would be ok for a short period.? So, we put the differential back together, again washing every piece in gas and ending up once more with another few extra pieces.? We yet spent another night “sleeping” in the desert and headed out first thing the next morning on rear-wheel drive only.? We used the 4 wheel drive a few times to get unstuck and another time to cross a river but made it to the main highway after losing the trail only a couple times.
Our supervisor took the truck back to Gao to return it to the brothers who had lent it to us while the rest of us hired a taxi and headed to Bamako.? The guard and his new wife went off with the supervisor. Despite such a rocky start to her married life, the young bride seemed to have gradually warmed up to her new husband, and by the time we waved them goodbye, they were laughing together and apparently enjoying each other?s company. For some reason, I have a feeling that they ended up being very happy together.
It was only a year later that I learned, to my utter dismay, that our supervisor didn’t tell the brothers about the problem with the differential when he returned the truck.? Their truck must have ended up breaking down somewhere – I will always wonder if it would have been because of the wrong pinion or because of all those missing bits and pieces… I can only hope they did not break down in some remote place.
This bad trip ended being one of the best adventures of my life and I wouldn’t?have missed it for anything.
My dad’s ideal summer vacation was to get as far into the woods of Western Montana as he could pull a camping trailer. The trailer he had made himself (twice–at one point he decided that if he could do it over he would do it differently–so I got to help take it apart all the way down to the axle and help rebuild it)–single axle, about 12’ long, a heavy wooden box that would sleep four people and had a kitchen that slid out from under the beds and a table that folded down from the side. It was usually a whole day project to move this thing from Spokane, Washington, to just over the Montana border. The highway coming into Sandpoint, Idaho, went over what was back in the 50’s a 2-mile long, narrow 2-lane wooden bridge across Lake Pend O’Reille (Ponderay). One hot July afternoon we were just about at the middle of the bridge when the trailer gave a lurch to one side and we saw a wheel merrily spinning down the road passing us. It, of course, was a wheel off of the trailer. Mom walked back to the beginning of the bridge to pick up all the lug nuts, but by the time we got the wheel back on and were on our way, there was traffic backed up probably from the Canadian border to Coeur d’Alene to the south.
Dad also liked bad roads–it was amazing the roads that he could get the 1940 Buick over. One of the best was a road he saw on a map that cut across from Wallace, Idaho, to Thompson Falls, Montana, over Thompson Pass. It turned out to be one of the least-maintained roads ever mapped, in places more like a rock ledge than a road. There were stretches where Mom and I had to get out and walk while Dad gingerly finagled the car over the rocks. Then when we got to the top of the pass–about 5000’ elevation, if I recall correctly–there was a huge billboard that said: “Welcome to Montana! You are now entering Mountain Standard Time.” We did make it across, and when we mentioned it to some local folks they said that at one time they used to take that road to Spokane, but for some years nobody had been over it without 4WD or donkeys.
This tale includes three road trips, but they all occurred within a six week period, from December 1979 to January 1980. I was living in Denver at the time and working in a bar band (actually a trio.) The leader of the band owned a very tired Chevy van, and she demanded that all three of us travel to jobs together in her van. And she always did the driving. We were hired to play at a Christmas party in Redstone, CO, a couple hundred miles west of Denver. When we were loading the van to leave, she informed us that the clutch was out on the van, but she wanted to drive it anyway. We were young, she was adament, we needed the money from the job, so we said what-the-hell and kicked around a few ideas. She finally decided she would start in third (high) gear,and just turn the key, engaging the starter. She tried this and the van lurched forward until the engine started, and continued lurching until we reached enough speed to stop lugging the engine. She thought this was great, and the next thing we knew, we were heading off. We did our best to time the stoplights, but had to stop a few times and repeat the starting procedure, before we got on the highway. Once we were on I-70 heading west, it was clear sailing, until we were within about thirty miles of our destination, when we again had to start trying to time the stoplights as we drove through several towns. We did pretty well at this, but did have to stop and restart a few times. When we were finally within a few hundred yards of the inn where we were to perform that night, we found ourselves on a very narrow windy road. We were going as slow as we could in third gear, but did not negotiate one bend in the road, and slid off into a snowbank. We were, of course, not prepared at all for this, and found ourselves having to dig out of the snow with the best tools we had, which were microphone stands. We eventually dug out, got started, and on our way again for the last few hundred yards. We arrived, set up, played our job at the inn that evening, and then spent the night at the inn. The next morning was extremely cold (something below zero), and between the cold and the abuse to the battery from our repeated starts, the van would not start. The battery did not have enough charge to crank the starter (and the engine.) We searched the inn and surrounding area and could not find anyone who would help us. And with a dead battery and no clutch, our options were limited. We finally found a brave soul who would help us, even after we explained our predicament. But he was in a hurry, and he had to help immediately, or he was leaving. We promptly pushed the van into the road, got in and and shifted into third. Our helper eased is car up behind us and started pushing. With us in gear, this was a considerable load for his car, but amazingly, the van eventually started. We couldn’t stop to thank him, because we would have found ourselves in the same predicament again, so we waved thanks and headed down the road to find a spot to turn around and head back to the inn. On our short drive back to the inn, we had a realization. Because of the hurry that our helper had been in, we had not had time to load the van before getting the engine started. Now we couldn’t stop or we were right back where we started. Fortunately, there was a small circle turnabout in front of the inn. Our intrepid leader drove as slow as she could in third gear around the circle, one person got in back and opened the sliding sidedoor, and I jumped out. I started tossing the equipment (p.a., speakers, instruments, suitcases, etc.) into the van, one piece at a time, as the van circled around and around. Eventually we were loaded up, and without further ado, we headed back to Denver. My only regret was that this was not recorded on film.
A week later, after having the clutch repaired, we again hit the road, in the van, headed for a week long job in Jackson Hole, WY. The trip there was uneventful, and the first few days enjoyable. The temperature was in the twenties, and we got in some skiing during the day, and played our gig in the evenings. But then a cold, dry front blew through overnight. The next morning, when I got up, it was -35 degrees out, and the overnight low had been -65. This was the temperature, not wind-chill. The power to the whole valley went off that night and stayed off for the rest of the week. The temperature also remained in that same range (-35 to -65) during that time. Jackson Hole is normally prepared for that kind of weather. There are electrical outlets on the streets, to allow engine block heaters to be plugged in, but with the power out, these were of no use. We estimated that only 10% of the vehicles remained operational, but the cars that were running were acting as taxis or busses for everyone. Our van was not running, but we had no trouble getting rides back and forth from the condo we were staying at to the club we were working. With no power, there was no heat in the condo, and we were miserably cold most of the time. The club had a generator, so we were able to work every night, and this was a welcome respite from the cold. Because of the extreme cold, the ski lifts were shutdown. They claimed that they would be offloading dead bodies at the top, if they were running. This was the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, so the ski area was packed. Most people seemed to be getting stir crazy, not being able to ski, so the bar we were playing became a wild and crazy outlet for everybody. After four days of this, it was time to head home. We had to get a push start to get the van started, and we had to have the interior cover off of the engine, so that one of us could be spraying ether into the carburetor. With the temperature still at -35, and the wind racing in our faces, this was some ordeal. I am sure we went for several miles, repeatedly popping the clutch, and of course every time that happened, the fan would come on and make the windchill that much worse. But we eventually did get started, and headed home for Denver. I have neglected to mention that the heater in the van had not worked for sometime. So we started the trip home cold, and stayed cold all the way. At some point, we drove into a blizzard and stopped at a roadside stop. After a short break, we all decided we wanted to keep going. We got back on the interstate, even though it was virtually a whiteout. Well, we found out a few miles down the road, when we saw headlights approaching, that somehow our leader had driven the wrong way onto an offramp, and we were headed south on the northbound side of the interstate. The good news was that traffic was moving so slow, that we were not in eminent danger from a head-on collision. We backtracked, got headed the right way, and eventually made it back home to Denver. Without any heat in the van, all we talked about on the drive home was how were going to immediately jump in a hot a shower and warm up. Well when we got home to the house we were renting, we found that one whole wall of the house had fallen down. It was an old brick house, and I’ll never know why, but the all of the bricks on the north side of the house had just collapsed while we were gone. The interior wall was still standing, but without the brick and insulation, the house had cooled off enough that the water pipes froze, and there was no heat, since the house was heated by hot water radiators. At this point we were nearly suicidal, but we called the landlord and explained the situation, and he was incredibly generous, inviting us over to his place to take hot showers and warm up. We stayed in a motel for a few days, and he had everything repaired, and everything returned to normal.
A few weeks later, we again hit the road, this time for a week’s work in Sheridan, WY. Over the last month or two, the van had developed a serious oil leak, which had not been attended to. While we were driving, during the middle of the night, the oil idiot light came on. Instead of stopping to add some oil (and we were carrying an extra case of oil), she thought she could make it to the next town about thirty miles away. Well, long before we reached anything, the engine died and would not start. We waited in the van until daybreak, when we noticed a rancher out on a snowmobile, pulling a sled loaded with hay for his cattle. The other guy in the band decided to get out and flag him down, and managed to wangle a ride on the hay sled back to the ranch house to make a call. He got a hold of a garage, and awhile later a tow truck arrived and hauled us into town, which wasn’t much more than a truckstop. After the mechanic spent some time investigating, it became pretty clear that we would not be leaving in the van, but we were still hours away from Sheridan, and were expected to be there playing music that evening. We unloaded all of our equipment, hauled it over to the side of the road, and sat there trying to decide what to do next. We weren’t there long at all, when two oilfield workers drove up in a pickup with a camper on the back, and asked us what we were doing. After we explained our situation, they said, “Hell, jump on in. We’ll take you.” So we loaded all of our equipment into their camper,which filled it up. And the three of us rode with them in the front on a single bench seat for several hundred miles (completely out of the way for them) to our job in Sheridan. We were extremely grateful to them, and they were tickled to get to hang out with a band for an evening. The rest of the trip was uneventful. We bought an old beater Buick station wagon and drove it back to Denver. Never saw that van again. A few weeks later I gave my notice to the band and found a new profession.
White Lines of the Road…
My name is Michael. I like to think that I am a pretty calm guy. Not much bothers me. After a recent road trip that my wife, Grace, and I took, I realized that maybe that wasn’t the case.
The important part of my story starts in the middle of our road trip, so where do I begin? Let me briefly explain the beginning of our trip, which will lead me to my story.
My wife and I are attached at the hip. We really love doing stuff together, so it made sense to hit the road and see the wonders of this great land with each other. We worked out a plan and decided to make a big loop to California from our home in Colorado.
We began our trip on Valentine?s Day and took a couple days to get through to Los Angeles. We then made our way through Las Vegas and toward Phoenix. This is where my story begins.
It was my turn to drive that day and we chose to take the back roads from Las Vegas so that we could see the Hoover Dam, and other less traveled roads. A couple of hours out of Flagstaff, I spotted a cop in the median. It turned out that he also spotted me, and my disregard of the set speed in that area. So after seeing the blues and reds of his car?s sirens, I chose a nice spot on the shoulder. As I waited, I thought about how I would answer his question of, ?Did I know how fast I was going?? But that question never came. Instead, he told me to get out of the car and follow him to his. Still calm, but curious why I was standing in front of a police vehicle, on the side of an Arizona highway, the officer started asking me questions as he jotted some notes on his clip board.
Questions like “Where are you headed?” and “What do you do for a living?” all seemed to be pretty common questions, so I answered the officer without any concerns. I started to relax more since his questions turned into more of a casual conversation about our road trip. But all that changed when I assumed that he was handing over his clipboard for me to sign the ticket. As I took a step toward him to sign the paper, I then realized that he didn’t have the same idea.
Now, at this moment, my mind flashes to those dash-board-camera views of when a criminal doesn’t respect the cop?s space, and the officer quickly and calmly “assists” the criminal to the ground with a taser.
After witnessing how quickly the cop took his attention from his clipboard to my face, I decided to step back to my original location in front of the police car. This is the moment I began to loose my calm demeanor and realized that this police officer wasn’t really interested in me, but what I was doing in his state. He picked back up with his questions about our road trip, and asked a question about where we planned on staying in Phoenix.
Let me take another moment to explain how my wife and I planned our road trip. We had decided to keep a relaxed trip, and by doing so, we didn’t make any hotel reservations or commitments to stop in any particular city. Now that I?ve told you this, and to the officer in my story, let’s return to our hero and his current situation.
Expecting more questions from the officer, I was surprised when he told me to stay by his patrol car. I watched as he walked to our car and knelt down by the passenger side where my wife still sat. As he began talking to her, I could hear myself think, “What the hell is going on?” Then, at that moment, similar to the classic suspense-film scenes where the room begins to shrink around the victim, the epiphany hit me… the officer is comparing my story with Grace?s! There is now no inkling of my calmness remaining. It has been replaced with confusion and perspiration stains.
What seemed like hours of an interrogation, the officer returned to his patrol car and began to explain some things to me, which didn’t help my already sweat-stained shirt. He shared with me that he is a part of the state?s drug-task force, and he patrols this area since it is a high drug-trafficking zone. He then enlightens me to the fact that, even though my wife and I have the same story, he was, and still is, a little suspicious of our random and strange road trip. The officer questioned me for the final time, “Are you caring any illegal drugs in your vehicle?” He then asked me if he were to bring in the K-9 unit would the dog find anything. To both questions I nervously responded, “No”.
Again, I had a flashback to some of that late-night TV, where a criminal in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs is escorted to a police vehicle on the way to prison. I realize that orange is not my favorite color and I definitely don’t want to be wearing that shade in the back of a cop car. But, the way things were going, I might be doing just that.
In a shocking turn of events, the officer finished scribbling on his clipboard and calmly told me to watch my speed. He then handed me the ticket but explained that it was just a warning, and let me, and my soaking-wet shirt return to my car.
Rejoining Grace and taking a moment to collect myself, we got back on the road and headed for Phoenix. On the way, we started to share all the details of our interrogations. Then, as Grace began to laugh, she told me that she thought this whole incidence was a riot and couldn?t go unrecorded. It turned out that she has slyly taken a picture of me standing awkwardly with the officer.
This is my most memorable road-trip moment and photo, courtesy of my wife.
In the early 80?s, my husband and I decided it would be a great bonding experience for our newly-blended family (2 of his teen kids, one of mine) to take a road trip across the country and ?see America.? We started our trip in California, driving a 1972 Dodge Maxivan outfitted for camping and carrying a spare tire and spare starter ?just in case.?
It was around the 4th of July. On our way we bought all kinds of fireworks including bottle rockets that had been illegal in California for years. We hid them ?for future use? behind the wood paneling inside the van.
We hit all the hot spots: Yellowstone (bumper to bumper traffic); Grand Tetons (mosquitoes in swarms and I didn?t catch a single fish); Devil?s Tower (hundreds of prairie dogs); and Mt. Rushmore (is there anyplace worse than Keystone?). Because all the campgrounds were full we pitched our tent near the bathroom at a rest stop off the interstate somewhere in Montana. The high point of the trip for the boys was the game room at a KOA campground. When our daughter got strep throat and spent the day in a hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan, I began to worry.
My husband replaced the starter somewhere in Iowa, the tire near Detroit. And the transmission went out in Albany, New York. But we soldiered on to Boston to walk the ?Freedom Trail.?
We found a great parking space on Boston Common. But when we came back a couple of hours later our van was gone. The Boston police told us that our van had probably been stolen.
We had lost everything. We scrounged local thrift stores for clothes and stayed in a cheap hotel, waiting to see if the police would recover our van. I began to smoke again. After a few days we flew home. The only souvenirs of our trip were the photos from the film in the cameras we had carried with us on our walk.
A week later we heard from Boston?s finest. They had found our van, stripped and burned, in Roxbury, MA. They sent a photo. The van was nearly unrecognizable.
Then we remembered the fireworks. What a scene it must have been when the thieves torched our van! 4th of July all over again. Maybe even WWII. To this day it?s somehow satisfying to think about how it must have scared the s**t out of them!
We?ve had several family vacations since then. But this is the one everyone remembers the best.
In July 1989, exactly 20 years ago, my husband and I embarked on an epic month-long cross country road trip, from our home in New Bedford, Mass., to Alameda, Calif–just across the Bay from San Francisco–to attend my parents’ 40th anniversary shindig.
Into our 1985 Dodge Caravan (white with that cool “wood” trim) went all our gear and, oh yeah, my stepdaughter, age 12, and her 14-year-old best friend. During the months prior to the trip the grownups meticulously planned a spectacular trip, while the kids plotted ways to keep us adequately tortured.
But even their nefarious deeds couldn’t top the car troubles that dogged us from Day One. Even though we’d had the van serviced and checked before takeoff, we crossed the New Jersey state line on I-80 in Paterson that first day, and promptly blew a tire. After several hours at Sears we had four new tires, a depleted trip budget, two cranky kids and our first diner meal behind us.
Ron and I spent the next few days ooohing and aahhing as we drove the Blueridge Parkway, crossed through Tennessee and into Mississippi to visit friends–imploring the kids to do like us and gawk at the scenery while they would lift their heads from the back bench seats where they reclined for the entire trip reading comic books. “Uh huh” was the most enthusiastic review they gave of anything they alledgedy saw along the way–and most of the time they were downright ornery. (Quelle surprise, right?)
In Hernando, Miss., my husband arranged to have them tour a jail cell–where he had actually been held during the Civil Rights days–to give them some perspective on life and how to treat your parents. It didn’t seem to help. We had a tense visit to an Oklahome City amusement park, a standoff at the lip of the Grand Canyon, and I have to admit I sided with the girls when Ron insisted we drive “authentically” all the way through the desert into California with the air conditioning off.
The kids got to Disneyland then, but the car started taking revenge at that point. It kept overheating and we couldn’t figure out why. Apparently neither could the mechanics. We had a number of parts “fixed” and serviced in Southern California, but as we made our way north things were iffy, with the needle hitting the red zone and us constantly pulling off Highway 5 to let things cool off, in every sense.
Seventy miles southeast of Alameda, and one day before the anniversary party, we had to have my dad drive out to rescue us after the Caravan gave out once again, in dry, dusty Patterson, Calif.
That’s Paterson, New Jersey to Patterson, Calif. The kids didn’t appreciate the irony.
Afterward we gingerly drove back East through Canada (more spectacular but unappreciated scenery!), but finally cut things short and raced home in a marathon sprint from Niagara Falls. We just couldn’t take it anymore–and we have never taken a cross-country trip since.
The night we arrived home we flipped on the TV and National Lampoon’s Family Vacation was on.
Lots of laughs, but they had nothing on us!
THE ROAD TRIP FROM HELL- at least in Hell there is plenty of company.
This is not a short story. It starts with two decisions, one good and one bad. The good one was to move from LA back to the NY. The bad one was to have my best friend drive my 69 Ford Cortina GT-1600 back while I road my motorcycle. Okay, then there was the part about going via Seattle.
Somewhere around Half Moon Bay (right outside San Francisco) Rick passed me holding the shift lever out the window. It had just come out of the transmission in his hand. Luckily it was in 3rd gear, which he managed to nurse into San Francisco. We stayed at his sisters for a day where we found a local muffler shop to braze it back together.
Next as we enjoyed the scenery traveling up Route 1 toward Mendecino, Rick pulled over in a post office parking lot. He said that it was making noise when he depressed the clutch. I realized after I heard the grinding metal that we had to drop the trans to see what the problem was. I noticed a sign that said, ?CAMPING 100 YARDS? pointing down the hill. So what did we have to lose? We rolled the car downhill into a campground where we proceed to jack the car up and drop the trans. So the throw-out bearing on this car is attached to the throw-out arm by two little metal loops. One of them broke off and the throw-put arm is pushing directly on the clutch plate, making the grinding noise. We celebrate with a beer while all the families in RVs walk their kids down to the beach. We sit on a picnic bench with grease up to our elbows while we contemplate out next move.
In the morning we drive up to Point Arena where we meet a crazy Swedish welder working in a boat yard who creates a new loop with welding rod. We drive back to the camp ground and are back to wrenching the thing back together. Next morning it is back on the road.
On Route 199 cutting inland through Oregon, the water pump starts leaking. One of the ears has cracked off. It is not leaking badly, so we call ahead to Portland where we can get a new one.
That got us to Seattle and a cracked exhaust manifold, which on the GT is really a header. A couple of bikers in a muffler shop weld the thing back together for 35 bucks and that gets us out of the US and into British Columbia. Past Banff the header starts leaking again. Some guy named Pierre in Medicine Hatm Alberta fixes it for free and by the time it starts leaking again in Manitoba we realize we are going to have to replace it. Five phone calls yields a junk yard that has the header for 100 bucks. We change it out and hit the road.
Oh, I forgot to mention a couple of things. First, The Cortina has a bad wiper motor. So we are running on Rain-Ex. Ever use the stuff? Amazing. Don?t forget that I am on my motorcycle this whole time and as it is now October it is starting to get cold. Rick has decided to join me in my suffering so he stops using the heat in the car and drives with the windows open, you know, so we can experience the cold together. Another motorcyclist that is going the opposite way tells me that it was ?5 last night in Kenora, Ontario and I a freaking out until I realize he is talking Celsius. Still, that is the last night we camp. From here on out it is sleazy hotels.
I start to notice that when we are going uphill the Cortina is smoking a little. By the time we reach Thunder Bay, it is smoking A LOT. I have Rick stop on a hill to see what is going on. The output shaft from the tranny is leaking fluid onto the exhaust pipe. Time to drop the transmission again.
In Schriber, Ontario we find a garage owned by a guy who lets us use his lift for free. Not only is the seal GONE but also the output shaft is worn to an oblong shape. Even a rear trans seal won?t fix this problem. After many beers and much talk we order the seal and the output yoke from the Ford dealer in Thunder Bay (Cortina is considered a real Ford in Canada) while we take the drive shaft to the mechanic?s friend?s machine shop in Wawa (yes Wawa) Ontario. He determines that the shaft is warped, finds a tube and welds us up a new driveshaft. Three days later we get the parts in at the dealer and after more wrenching and more beer, we are back on the road, for good.
That was the road trip from hell. I would do it again in a heartbeat if I know I could afford the time off. We saw a lot and met a lot of great people, but it was the car that made us stay where we stayed.
LA to NY in almost 4500 miles and SIX WEEKS. Think about it, you could circumnavigate England AND Scotland THREE TIMES. The car was just never meant to do a trip like that. It was more meant to bang around town.
Oh, it turned out that the transmission had a warped main shaft that was basically vibrating the car apart as we drove. I bought a 69 Karmen Ghia and Rick drove the Cortina for another year before it perished in a car fire in the South Bronx. No it wasn?t Jewish lightning and cousin S
About 10 years ago our firstborn was leaving the nest to go to collge. It was difficult for us to see her go. Being her Mom, I was having a very difficutl time accepting the entire situation. We had a Dodge Cavavan mini-van, which seemed to be perfect for transporting all her worldly goods to college. The trip takes about 5 hours, which seemed even longer due to my anxiety and the fact that we didn’t have even one inch of extra breathing room after loading everything she might need for four years into the car.
The trip to college was uneventful. After spending the previous night at a hotel, we got to the college, stood in lines for every conceivable reason, unloaded the car, went up and down flights of stairs carrying all our daughter’s posessions, and even made several trips to the store to get MORE items. Eventually we had a tearful good by and headed home.
About two hours into the trip home, we heard several beeps, similar to the kind when you leave the lights on or the keys in the ignition. I asked my husband, who was driving, what the beeps were for. He said no lights were on and the car seemed to be working fine, but we would get off at the next exit or rest stop so he could see if there was a problem (we were on the NY State Thruway at the time). Of course, we didn’t make it. The car stalled and my husband managed to get it to the side of the road.
We were a mile from the nearest rest stop, so my younger daughter and I sat on a knoll at the side of the road while my husband walked to the rest stop (this was before many people had cell phones). He got a tow truck to come, and we were towed to the nearest town. This town was so small there was one garage and one hotel. He took us to the hotel because “the garage is closed today since everyone in town is at the State Fair.”
The hotel didn’t have a room available at the moment, however the desk clerk told us one room was availble IF the person who had reserved the room didn’t show by 6. We thought we would find someplace to eat, but the only restaurant near was a Dunkin Donuts, which was in the process of being built and had not opened yet. There was a NAPA store that we found and my husband tried a few things to fix the car, but nothing seemed to work. We found a 7-Eleven and got some food and at 6 we got a room.
We started calling area garages. Everyone was closed, even though it was a Saturday, due to the fair, but eventually the wife of one of the garage owners said she would tell her husband of our plight when he returned from the fair.
Sunday morning the garage owner called and made arrangements to tow our car to his garage. Of course, there wasn’t any rental car place nearby. The closest was about a 30 minute drive away. There wasn’t any taxi available, but the desk clerk said she knew someone who could drive us to the airport where we could get a car. My daughter and I went to the airport to get the car, and my husband stayed for the tow truck.
After getting the car, we had to find our way back to the hotel and after a few wrong turns we found my husband waiting for us and we continued on home. On Monday the garage owner called us (he couldn’t look at it until Monday due to the fair) and told us the computer had died on the car. He couldn’t get a replacement for about a week.
After the week, we returned to this town, and for about $800 we got the mini van back on the road and home. On the way we stopped to return the rental car (another $100 or so added to the bill).
Ironically, a few years later, on a trip to pick up this same daughter for a college break the car broke down again, once again on the NY Thruway. By this time we had a cell phone. I was alone on this trip, but got a tow truck ordered and while waiting I called my husband to tell him what was happening. He asked me if I had gas in the car. Quite annoyed that he would think that I ran out of gas I yelled “Of course I have gas in the car!”
He told me to siphon off a gallon or so, splash it on the car and light a match!
That was our last trip with this car. The heads had cracked, which we had replacead with some used ones to get it home.
The only upside to the trip from hell was that it helped me to keep my mind off my daughter who had left the nest. My tears were now for being stranded in a small town without a hotel, restaurant or garage. Moral of the story is, never try to find service while the State Fair is going on!
On a summer road trip with my parents in their Oldsmobile. It was a hot, sunny summer day. I was riding in the back of our air-conditioned car. We had a cooler full of pop and other things in the back. I drank at least 4 cans of grape soda and ate some french fries we picked up at a fast food restaurant. My dad stopped at a post office to ask for directions. I got out of the car and the summer heat hit me and I felt woozy. I staggered around in the heat and, unable to control myself, threw up on the back of some guy’s hatchback, all down the rear window and bumper. Grape pop and french fries–it looked like a pterodactyl from hell took a dump on this guy’s car. My dad came out of the post office and when we tried to resume our journey, the car wouldn’t turn over. My dad got a jump start from one of the postal employees—you guessed it–the owner of the puked-on hatchback. He saw the fresh deposit on the back of his car and looked kind of murderous as my dad was attaching the cables. Fortunately there was some doubt as to what had happened. We speedily went on our way.
My Moving Adventure
I was about to graduate from college and needed to move from Fort Collins, Colorado to New Haven Connecticut. My friend Pam also lived in Fort Collins and needed to move to New York, NY with a horse trailer. She had a car and the trailer. I could pay half of expenses. The horse trailer could fit all of our stuff. It was real simple. The week after finals, we were going to load up the trailer and get out of town. We’d be there in a couple days with both of us driving. We had a small snafu in the beginning – Pam’s boss needed to borrow her horse trailer that weekend. But we could use hers. No problem.
On Wednesday the week after finals, we were going to pack up the trailer in the morning and leave that night. We’d spend the night in Lincoln, Nebraska at my parents’ and go on in the morning. Pam went to hitch up the trailer on Tuesday to bring it to Fort Collins and found out she didn’t have the right hook up for the trailer brakes for the trailer and we needed to get an adapter. No problem. But a six-prong to a five-prong adapter isn’t made standard so it had to be made special order. A one day delay. Not too big of a deal - Pam needed to finish packing anyway. And the trailer could be moved a few miles to Fort Collins while empty without trailer brakes, we just couldn’t travel across country with it fully loaded without trailer brakes.
Pam put most of her stuff in the trailer and brings it by my house on Wednesday night. My roommate Ted and I loaded up the trailer that night. So we hitch up the trailer to Pam’s truck in the morning. Uh… uh-oh. Problem. The hitch sinks from about 1.5’ off the ground to about 5". And the truck can pull it… very… slowly…
Oh yeah and it has a flat tire. This is starting to get fun. At this point, it’s obvious that we aren’t leaving that night as planned. The problem was, I had moved out of my old house and Pam had left her keys on the kitchen counter for her roommate, locking the door when she left. But we quickly learned that we could pop the screen on the kitchen window of Pam’s place out really easily and Pam boosted me up a little bit so it was easy for me to climb in the window and unlock the door.
So we spend the night making phone calls to every car and truck rental within a two hour drive. We need either a small U-haul truck or a 1/2 ton or larger pick-up to pull the trailer. The problem is, Pam was 22 and I was 23. Most places won’t rent to someone under 26. The places that would rent to us didn’t have trucks. The places that had trucks wouldn’t rent to us. At that point my net worth was negative, and a U-haul from Fort Collins would be $1600 (plus gas.)
So… My father drove out on Friday morning from Nebraska. When he got there, we packed as much stuff as possible in his truck and hitched the trailer to his truck. We took the trailer to the tire store to fix the flat. Pam drove in her truck and my father and I in his to Lincoln. Or that was the plan. We left Fort Collins around 6 at night, after fixing the flat, and hit the road. We were driving along pretty good and in decent shape until we hit a back-up on I-80 a few miles outside of Big Springs, NE. It was about 10 PM then. After several hours of sitting at a dead stand still, we made it to the detour off the interstate and onto a two lane highway in the middle of nowhere. Other cars were turning around and heading the other way on the interstate to find a hotel. There was no way we were going to be able to back the truck out of there with the trailer. We were in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska - we couldn’t turn off on a side street to make a u-turn because there were only dirt roads - really bumpy dirt roads. And the only thing worse than being stuck a few miles outside of Big Springs, NE in the middle of the night with a trailer full of everything you own is being stuck a few miles outside of Big Springs, NE with all of your belongings dumped on the side of the road in a flipped over horse trailer stuck in the mud.
We finally heard an update on the radio. A semi hit a bridge just outside of Big Springs and took out an overpass. The whole interstate was closed. We were in rural Nebraska and there was no way out!! You can’t imagine the terror that gripped my heart. So we waited. And waited. And waited. We averaged about 3 miles/hour, if that. Finally we reached the thriving metropolis of Big Springs. 497 people and a grain elevator. And one traffic light. That’s it. There was a cop directing traffic at the stoplight on the two-lane highway. He’d let 2, 3 locals through heading the other way and then he’d let a car from the interstate through. Then he’d let a little old lady cross the street, then 2 more local cars, then a semi from the interstate.
We finally made it out of Big Springs and drove until about 5 AM. At that point we needed a rest, so we pulled into a rest stop and closed our eyes. But it wasn’t really rest. None of us slept. I laid out a sleeping bag on top of some boxes in the back of the cab and stretched out - it’s sometimes a blessing to be short. And at 7 we moved on again. At 9 we made it into Lincoln. We ate, bathed (I hadn’t bathed for 2 days at that point and I was RIPE,) and crashed. My parents took care of putting trailer brakes on my father’s truck (we were driving without trailer brakes - but the lights worked!)
On Sunday we headed out of town, my father, Pam, and I, with Dad’s truck pulling the trailer. We drove to Cincinnati and spent the night there at a hotel. In the morning we drove to the U-haul and rented a truck ($400.) We packed it in the parking lot. It was an adventure - we were the most exciting thing happening at the U-haul place, so all of the employees came out to talk to us. And the truckers driving by whistled (at Pam and I, not my Dad, I presume.) Then my father drove back to Lincoln and Pam and I drove on to NY.
We met up with Pam’s mother in NJ at a Dunkin’ Donuts. I meant to get gas before meeting them but I didn’t. Ooops. So the plan was that I would follow Pam’s mother through NY City – I don’t own a car and I don’t drive much, especially in cities. Getting used to city driving again in NY City is, well, not a good idea. So we’re driving along, I’m following Pam’s mother, and it becomes painfully obvious I might run out of gas. So I keep trying to signal to Pam’s mother that I need gas. But she doesn’t get it. I turn my blinkers on at every exit. Nope. I start honking my horn and turning my blinkers on. She doesn’t get it. So I just keep going… I don’t know how much more the truck can go. But I made it, barely. When we filled up the truck at the gas station the next morning, it took about 49 gallons and the tank could take 50.
On Tuesday we stayed in NY because it was Pam’s Dad’s birthday, and on Wednesday we drove to New Haven and dropped my stuff and me off. I had no silverware, I didn’t know where a grocery store was, and I didn’t have to tools to make (literally) my bed. But I was not stuck in rural Nebraska with no escape.
I’m actually moving again in about two weeks. There will be no horse trailers involved.
I knew a gentleman (James Warren - deceased) who loved antique cars but was not at all mechanically inclined. This was back in the days before the Interstate Highway System was completed, before portable telephones, before satellite navigation; and when driving coast to coast was considered the Great American Adventure. Jim’s lack of mechanical aptitude resulted in his taking undue risks behind the wheel with vehicles that were the same age as himself. For example, he drove a 1927 Isotta Fraschini from New York to Los Angeles without license plates and was stopped twice by the police. Both times the police were so fascinated by the unusual car they didn’t notice the absent license plates.
I think that Jim set a record for the slowest crossing of the USA by car when it took over three years to get a 1940 Cadillac from San Francisco to Fort Lauderdale. The trip began with Jim hiring an on board mechanic - Tony Cavana (also deceased) - for the trip. They arrived in California by plane and picked up the Cadillac which had been purchased sight unseen. They didn’t get very far before the car conked out and it took well over a week to climb the Sierra Mountain Range and get out of California. They would attempt climbing a long long hill and the car would quit so they would turn around and coast downhill to the nearest gas station. Back in those days every gas station had a full time mechanic. Fuel pump, exhaust system, radiator, fan belt, spark plugs, points, condensor, gas tank, generator, and a battery were all repaired or replaced before they got over the mountains and crossed into Nevada. For Jim the fact that everybody thought he was nuts was not an issue. They were also replacing tires one at a time with truck retreads.
Things went pretty well after that and at least three days were spent at the then giant Harrah’s automobile collection in Reno. From there they cruised across the great plateau although the Cadillac seemed to be losing power by the mile. “When we picked up the car the muffler was on backwards and had blown holes in it. It was so nice to have a new exhaust system on that car” Jim told me. However, a wheel bearing burned out in Utah 80 miles from the nearest telephone and Tony left on foot in search of a tow truck. He returned a day later to find Jim dying of thirst in the desert heat oblivious to the fact that he was propped against a five gallon gerry can full of water.
The Cadillac was towed into Green River Utah whereupon the crusty local mechanic ordered the wheel bearing by number without disassembling the car. Jim was really taken with this showmanship even though the bearing is still available from NAPA to this day. I believe the number is 3088. Days later the bearing arrived and they continued driving east across the desert. As the Rocky Mountains loomed larger and larger on the horizon Jim turned to Tony and said “We’re never going to make it over those Rockies”. So they turned around and left the car with the crusty mechanic who for the next two years kept telling Jim that he found something else wrong with motor and was doing a little more than initially expected.
The car did eventually get to Florida under its own power and Jim used it on a regular basis amusing all interested parties with stories about how his 1940 Cadillac was rebuilt while crossing the country.