Down the Nile by car. Our story begins in Cairo in December of 1982 with our decision to drive to Luxor, some 420 miles down the Nile. Renting a car and driving through Egypt was decided by a process of elimination. A reconnaissance to Cairo?s central train station, where we witnessed how many Egyptians can fit into a train car without overflow on to the roof, eliminated the train. Surviving several taxi rides around Cairo, we decided not to push our luck with a 1000-mile cab ride to Thebes and back. Hence, my wife and I decided to leave the driving to us by renting a car to travel round-trip from Cairo to Luxor. We noted in our Frommer?s that the big hotels along the Nile had rental agencies in their lobbies. Sure enough as we walked into the lobby there was Hertz, Avis, and Bita. Bita? Bita was the locally owned Egyptian company that had cars for about half of Hertz and Avis. We eschewed Hertz and ?We try harder? for cheaper Bita; we felt good to support the local economy. After signing a waiver declining sand storm damage, we told the agent we would pick up the car at 6:00 AM the next day and got the directions to the storage garage. The plan was to get out of Cairo before the streets became clogged with nomads, donkey carts, camels, buses, tourists, and even cars.
Next morning we were up before sunrise. Without too much trouble, we found the garage, an open hole in the solid row of brick buildings. The problem was there was no person in sight. Nobody answered our shouts for assistance and we were on the clock. We had to get out of Dodge while the streets were empty. Walking around I located a key cabinet and voil? found a key that had a license number and a paper with my name on it. I thought for about 2 seconds and figured must be the Egyptian version of the self-serve aisle. We loaded our two backpacks in the trunk and we were off. I can?t remember exactly the make, but somehow the names Opel Kadett and Fiat stick in my mind.
We had wheels and now to find the road to Luxor. Depending on intuitive navigation, a set of random turns miraculously got us going south toward our destination. Our elation was short-lived because about 30 minutes later we were driving through a village on a narrow dirt road getting all sorts of looks. I didn?t ask for directions, especially since I didn?t know a word of Arabic. Looking at the map didn?t help, but when we saw the step-shaped pyramid we knew we were somewhere near Sacarra. Turning around and retracing our route got us back to the main road to Luxor. It was still not even 8:00 AM and we had all day to go 400 miles- how hard could that be? We soon discovered that the road to Luxor was no I-95. We discovered why the Nile was the cradle of civilization going through numerous villages, military checkpoints, and roadblocks. People with an assortment of animals were always present along the side of the road. Our thought of getting to Luxor by mid-afternoon faded by about 2 PM when we still had a 150 miles to go. And speaking of going, forget about public restrooms. Stopping for quick relief along the side of the road was impossible because Egyptians suddenly appeared out of thin air to sell us something. Fortunately, we did find a petrol stop with a pseudo potty about midway in our trip.
As the sun started to set we were within 50 mile of Luxor. Pulling out the headlight knob did not illuminate our path. We discovered the lights didn?t work on smooth road, but would flash momentarily when we hit a bump. Many of the inhabitants sharing the road with us were women dressed in total black burkas, so my wife became the spotter and I hugged the middle of the road as best I could. The only good news was the road had plenty of pot holes and bumps so we were able to get a flash about every 5 seconds, sometimes 3 sometimes 8. In this way we made it into Luxor, I believe without hitting anything.
In Luxor one of our first stops was the city tourist center and the Egyptian woman working there thought we were crazy driving our route from Cairo. I always learned that the shortest distance between two points was a straight line, but evidently not. The best and fastest route, that takes about 8 hours, instead of our 13, was to drive east to the coast of the Red Sea, shoot along it and then cut back over. It was 100 more miles than our route, but the lack of civilization and obstacles meant you could drive continuously at a steady 50-60 mph, not to mention stop almost anywhere to attend to bodily functions. We would be ready in a couple of days to head back long the Red Sea; knowing our lights were bad an early departure would get us back well before sunset.
We started back and all was well for the first couple of hours. Then I noted it was becoming increasingly difficult to stop the car. I crawled under to see it I could see fluid dripping out of a broken brake line, but it looked ok. Fortunately the desert was flat and we had some brake action, but I was hesitant to drive above about 30 or 40 mph. We did this for a while and as the braking action faded even more I gave the underside another look. During this stop a truck pulled up along side and an Egyptian truck driver, who spoke no English, signaled though sign language that there were some hills ahead and he would lead us and that if the brakes failed he could use the back of his truck to stop us. I presume my running into it. We went with this plan until the brakes failed completely, luckily on flat ground. By this time it was dark and we had no headlights. We left the car at a remote guard station in the Sahara and had the attending soldier write the name of the location on a slip of paper. We threw our backpacks into the box truck and hopped into the cab. The trucker would drop us off in Suez City about 75 miles up the road. As we sat there unable to understand each other, he waved a cassette tape and gleefully said Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson. He also offered us some canned peaches and we shared some pound cake. We were trucking toward Suez eating peaches and pound cake and listening to Michael Jackson. We got to Suez about 1 AM and the only hotel open was a three star upper class place along the beach. The truck driver pulled up to the front door where the doorman decked out in bright red coat and tie opened the passenger door and we jumped out. I was covered in dust from crawling under the car and when the trucker took our packs out of the box we discovered it was a fish truck. In any event we made our way to the lobby checked in and went to sleep thinking we would call Bita later that morning after getting some sleep. We couldn?t call from the hotel but had to go to a central telephone building, give an attendant Bita?s number and wait. During the wait we discovered that the process was to get the signal from the attendant and then scramble into a booth where you had 3 minutes to talk. After about an hour we got our signal. The person didn?t speak English, but quickly got an English speaker. We told the Bita person we were in Suez, his car was somewhere about 75 miles away in the desert. He said to stay put, they would bring us another car. We told him we weren?t gong anywhere and to make sure the brakes and lights work.
We got a second car that afternoon, but by the time we got to the outskirts of Cairo we knew we had no chance of getting back alive through traffic to the rental garage so we parked it somewhere near the airport. We took a cab back to the city center, got up early the next morning, got a cab and found the car by 6:30 and drove it back to the garage. Of course, we negotiated the five-day rental down to three days because of the inconvenience and put the charge on our American Express card. We never knew the outcome, but our card was never charged the $75.00 three-day rental. At least we didn?t encounter any sand storms
Dear Brothers Tappet,
While obtaining my doctorate in biochemistry at Northwestern University in Evanston, Il, it was our practice to LEAVE the Chicago area every August, due to the âbalmyâ weather around Lake Michigan. In August of 1972 three of us left Evanston for California, my home before and after Northwestern. We drove my friendâs nearly new 1971 Pontiac LeMans. While passing through Fargo, North Dakota on the main interstate (I was napping in the back seat) I noted it was sunset, but what I thought was a âcoupleâ of miles later the back end of the car violently shifted back and forth with a loud noise clearly coming from the driver-side rear wheel well. It was now totally dark outside. Pete stopped the car and I quickly jumped out to see what in the world was wrong with the back-end of the vehicle. When I went to the back of the car an looked down to the gravel weâd parked on my immediate thought was âMy, how thoughtful of Pete to have turned on a light under his car so I could see what had occurred!â Then the light came on for me that âHey, cars donât have lights UNDER them!â In place of grapping my two friends and running as fast as we could into the surrounding swamp, yes, swamp in North Dakota I got down on my knees to see what was happening. Somehow the axel had separated from the universal, broken the bearing seals, and shot the wheel, tire, etc. directly out and into the wheel wellâŠthe friction of all those disconnected parts generated sufficient heat to ignite the transmission fluid that was now dripping in flaming drop into a flaming, and growing, pool of burning liquid directly below the gas tank! Again, I did not do the obvious and runâŠNO, I wanted to put it out and quickly opened the ice-chest that was in the truck, but since, being very good biochemists, weâe filled the ice-chest with dry-ice and not regular ice there was no liquid water to throw on the increasing blaze (not that water would have been the effective on an oil fire in any case). BINGO, I grapped a can of rootbeer shook it as vigorously as possible, popped the tab, put my finger over the opening, and used it to spray on the fireâŠAMAZINGLY, I totally put out the fire! In 1972 the interstate in North Dakota did NOT have a lot of traffic and I thought, since I was napping, that we were only a couple of miles outside of Fargo so I told my friends that I âjogâ back to the city and get help (no cell phones then). I failed to appreciate three minor factors as I merrily jogged off: 1) the highway was severely âcrownedâ to let water easily run off, 2) we were about to have a massive midwestern lightening/thunder storm occur, and 3) Iâd been sleeping more that a couple of minutes and we were actually about 20 miles outside of Fargo! Thus, I spent most of the night running at an angle on the roadway, thereby forcing my ankles to be in stained positions (I couldnât walk for several days afterwards, thus experiencing Yellowstone from a sitting/imobile position). I had to run as fast as I could from underpass to underpass so the lightening would not hit me (did I mention that the exits did NOT have any buildings of any kind). I once tried to cut over to a distant farm house, but when I left the highway I ran, quite literally, into the swampâŠfoiled! Therefore, as the sun was coming up I was nearing Fargo, but it turned out that there was a tiny town, Monticello, just before Fargo. As the sun just lit the sky I jogged into Monticello, (dirt roads, old-time central square with statue of some guy on a horse, gas station, and cafe) and nothing was openâŠtoo early, even for a farm town. There was a pay telephone booth at the edge of the central square, but, to my horror, I had NO change! I had several hundred dollars in bills, but NO change! I flashed on my memory of old grade âBâ movies in which the hero rapidly jiggled the hand-set lever to reach the operator without putting coins into the slotâŠBY GOD, it actually worked! The operator was midwestern/North Dakotan friendly and helpful. She arranged for a tow-truck to be dispatched from Fargo to Monticello to get meâŠin about two hours. By then the cafe had opened and the local police chief had driven up to have breakfast. I told him my story and he was very helpful and would have taken me back to the car but since the tow-truck was now coming simply invited me in to have breakfast âwith the boys!â Now I should mention that in graduate school my hair was down to my shoulders so this officer was acceptingly liberal (unlike the folks in the pan-handle of Texan the following year when my hair was a tad longer). All I could eat for $1.95! During the meal a rat the size of a large cat zipped into the cafe, along the brass rail foot rest, and under the âboysâ feet, who all sat at the bar (the cafe was converted from an old saloon). The Chief grapped a broom, pulled his side-arm, and ran after the âcritterâ into the kitchenâŠthank God I only heard the broom breaking things and the a report from teh handgun! The Chief reentered the main room with a smile and the dead prisoner by the tail⊠After all of this we finally got the car towed to Fargo, Pete wired his uncle for more money to fix the car at the Pontiac dealer and we leaft on our road trip two days later. Ohhhhhhhhh, Iâm not finished yet! Now comes the Road-Trip-From Hell" part that you two will really appreciate⊠Between Fargo and the north end of California we had the rear breaks go out five times! The rear end was totally rebuilt by the Pontiac dealer in Fargo, so what was going on??? When we arrived in Monterey we coasted into the Pontiac dealer (again no breaks) and told him our tale and the head mechanic immediately knew exactly what the answer to our problem! Apparently, there is an small inch-long spring that holds something together near the rear break shoes and if the hooked attachment ends are mounted âupâ and not âdownâ the springsâ hooks gradually ratchet the entire system tighter and tighter until they once again burn-out⊠Iâve leaving out a few additional crazy moments between Fargo and Monterey, but Iâm sure you now see the HELL part of this particular tripâŠ
Jim Ritchey
ritchey@csus.edu
Hi GuysâŠ
This is the second time typing thisâŠAAAARRRRGGGHHHH
I had finished typing it, and thought that you might want a tag added⊠as soon as I hit the âRoadtripâ and then the Add Tag⊠my post was gone⊠never to returnâŠ
Hearing your recent admonition to âRun, Run, Runâ for a car fire⊠reminded me of the followingâŠ
I had spent three of four days at a cabin I have on a lake in the Ocala National Forest. I had taken my well cared for 87 Fiero GT with me and parked it in a Pole Barn, which is a large wooden barn with a metal roof and four open sides. Itâs big enough to hold a very large RV (bus kinda thing). On one side of the pole barn is an old wooden Guest Cottage, and on the other side of the pole barn is an old cypress wood 3 car garage. I was planning to leave early the next morning, but the night before, a huge wind storm came through and blew debris all over the area. Early the next morning I went out to start the car and warm it up (yes it does get cold in the winter in Florida⊠but of course by mid day itâs in the '70s!!)
The car started OK but was really running rough. I went to the rear and opened the back deck. As you know itâs a rear/mid engined transverse V6⊠and I had a 95 Camero V6 put in so it runs a little hotter. When I opened the rear deck, there were flames coming up from the back of the engine by the firewall to the passenger compartment⊠Interesting word isnât it⊠firewall. The flames were all across the back and coming up over the engine. It dawned on me that the wind had blown all sorts of super dried pine and cedar needles and spanish moss and tree trigs, down the slot where the deck meets the rear glass. Thereâs about 1/2 inch or more space all across the back. There really was some serious fire coming up the back and I was afraid that it would melt a fuel hose or a there might be a gas tank vent somewhere under there⊠I did quickly shut the engine off!!
Keep in mind:
- The nearest Fire Dept is 45 minutes away (if they wanted to get there)
- Since I was leaving, the water pumps and valves on that side of the property away from the main house⊠were all turned offâŠ
- I really didnât want to loose my carâŠ
- I didnât want to loose the three buildingsâŠ
5⊠I didnât wnat to set fire to the National Forest!!
The only hing I could think of was to get into the garage and get my trusty shop-vac and rig up an extension cord. I got it set up and shoved the nozzle down the back of the engine where the flames were. While Iâm doing this, the thought crossed my mind that the shop-vac could explode!!! then I realized âno⊠that happens when you try to vacuum something out of the gas filler pipe!â Please donât ask me how I know thatâŠ
I was able to get the fire out and âcontainedâ⊠I was shoving the hose down from the top of the engine, then slid under as far as I could reach and shoved it up from belowâŠ
When it appeared to be all out⊠I went back in the main house and made sure I had plenty of heart medication on hand!!!.. sat where I could watch the car⊠and tried to get my breathing under control⊠I went out twice more that morning checking to make sure it was really out.
After all that ⊠the trip home was uneventful, but I did keep my eye on the rear view mirror looking for smoke!!
Thanks
John Lawler
Bradenton Florida
Although this was not exactly a road trip from hell, it did contain a unique and troubling auto-incident where quick thinking and beverage luck saved the entire trip and our car.
In the summer of 1977, my wife Connie and I took two great friends with us from St. Louis where we were living to visit Connieâs family in Michigan. We had went on and on about how beautiful and wonderful Michigan was and our friends were anxious to go with us and see for themselves. It wasnât long before they wished they had remained safe in Missouri.
We were traveling in our 1965 Chevy Impala two-door hardtop. It had a 283 V-8 and although suffering some rusting issues it was a pretty reliable car.
About 150 miles into the trip traveling on I-55 north through Illinois (I was driving) my wife, Connie, who was behind me in the back seat, said âI smell something burning!â I said, âI donât smell anything.â Then Donna and Gary, our friends both said they smelled something too. Then I noticed and smelled smoke coming up between my legs. âThe carpet is on fire!â, I yelled as I quickly braked and pulled over to the side of the highway.
After a few seconds of flames, panic and confusion my wife said âWhereâs the thermos of iced tea!!?â As I too jumped out and saw the flames growing, I also noticed the thermos of tea on the seat between Gary and I. I grabbed the thermos, took the cap off and poured the tea all over the flames and carpet on the driver side.
Immediately there was a hissing sound as the tea met the fire and luckily there was enough tea, probably about a gallon, to put the fire out. Flames turned into smoke and then it smoldered until the last of the tea completed the job.
We were all stunned. The next mission was to figure out what had happened. You guys probably already have it figured out. As I tore out the charred carpet I discovered a floor board so rusty that a hole had developed and grew and the exhaust pipe had set the carpet on fire.
We were all very relieved that the car survived. My mind had already envisioned the car going up in flames. We were young newlyweds with little resources and I was wondering what we would do, stuck in Illinois with little money and no car.
We were very grateful that we hadnât drank any of the tea yet, because without that iced tea the car would have completely gone up in flames.
I drove the rest of the way to Traverse City feeling like Fred Flintstone, being able to look down at highway pavement with about a 10 inch diameter hole in the floor, (we tore most of the carpet out in our hasty investigation). I made sure my feet gave the hole plenty of room as i was not going to stop like Fred did.
Iâm sure our friends were beginning to wonder what they had gotten themselves into. When we arrived at Connieâs dad, Dick Hallâs place on the Old Mission Peninsula he chuckled at our adventure and found a piece of steel that nicely fit over the hole. I was happy to not have to look down at pavement and my feet felt better about not slipping through and braking Flintstone style.
Our friends loved the beauty of Michigan and we chuckled about our âTea Partyâ the rest of the way.
The car was fine for the remainder of the trip but for a long time Connie gave me a hard time about my slow response with smoke billowing up between my legs and me completely oblivious to it.
It is certainly true that trips with harrowing experiences are the ones you remember best.
Take care,
Erv Heidbrink
Jim Holton and I were the only ones who could take a hiking trip into the Cascade Mountains in the fall of 1960. We decided we would drive to the end of a good logging road northwest of Wenatchee, Washington and hike northwest into an area where we would be directly east across a single valley from Glacier Peak. We planned a four or five day hike.
We loaded our gear into my 1956 Oldsmobile. On our way into the forests beyond Wenatchee I recall passing a couple of two story houses with escape hatches on their roofs. This is a region that sometimes gets very heavy snow falls. The logging road we were on kept deteriorating the further we drove on it. A recent rain made the roads dirt surface kind of greasy. We had about a mile of road left according to the map and wanted to get to its end before we started hiking. It was getting late in the day. I drove across a homemade wooden bridge but could not get up the greasy incline on the other side. As I was backing back across the bridge I felt the heavy Oldsmobile suddenly fall about six inches.
Jim and I got out of the Oldsmobile fearing the worst. We were on a bridge about 30 feet long about 5 feet above a shallow gurgling stream. The bridge was built as you might expect Boy Scouts to build if they had access to a couple of three foot in diameter trees long enough to span the creek and equipment big enough to lay them in place. Smaller logs a few inches in diameter and 8' to 10' long lay atop the two long trees to form the surface we had driven across. These may have been nailed or fastened down in some way in the past, but they were loose now and the ones that had been under the rear wheels of the Oldsmobile were no longer there. The rear wheels were hanging down through the bridge and the rear frame of the car was resting directly on the bridge surface cross logs remaining. We thought, what a great way to start a trip! We envisioned hiking twenty miles back to Wenatchee and hiring a tow truck to come rescue the Oldsmobile. The amount of time and dollars involved would probably mean this was the end result of our trip.
After looking at the mess we were in for awhile we decided we would try to save ourselves. We were able to find a long stiff tree and use it as a lever arm to pry the Oldsmobile up into the air enough to place a cross-log under its wheels. Once we got the car off its frame and onto its wheels again, we laid a long small diameter tree on either side of the car on top of the cross logs on the bridge. We used almost all of the rope we had with us to tie these together so that they would not roll out from under the rear and front wheels of the car when we tried to move backwards again. I seem to recall we got stuck about 4 or 5 in the afternoon and got successfully off of the bridge a few hours later. Needless to say we were much the wiser.Dear Brothers Tappet,
While obtaining my doctorate in biochemistry at Northwestern University in Evanston, Il, it was our practice to LEAVE the Chicago area every August, due to the âbalmyâ weather around Lake Michigan. In August of 1972 three of us left Evanston for California, my home before and after Northwestern. We drove my friendâs nearly new 1971 Pontiac LeMans. While passing through Fargo, North Dakota on the main interstate (I was napping in the back seat) I noted it was sunset, but what I thought was a âcoupleâ of miles later the back end of the car violently shifted back and forth with a loud noise clearly coming from the driver-side rear wheel well. It was now totally dark outside. Pete stopped the car and I quickly jumped out to see what in the world was wrong with the back-end of the vehicle. When I went to the back of the car an looked down to the gravel weâd parked on my immediate thought was âMy, how thoughtful of Pete to have turned on a light under his car so I could see what had occurred!â Then the light came on for me that âHey, cars donât have lights UNDER them!â In place of grapping my two friends and running as fast as we could into the surrounding swamp, yes, swamp in North Dakota I got down on my knees to see what was happening. Somehow the axel had separated from the universal, broken the bearing seals, and shot the wheel, tire, etc. directly out and into the wheel wellâŠthe friction of all those disconnected parts generated sufficient heat to ignite the transmission fluid that was now dripping in flaming drop into a flaming, and growing, pool of burning liquid directly below the gas tank! Again, I did not do the obvious and runâŠNO, I wanted to put it out and quickly opened the ice-chest that was in the truck, but since, being very good biochemists, weâd filled the ice-chest with dry-ice and not regular ice there was no liquid water to throw on the increasing blaze (not that water would have been the effective on an oil fire in any case). BINGO, I grabbed a can of root beer shook it as vigorously as possible, popped the tab, put my finger over the opening, and used it to spray on the fireâŠAMAZINGLY, I totally put out the fire! In 1972 the interstate in North Dakota did NOT have a lot of traffic and I thought, since I was napping, that we were only a couple of miles outside of Fargo so I told my friends that I âjogâ back to the city and get help (no cell phones then). I failed to appreciate three minor factors as I merrily jogged off: 1) the highway was severely âcrownedâ to let water easily run off, 2) we were about to have a massive Midwestern lightening/thunder storm occur, and 3) Iâd been sleeping more that a couple of minutes and we were actually about 20 miles outside of Fargo! Thus, I spent most of the night running at an angle on the roadway, thereby forcing my ankles to be in stained positions (I couldnât walk for several days afterwards, thus experiencing Yellowstone from a sitting/immobile position). I had to run as fast as I could from underpass to underpass so the lightening would not hit me (did I mention that the exits did NOT have any buildings of any kind). I once tried to cut over to a distant farm house, but when I left the highway I ran, quite literally, into the swampâŠfoiled! Therefore, as the sun was coming up I was nearing Fargo, but it turned out that there was a tiny town, Monticello, just before Fargo. As the sun just lit the sky I jogged into Monticello, (dirt roads, old-time central square with statue of some guy on a horse, gas station, and cafe) and nothing was openâŠtoo early, even for a farm town. There was a pay telephone booth at the edge of the central square, but, to my horror, I had NO change! I had several hundred dollars in bills, but NO change! I flashed on my memory of old grade âBâ movies in which the hero rapidly jiggled the hand-set lever to reach the operator without putting coins into the slotâŠBY GOD, it actually worked! The operator was Midwestern/North Dakotan friendly and helpful. She arranged for a tow-truck to be dispatched from Fargo to Monticello to get meâŠin about two hours. By then the cafe had opened and the local police chief had driven up to have breakfast. I told him my story and he was very helpful and would have taken me back to the car but since the tow-truck was now coming simply invited me in to have breakfast âwith the boys!â Now I should mention that in graduate school my hair was down to my shoulders so this officer was acceptingly liberal (unlike the folks in the pan-handle of Texan the following year when my hair was a tad longer). All I could eat for $1.95! During the meal a rat the size of a large cat zipped into the cafe, along the brass rail foot rest, and under the âboysâ feet, who all sat at the bar (the cafe was converted from an old saloon). The Chief grabbed a broom, pulled his side-arm, and ran after the âcritterâ into the kitchenâŠthank God I only heard the broom breaking things and not a report from the handgun! The Chief reentered the main room with a smile and the dead prisoner by the tail⊠After all of this we finally got the car towed to Fargo, Pete wired his uncle for more money to fix the car at the Pontiac dealer and we left on our road trip two days later. Ohhhhhhhhh, Iâm not finished yet! Now comes the Road-Trip-From Hell" part that you two will really appreciate⊠Between Fargo and the north end of California we had the rear breaks go out five times! The rear end was totally rebuilt by the Pontiac dealer in Fargo, so what was going on??? When we arrived in Monterey we coasted into the Pontiac dealer (again no breaks) and told him our tale and the head mechanic immediately knew exactly what the answer to our problem! Apparently, there is an small inch-long spring that holds something together near the rear break shoes and if the hooked attachment ends are mounted âupâ and not âdownâ the springsâ hooks gradually ratchet the entire system tighter and tighter until they once again burn-out⊠Iâve leaving out a few additional crazy moments between Fargo and Monterey, but Iâm sure you now see the HELL part of this particular tripâŠ
Jim Ritchey
ritchey@csus.edu
Ciao, fratelli,many years ago I was a pastry chef at a bakery and on my way home from work tooteling down Route 66 at about 35 miles an hour in my little Mazda pickup truck, I was distracted by an odd group of people coming out of a building on the other side of the street and the next thing I knew some enraged guy was trying to open my now scrunched up driverâs side door. I said âwhatâs going on ?â apparently I was knocked out . he shrieked " you hit my truck!". He had in turn rear ended the truck in front of him.I had the only totaled vehicle.Soon a policeman whose badge said officer Fudge arrived and the strange assortment of people with some mental disabilities in tow of a young man with really red eyes, who told the cop âoh man, I canât believe she (thatâs me) is alive it was awesome she must have been going 50, her head went through the windsheild, it was awesome ! I told the officer-â that guy is obviously stoned and I was going about 30" The second rearended guy noticed the dried chocolate on my arms that I had missed washing up and asked me if I was bleeding and I said âno itâs chocolateâ he fell down laughing at this point, while the first fellow screamed at me how I had ruined his weekend. The policewoman handed me a broom to sweep up and took off. I have other absurd disaster stories, so now Iâm a good driver especially because I drive a Nash Metropolitan. I love your show , tanti auguri ! annie
Hi, Tom and Ray-- I think I have a rather unique road trip from hell story that I hope people enjoy⊠Several years ago I owned a Honda Civic. I was teaching 3rd grade in an inner city school. It was almost the end of the year. I had gone out of town for the weekend and decided to visit the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster, Colorado. While there, I saw a huge colony of Giant Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches. I had wanted some of them for years and the employees were very nice and gave me three. That should have been my clue to run⊠but no, I thought they would be a great addition to my classroom. I placed the container on the passenger side floor and started driving down the highway. You guessed it, the container spilled and the 3 beasts were loose!! Of course they headed straight for the dashboard and started climbing in. I was frantically trying to grab them while continuing to drive. I wasnât sure what I would do if I was stopped by the cops! âYes, officer, I know I was driving erractically, but Iâm trying to prevent an invasion of giant cockroaches. No, I havenât been drinking or smoking anything!â I eventually had to pull over and, luckily, was able to grab the creatures before they were lost in my car forever. I had to go into a store so, being the gentle soul I am (Stepping on them and putting us both out of our misery never crossed my mind!), I put the container in the trunk so that they didnât fry in the sun. By the time I had gotten home, they had escaped again!! This time, I was concerned that I would never get them back and they would become another invasive species and I would become a despised member of my community. Luckily, their size proved to be their downfall and I was able to recapture them in the corners of the spare tire well in the trunk. I have to say that the whole adventure was worth it when I had my students absolutely silent the last 5 minutes of the school year so that they could hear the creatures hissâŠ
P.S. I kept the darlings several more months until they started to reproduce and the babies were escaping into my kitchen! Baby cockroaches are not as easy to catch as their parentsâŠ
Beth Arrowsmith
Colorado Springs, Colorado
road trip from hell attached
Frankly I have had a lot of road trips in the last 61 years. I canât say any of them were bad. A few interesting and challenging things have happened, but over all none of them were bad. Most were great and have given me many good memories.
Dear Click and Clack,
It was 2001 and I was 23 years old when I bought the perfect car for cross-country road trips. It was a 1992 Toyota Corrolla station wagon with 150,000 miles of wear and tear on it, but it got great mileage and Toyotas are known to run for 300,000 miles, right? But the best feature of the car was that I could pull over anywhere and sleep comfortably in the back. As I said, the ultimate road trip car. DC to Colorado and onto Washington State was my usual summer break circuit. The car made it across the country the first time with no problems and I continued to drive it to work, to classes and on the occasional weekend road trip.
The next summer I made a quick trip to Richmond, VA before my big cross-country road trip. The water pump went out on me on my way home, but I got it replaced and was ready for the big trip of the summer. That year I drove to Atlanta first to meet my friend and then left for the next leg of the journey to Colorado. Our aim was to be in Grand Junction by the 4th of July.
We stopped in Tennessee for the night, bought some fireworks and the next day made it into Kansas. In case you havenât been to Kansas before, itâs 417 miles across of hot, dusty, flat fields. Occasionally you could see a hill with some cattle on it, and even more occasionally a town with some people in it. We were officially in the middle of nowhere late the next day when my car started to overheat. We pulled over, let it cool down for 20 minutes, put some coolant in and started on our way again, repeating that ritual until we made it to a rest stop. A female trucker told us that the next town, Russell, had a mechanic. She called ahead and told the shop we were coming so theyâd stay open for us. We finally made it to the shop and dropped the car off with some guys that were covered in tattoos that looked like they were straight out of Leavenworth.
The next morning when we picked up the car they told us that the fan wasn?t working and they said they rigged it up to work with extra wires somehow. The old timer that owned the shop drove me to the ATM to get some cash (no credit cards accepted). I paid an arm and a leg for the work (like $70!), and we drove on our merry way. We made it maybe 2 hours outside of Russell when the car started to overheat again. We were far enough away to not want to turn back so we perfected the routine of pulling over, letting the engine cool down for 20 minutes, filling the radiator with water and going on. We couldnât drive over 40 mph on I-70 or for more than 20 minutes at a time without the engine overheating. In addition to it being at least 100 degrees outside, there was a dust storm and I had to drive with the windows up because the dirt flying around was really stinging my eyes. My friend said turning the heat on would suck the hot air away from the engine. So we drove all morning, afternoon and evening through Kansas in 20 minute intervals at 40 MPH, with the heat on full blast and the windows rolled up till neither the engine or us couldnât take it anymore. Then came the cool-off routine. We did this for over 350 miles. By the time we made it to Colorado it was dark, the temperature had dropped some and the dust had abated. The engine wasnât overheating as much and we could drive it a little faster. Things were looking up. My friend, who was full of bright ideas, thought it was better to take the Rockies on at night, when the car was less likely to overheat, than during the day. I donât know how, but we made it up the first mountain. We popped the car into neutral on the way down the mountain and used the momentum of the speed gained from the downhill to get us partially up the next incline before having to put the cat back into gear. We actually carried on like this for a while, but my friend started to feel sick from eating left over pizza from the previous night thatâd been sitting in the car all day, so we pulled off here and there looking for affordable lodgings that didn?t exist. When we arrived at Eisenhower Tunnel the car overheated once and for all. The combination of exhaustion and time has left me blurry on what happened. I talked to a trucker and to an official who worked at the tunnel. I remember the official telling me that no tow truck would through the tunnel and that we couldn?t break down in the tunnel. I don?t remember how we made it through, if we drove or were towed, but in the next town with a mechanic (Dillon or Silverthorn), we parked the car at a strip mall and slept. That was the 4th of July. The next morning the mechanic diagnosed my car; it was the switch on the fan that wasn?t working. As a poor college student, I opted for the generic switch to save money. The part wouldn?t arrive until the next morning so the mechanic put us up for the night and gave us a discount.
The next day we made it pretty far out of town and then the car overheated again! I found out later that Toyotas only use Toyota switches and my generic switch just didn?t cut it. We were determined to get it to our friend?s place in Grand Junction at that point, but only made it as far as Eagle. My wise and generous parents had me under their AARP road plan and insured for up to 100 miles of towing, knowing my penchant for long road trips, some of them solo. We called for roadside assistance and they sent a tow truck from God knows where (he took hours to pick us up) and took us the 100 miles, which happened to be along the road about 20 miles outside of Grand Junction. Our friend came to meet us and when we got back to her place, her next door neighbor, a backyard mechanic, rigged the fan from my broken air-con to run whenever the engine was running to cool off the car. He also ?modified? my thermostat, i.e. he completely removed the inner workings of it. I made it all the way to the Seattle like that. I?ll leave out the part about my friend insisting that we pick up a hitchhiker near the border of Colorado and Utah who was, in fact, on the lam from the law. I dropped him off as soon as possible, claiming that we?d arrived at our destination.
On the way home, we drove through Montana and decided to detour through Yellowstone. The road leading to the town of Gardiner bordering the park was one lane each way. There seemed to be an endless stream of RV?s going 20 MPH ahead of me so I gunned my engine to pass them when there was a break in oncoming traffic. It was just too much on my little car and we heard a weird plunk sound. We managed to get her off the road and over to the rest stop that, by divine providence, was ridiculously close to where we were. I ended up soliciting help from who turned out to be the town butcher. He got us in touch with the town mechanic who came out to get us. It turned out that when my water pump was replaced way back in Richmond, they?d removed a sprocket to install the new pump and hadn?t tightened the bolt or sprocket to specification. With the cumulative vibration over a period of time, whatever was holding the sprocket in place was working it?s way loose, and when I accelerated so quickly I threw a sprocket?at least that what they told me. The new sprocket was really expensive, but I can?t recall the exact figure. It took a week to get the part shipped to Boseman and then it was going to take another week for the part to make it to Gardiner. It wasn?t a bad place to break down and get stuck because the countryside was so incredible, but after a week in Yellowstone, with no car to campout in or to drive me through the park, I was ready to call it quits. When the part arrived in Boseman we hitchhiked up there to retrieve it. The butcher actually picked us up on the way back. The mechanic installed the part and took the last of my money. We spent our final night in Gardiner was enjoying the hospitality of the butcher, who was formerly a psychologist who?d tired of the rat race. His girlfriend and him put us up for the night and we enjoyed a filet mignon dinner.
I never drove the car across country again, but I did take it on one last road trip from DC to NYC to Portland, Maine to Montreal, Quebec City, along the St. Lawrence River, through New Brunswick, then to Prince Edward Island, then Nova Scotia and finally back to Maine and at last back to DC. The car finally died on me November of 2007 with over 200,000 miles on it. Itâd just passed inspection and Iâd put over $2,000 into the car, replacing the front right and left axles and getting new struts and mounts. I was halfway to Richmond where Iâd planned to leave my car with a friend before leaving the country for 8 months. I called good olâ AARP and they towed me the 100 miles back to DC where I found out it would cost me $1600 for a rebuilt transmission. With only 3 days left before leaving for my trip, I felt my only option was to donate it. Now Iâve been relegated to the subway ever since.
In 1974, at spring break from college at Frostburg State College in western Maryland, I volunteered to drive a friend home about 120 miles from Frostburg. Not far from Frostburg my 1967 Rambler American (with 3 on the column) got stuck in second gear. Try as we might we could not get the transmission out of second gear. I was driving on U.S. Route 40, through very mountainous country. I was not able to get past about 30 miles an hour, which caused no end of consternation to my passenger and motorists behind me. I let my passenger out at his home in the town of Frederick and had to stop at several lights and stop signs after getting off U.S. 40. Of course, this meant having to re-start from full stop in second gear. After that I tried to stay on back roads and byways to avoid the interstates to my home in Fort Meade. A trip that should have taken no more that three hours ended up taking twice that. Iâm not sure what damage was done to my transmission and engine but it never equaled the damage done to my ego.
Middle of July, 2001. There we sat on a flea-ridden bed at the Manson Motel (name changed for soon to be obvious reasons) in the middle of New Jersey. We were a motley crew by this point. The kids were sprawled out on the bed, exhausted and hungry. My brother was cursing his swollen, gout-inflamed foot and I was tending to one of the worst sunburns I?d ever had. We were all mildly nauseated from the mildew stench that hung in the dingy room but the kids were still begging for food. They weren?t concerned about the roach I saw dart across the pillow that meant tonight we?d be sleeping with the lights on tonight and they weren?t concerned about the odd brass padlock on the phone. Apparently, the regular hotel clientele couldn?t be trusted so if you wanted to make a call, you had to go ask the manager for a key. Probably recalling the bloodshot eyes and grey pallor of the old man who?d led us to this room an hour earlier, my brother opted to use the pay phone in the parking lot. After a few calls, he managed to find a Pizza Hut that delivered to this God forsaken stretch of New Jersey highway.
Really, we were lucky. We were lucky to even find a tow service that was open and willing to accept a credit card payment with an out-of-state license. We were lucky that the creepy tow truck driver seemingly had a good heart. After dropping the van at a local repair shop in the middle of the night, he did call two local motels on our behalf and found us a room at this, as he called it, the ?safer? one. And right now, we were lucky we still had some cash in our pockets to pay for the pizza.
It had all started a couple weeks earlier.
?Mom, where?s the Statue of Liberty?? little Cody asked.
Ever-the-teacher, a simple response of ?out east? would not be enough of a lesson for the child. I pulled out the atlas, guided Cody?s finger up the printed coastline - Virginia? Maryland?New Jersey, and found the state on the map. As we reached New York, I noticed its proximity. It was just a few inches from Illinois. That?s when I decided we should visit Lady Liberty in person. What a great learning experience plus, shouldn?t every real American see the statue with his own eyes? My husband couldn?t get time off work for this impromptu trip so I recruited my younger brother to accompany the kids and me. He had just started out as a photographer and this would be an opportunity to get some great shots. He was eager to go.
As my brother and I mapped out the trip, we added several stops along the way. Why just b-line to New York when the East Coast has so much to offer. Why not seize the day? We planned the perfect road trip.
Day One: Leave really early. Drive straight to Philadelphia, PA to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall . Stay in a cheap but clean hotel in PA.
Day Two: Move on to Baltimore, MD to visit the grave of Edgar Allen Poe in the morning and head to Washington D.C. in the afternoon to visit all notable monuments. Stay in a cheap but clean hotel in MD.
Day Three: Return to the National Mall and hit a couple Smithsonian museums in the morning then head to New York, visit Ellis Island and finally the Statue of Liberty before heading home.
What we lacked in resources, we more than made up for in enthusiasm Neither of us had a cell phone at that time but we did have a calling card, a 1996 Mercury Villager (recently purchased used), about $400 and a mission: The four of us would visit four states, in four days on four hundred dollars. We could do this and, I?m proud to say, we nearly did. It was early evening on day three and our ?freedom ride? to the great heart of America was a success. We were heading home tired but happy and still had about $100 in hand, enough for gas and a small bite to eat. Ten minutes after leaving, just over the border into New Jersey, the van engine stopped, we rolled to the side of the road and, my brother and I swear the sky suddenly grew dark. We inspected the engine and with our combined knowledge of broken down cars, we ruled out dead battery, starter problems, overheating?that was about the limit of our combined knowledge. Alas, we had no choice but to find a tow truck, a repair shop and a place to sleep. That was how we ended up, eating pizza, in a flea bag motel in New Jersey. And that also began the longest list of credit card charges I?ve ever accumulated in a 48 hour period.
After our described night in the motel, we got a cab to a car rental agency where we had hoped to rent a car we could drive back home to Illinois. But no, this rental agency did not rent cars one-way so we could only use this car for the day. We returned to the repair shop where the service manager told us he ?wasn?t quite sure what was wrong with the van, sounded like, maybe a timing belt, maybe. Not sure he could get to it right away.? A call back home and my not-too-happy husband was not too comfortable with ?maybe? so we had the van towed, again, to the nearest dealership where the work would, at least, be guaranteed in Illinois. This service manager diagnosed a definite broken crankshaft; the remedy being a lot of parts, a lot of money and a lot of days to do the work. Isn?t the crankshaft a really important part of a car? How could one just break? Later we found out the diameter of these shafts were designed too small and subsequent years? villagers had larger crankshafts. We?d purchased the van used, no warranty, we were still paying off the loan and this was our good car so we really didn?t have much choice. The van would stay in New Jersey. We?d find a way home and someone would return in a couple weeks to bring the car back home.
We returned the rental car and after several hours, one of the agents finally gave us a lift back to the dealership. At this point, we weren?t exactly sure if we?d fly, drive or hitchhike back home but we signed to have the repair done, took only what we could easily carry from the van and walked (well my brother limped) to a local restaurant where, because the solitary cab service was booked for the day, we arranged for a limo ride (CHA-CHING). It was on this ride that my son realized he?d left his fanny pack full of souvenirs in the rental car and there was no consoling him. It was on this trip that my brother realized he?d inadvertently left his brand new, thousand-dollar camera in the sweltering heat of the van. As soon as we crossed from Jersey to Pennsylvania, my brother and I swear the sky grew bright. All we could really think about was getting to a place, sans cockroaches, to lay our heads and sob. We spent the night at a not-so-cheap but clean hotel and the following day, walked to the nearby airport, to rent a car that would finally get us back home.
Twelve days later, we purchased a ticket (CHA-CHING) and my husband flew into Pennsylvania, took a rental car to the dealership in Jersey and picked up the repaired van, my brother?s camera, and my son?s bag-o-souvenirs (the rental agent took pity and kindly returned it to the dealership). My husband?s plans for a peaceful, caffeine supported ride home were thwarted after he first stopped for gas. Dutifully checking the oil, he found none! The mechanic had left off a crucial gasket and the car had been leaking oil like a sieve ever since leaving Jersey. I can only imagine the litany of choice words that must have ensued. He had to stop every hour for the duration of the trip home to add a quart of STP. Fifteen hours after flying out of Illinois for Jersey, my cursed van and cursing husband pulled into the driveway. It was two more days before we could bring the van into the local dealership for the gasket replacement.
We had been so close! We?d almost done it ? four freedom riders, four states, four days, four hundred dollars! But, after the car repair, phone calls, cab rides, rental cars, limo, towing, airfare, gasoline, hotel stays and incidentals, the trip cost near $5000. We still have that van but a month ago and 2009 Mitsubishi Outlander later, it is no longer our good car.
Jennifer Collins
Schaumburg, Illinois
gerberjen@hotmail.com
Dear Guys:
I hope this qualifies as a road trip. Actually only part of it was on the road, but it was a âtrip to rememberâ none-the-less!
Back in 1991, just prior to going out of business forever, PanAm Airlines offered too-good-to-be-true airfares both domestically & internationally. I had already visited Italy, but my husband had not & he desperately wanted to do that sooner than later. We really couldnât afford to make that kind of trip with 3 school-aged children, but the $300 âanywhere internationallyâ was far too great an offer to pass up, so we bit the bullet & purchased our tickets for the following routing: San Diego-Los Angeles-Milan and returning Rome-New York/Kennedy-Los Angeles-San Diego.
Finally, the day of departure dawned & we excitedly headed off to the airport in San Diego for our 6:00 am flight. Way back then, the airport in San Diego was only one terminal with many windows looking out on to the runway. The flight that would take us to LAX was about to arrive & we stood at the window with our noses plastered to it like little kidsâŠAh, a PanAm plane touching downâŠbut WAIT! As it hit the ground, a tire ruptured, spewing rubber to kingdom-come & back. âNo sweat,â we thought, they will just change the tire & off we will go. But, as it happens, that wasnât exactly how it went. It seems since San Diego was such a small airport, there were no spare airplane tires available, so we had to wait for another flight to arrive 2 hours later with a spare. No biggie - we had allowed more than 3 hours to connect, or so we thought. Naturally, the change of tire took longer than expected, so we had to wait to see if the gate agent could accommodate us, as well as several others, on the flight that had just arrived. That meant we would miss our connection in LA. âNot-to-worryâ we were told - since there was a fairly sizable number needing that connection, it would be held for us in LA. âSuperâ we thought & patiently awaited a boarding pass & departure. The flight to LA, being the 45-minute hop that it was & still is, was uneventful - but BOY that plane full of people waiting for over 3 hours were NOT happy to see us.
Finally, we neared NYC, but due to weather & the inevitable air traffic around JFK, we spent nearly 2 hours circling the airport. But, this is fine we thought, we will just RUN through the airport like lunatics to our next flight. Really? Nope! By the time we arrived at the gate there were about 30 passengers waiting for the flight to Milan. Since so many were âlateâ they had given our seats away & there were only 10 more who could be put on the plane, which was actually on a side runway, waiting for further instructions because of all the folks needing that flight to Milan. The agents finally decided to put the 30 of us on a bus & drive us out to the tarmac - where we sat for an additional hour, with no air conditioning & all windows locked shut, waiting & praying that we would be selected to take the flight. We were there so long, we even saw our luggage being put into the hold!!! Well, as fate would have it, we were not selected & now 20 angry campers were bussed back to the terminal to find other accommodations. Most of the passengers were going to Italy for 2 or 3 weeks, so leaving a day later wasnât the end of the worldâŠbut we had only allowed 6 days INCLUDING travel to see Milan, Venice, Florence & Rome. (Fortunately for us, we donât believe in sleeping when in strange places since we might miss something.) Well, the best that could be done for us was to put us on a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt with instructions to ask for another flight once there. Remember now, we were at the airport in San Diego for a 6 am flight, there were more passengers on the LA flight than they loaded food for & now we are on our way to Frankfurt. They also hadnât expected so many extra passengers & NONE of us, who were all relegated to the âback of the busâ, had anything to eat as we were essentially âunexpected guestsâ. Finally, we arrive in Germany & all 20 of us start looking for help for our onward journey. After an hour or so, a lovely PanAm agent, took us to the employee cafeteria & offered us sandwiches while she contacted other airlines to see who would be able to assist us. The best she could do was Alitalia. Not bad, but they were flying into Linarte in Milan & all of us had seen our luggage being loaded onto the plane to Malpensa (a mere 1 1/2 hours apart by road IF there is no traffic.) This same agent said she had arranged a bus to take us from Linarte to Malpensa to retrieve our bags. There was indeed a bus, but it was quite difficult to find. I donât really speak Italian, but can understand it if it is spoken slowly. I do, however, speak French, so I did the best I could to explain to the driver where we wanted him to wait for us while we searched out our bags. No sooner had we gotten off the bus, when the jerk disappeared (remember, this is before any cellphones were "de rigeur"never mind an international ones!) Well, by the time we arrived at Malpensa, the airport was closed for the night, but there were a number of maintenance people WAY on the other side of the terminal. All we could do was hammer on the glass walls & hope either someone would come & open the door or the glass would break. Ten minutes later someone finally opened the doors, but then we had the fun job of explaining what we wanted. Eventually, we were all reunited with our bags & headed outside to clamber back on the bus to be taken to the train station in Milan. You guessed it - the bus & driver were nowhere to be seen. After scouring the parking lot for 20 minutes, we decided to go back to the terminal & hammer on the walls & doors again. Next came the fun exercise in explaining our transportation issue. Since the airport was closed, there were no taxis within miles, so we REALLY needed that bus! The Gods were good to us & eventually, the driver came back looking at us like we were nuts. (Would he have wanted to spend the night in a locked airport in the middle of nowhere?)
As I said, most of the group could spare another day, but not us. We had planned to see the highlights of Milan before taking the train to Venice. Once my husband makes up his mind, itâs hard to change it, so once back at the train station, we checked our bags into a locker & grabbed a cab for our 30 minute hair-raising tour of Milan, which included La Scala, a museum or two & the main shopping street. We arrived back at the station just in time to hear that our train, the last of the day to Venice, was leaving momentarily. We shoved our way to the front of the luggage claim & literally chased the train down the tracks as it was beginning to chug out of the station. We hurled our bags through an open door & struggled onto the train in a different car as the speed was increasing. Eventually, we and our bags were again reunited. That could be the end of the story, but itâs not. I had forgotten that there are 2 stations in Venice and we got off at the first one. Big mistake. Once outside we realized the error & raced back down the stairs to repeat the toss & hopping scenario of getting on the train in Milan, but made it we did! Ten minutes later we exited the train station near the vaparettos, which were about to close shop for the night, but we managed to find someone who took us to the dock near St. Markâs Square, where we were praying, our room was still waiting for our arrival - a mere 20 hours late. We had the address of the pensione, of course, but we realized we now had another problemâŠafter walking around the square in a daze for an hour looking for the street, it finally dawned on us that the streets had ALL been renamed. The street plaques & the map we had didnât jive! What to do? We finally went back to the first corner of the square & began counting streets & alleyways until we eventually found the B&B - which, by-the-way, had the original street number & name on it. The owner wasnât very happy with us as it was about 11:30pm by the time we showed up & the last check-in time was 8pm. But, I guess we looked even worse than we felt, so we were shown to our room.
Remember that we really hadnât eaten since the morning before when we left our house in San Diego, so we decided to walk over to the center of St. Markâs Square to find some chow. Luckily (?) we found 2 seats & ordered 2 sandwiches & 2 sodas, which we DEVOURED. Then we were handed the bill - about $100! WHAT?!?!? It seems the music had just started when we placed our order, so we got hit with âentertainment taxesâ.
We continued to run into issues daily, but the end of the trip ended similarly to how it began. The airport in Rome is VERY far from the city, so the day before we left we decided to go to the bus station & purchase tickets to the airport, which they happily sold us. The next morning very early, before breakfast was available at the hotel, we dragged our bags to the subway only to find the gates locked. Oh well, we figured we could just take a cab to the bus station. This as you might have suspected was only moderately difficult. Once at the station we waited & waited & waited, but no bus. We eventually found a gentleman who spoke enough English to explain to us that there was a strike & we would have to find another way to the airport. That would have been fine except for the fact that we had already spent almost all our remaining Lira on bus tickets & a cab to the station. There was no way we could cover the cab ride to the airport. We luckily ended up splitting the ride with another person. Finally, we arrived at the airport, but low and behold, there are NO AGENTS at PanAm & are our flight is due to depart in 45 minutes! Well, to make a long story shorter, an agent eventually did show up, but 2 hours later. Not only were the buses on strike, so were the banks (there were few, if any ATMâs at the time) & ground crew at the airport. Like a recurring bad dream, 300 people were at long last, herded on to a tram where we waited for another hour until the strike was lifted for 30 minutes. Everyone scrambled on to the plane & watched as the ground crew tossed all the luggage into the hold. We knew we had already missed our connection in NYC, but we felt lucky to be on the plane & headed back to civilization, although starving as we still had not eaten since the day prior. Somehow, the pilot was granted permission to depart - but not before telling us that "due to the strike, the plane had not been refueled and he HOPED (?!?!?!?!?!?!) he had enough gas to make it to Cannes. Obviously, I am writing to you, so we did survive, but I can tell you, it was interesting to say the least. Also, at that time US citizens needed Visas to even LAND in France. I wanted out of the plane, but we were already on the runway, so I bite my nails & my tongue. Finally, the plane was fueled, the food was loaded & we headed out to the runway. A fully-loaded huge jet is HEAVY. So heavy that when I looked out the window, I realized that if I had been outside the plane, I would have been in VERY DEEP ocean water. The jets wheels were actually in the ocean in order to gather enough speed to take off. The flight, fortunately, was uneventful, but then we neared JFK with itâs famous thunder storms & constant circling. To say our landing was bumpy was & is an understatement. I later heard that the storm was the worst that year. Just perfect for me, a non-roller coaster rider! Next came Customs & Passport Control. The Customs agent asked me where we had been - I told him, âyou donât want to know.â He said, âyou must have flown PanAm - go on throughâ As I mentioned earlier, we still had to get back to the West Coast, but now the airport was closed due to weather. My husband & I shoved our way onto a bus that took us to the last available hotel room in the area. The next day, all went well, but I am sure you will agree, this was an air, train & road trip from hell, although it certainly is funny now.
Itâs summer 2001. I decide to take my beautiful, amazing girlfriend to my familyâs vacation spot on the Rideau Lake in Canada. Iâd been going there my life, and it was â and remains â the only place on Earth for which I have only pleasant memories (despite this story). Taking this girl up there, and sharing the environs and the stories and the view, is a big step for both of us, and we greatly look forward to the trip.
Itâs an 11-hour drive from central Virginia to the lake. We hop into Rebeccaâs (name changed to protect me from the angry phone call Iâll get for sharing this) 1990-something Toyota Cressida. About 20 miles south of Watertown, New York, the car makes a rattling noise. We pull over, wait a couple of seconds for the gremlin to get out, and start the car again. More rattling! Tow truck shows up and the mechanic tells us that not only does the engine have no oil, but the engine is entirely a wreck.
But, donât worry! We snag some wheels from the local rental, cross the border, and settle in at the lake. Rebecca and I and her cat have a great time. Oh, except for when I drive over a dirt road washerboard and Rebecca smacks her forehead on the edge of the visor, giving herself a mild concussion.
We have to get back to Virginia in time to join her father for a trip to North Carolina. Problem is, none of the Watertown mechanics have any Cressida-compatible engines, and certainly they canât get one in time enough for us to meet up with her father. And, much as we want to, we canât abandon her car.
So, U-Haul hooks us up with an elevated tow-dolly to completely lift the car off the road. Because of its mass, the 14-foot U-Haul truck is the smallest truck we can strap it onto. We put all two of our suitcases into the back of the truck, and squeeze the three of us into the cab. The cabâs windows are pretty big, which is good because the air conditioning doesnât work.
Well, we stop for gas and food in Pennsylvania. Our truck-plus-dolly arrangement blocks two pumps, so we pull behind the station to eat our chow. The area behind the gas station can be reached and exited only through one narrow lane, with the station on one side and a light pole on the other. Where the tiny rear areaâs paving ends, it drops about seven inches to unkempt grass and dirt.
So â when we finish, we quite simply donât have enough room to maneuver the truck 180 degrees and line up everything with that exit lane. A police officer in the shop agrees that we donât have enough maneuvering room and suggests we just drive off the pavement, onto the grass, and then back up on the pavement where it picks up by the pumps (i.e. go on the other side of the aforementioned light pole). So, Rebecca drives off the pavement â and the dolly arm connecting it to the truck catches on the pavement, creating enough friction to get us stuck.
The cop calls a local wrecker. Our dolly blocks the entrance/exit lane to the rear area, so the flatbed tow truck takes a service road behind the station â which emerges behind the gas station at the top of a hill. Naturally, the trailing edge of the flatbed catches on the incline when the front tires reach the bottom and start to level out. The tow truck driver called home; mom and the kids appeared in a mini-van with giant blocks to put under the tow truckâs rear wheels to give it lift to unjam itself. From there, he flatbed lifts our dolly enough to relieve the pressure on the arm; our truck advances and miraculously pops up on the pavement by the gas pumps. This whole process takes only four hours. We get back on the highway. Cat is alive. Rebecca still has a concussion. Iâm driving.
We get near Baltimore, and I take the wrong exit. We wind up on a local, poorly maintained road. I even hear a bang from the dolly; it mustâve whacked something, right? Lost, I feel euphoric when I see a sign pointing toward the Johns Hopkins campus. Now, at this point, Rebecca and I are students at a very nice college with a wonderful and safe campus; I assume Johns Hopkins is in an ethereal, moonlit section of Baltimore with ivory towers, free beer and delicious pizza.
Not so much. All the streetlights are out. Fortunately, the darkness allows me to see the sparks in the rearview mirror: that bang from before? That was one of the dollyâs two wheels exploding; weâre dragging the dolly. I come to a red light and âMarvinâ runs over, points me toward an even gloomier part of town and says, âHey, I can fix that up in five minutes. Just drive over there.â I roll down the window just enough to give him the only cash I have on me: a $5 Canadian bill. He walks off and I decide now is a good time to rouse Rebecca. We pull into a service station, its attendant protected by six inches of bullet-proof glass and a platoon of German mercenaries.
U-Haul doesnât answer our calls, but AAA does. We ditch the busted dolly at the gas station. A local flatbed comes and takes on the Cressida. During this operation, Rebecca needs to pee â but the service station folks are afraid of us and wonât let her in. So, she pees into a plastic bag in the back of the truck, the hatch open just a bit to let in a sliver of light (and for me to see whether her concussion makes her pass out). Eventually, weâre ready to go. After about 16 hours on the road for what was supposed to be a nine-hour trip to DC, we arrive at Rebeccaâs father.
Hereâs the kicker, though: Marvin came back to the service station and returned my $5 Canadian bill. Probably he realized it was worthless to him â but he told me, âLook, man, you need this more than I do.â Ainât America grand? I still have that $5 bill.
My road trip from Hell was my road trip to Hell, Canyon Del Diablo in Baja Mexico to be exact. It was spring break. I just broke up with my boyfriend of six years. Hale-Bopp Comet was in the sky best seen near the equator so I decided I would go on a vision quest. I packed my Volvo 740 Turbo. It had 55k miles, leather interior and it drove like a tank. I felt invincible. With new tires, full tank of gas and Neil Young playing in the dashboard, I left San Francisco for Baja, Mexico where the highway turned to sand.
A thousand miles into my trip, I found myself at the trailhead of the Canyon. Miles from nowhere, I promptly got stuck in the sand. I was alone. Coyotes were howling. I told myself not to panic. Everything would be ok in the morning. I didn?t sleep that night.
At daybreak, I slowly put my car in gear and I pumped the gas gently. Wheels slipped and spun. I dug myself into a three feet hole. The nearest farm was about a mile away. I was running out of drinking water and the sun was beating. If I left there was a good chance I would get lost.
After several hours of watching vultures circle over me, I heard the faint sound of motors. It was the three guys from Mike?s Sky Ranch bike camp I had met on the road who said they might stop by in the morning to check up on me. They were true gentlemen. I was so happy to see them. They gave me a ride to the nearest watermelon farm where they had a tractor to tow me out. I was so grateful.
Everyone wished me luck driving out of there and warned me not to stop till I got to the paved road or I would get stuck again. I was now on the playa and driving at a steady speed weary of the soft silt under my tank of a car. Soon I was on some sort of road with weaving tracks. Relieved to have found some guidance, I followed. The tracks grew wilder and gutted with deeper ramps. Metal poles line the road at forks. They had a small printed sign on them I couldn?t read since I was driving too fast past them till it was too late.
?Peligroso!? They were warning signs that I was going the wrong way! I had hit upon the Baja 500 racetrack on the playa and now I was driving in the wrong direction on gutted tracks that started to undulate. Up the banks I drove trying to avoid the guts at times hitting the gas harder to avoid the ruts. I had never thought it possible that you could launch a Volvo airborne but call me Daisy Duke. I crashed through sage and coyote brush praying and cursing and pleading and honking my horn hoping no one was on the way toward me in a head on collision. I couldn?t stop. I was in hell! I was too terrified to be scared. I was pure adrenalin in the zone.
I don?t know how I survived. I remember being stopped at a military roadblock. I must have looked loca, eyes wide open, heart racing. The soldiers just looked at me and my car, shook their heads and let me pass. I crossed the border, my muffler and bumpers all held up by duck tape and covered think in silt, I was the happiest person alive. I went on a vision quest and I saw my life flash in front of me several times and through it all my Volvo held up till we drove back home where the engine melted and died, faithful to the very end. C.s. Lee , Los Angeles, CA 2009The summer of ?58. I was 9 years old, my sister 7. Our parents decided to take us on a trip to New York from Vancouver, Washington in our ?57 VW Beetle. I remember quite a few things about the trip, the camping; looking for my father on the side of a foggy hi-way in Wyoming after he had become a bit irritated with our opinions about his driving; my being ?arrested? at a Cleveland Indians baseball game for dropping popsicle sticks on the people below us; and the flat tire in Times Square. The real memory-maker, though, occurred on the return leg. Somewhere in Nebraska the VW stopped. We piled out and my father, never a good mechanic, tried not to look too depressed. We were miles from a garage ? nothing but corn fields. Within an hour a car pulled up. My father recalls admiringly that it was a purple Studebaker- I can?t remember. I do remember the man, his wife and four kids climbing out to have a look. He asked if he might help. He was a mechanic and said he hadn?t had much experience with these new engines and would love to take a look if it was OK. He quickly determined that the fuel pump was shot and that we had a bit of a problem. It was Friday and the closest repair shops were closed until Monday. Could he try something? So he and my father got his tools from his trunk, jacked up the VW and and went to work under the car. They soon had the fuel tank removed and tied to the top of our luggage rack ? on top of our luggage. This effectively doubled the height of our poor little beetle. Using a long piece of rubber hose he pulled out of his trunk, he made the appropriate fittings, tightened the appropriate things and we had a gravity fuel system. It worked. Filling up along the way caused some great conversation and a lot of laughter. Our savior stayed with us all the way to Milwaukee where we finally found a VW fuel pump. The rest of the trip was not nearly as interesting. I?ve often wondered what happened to the mechanic and his family. I don?t know his name. He was unemployed and trying to find work in some of the cities along the way. We gave him as much as we could afford and made him promise to contact us when he was settled. He never did.
I know youâll like this one.
Year was 1975 the car was a 1974 MGB, the one prior to the big rubber bumpers. The trip was from San Jose Calif to Charleston SC to LA to San Jose.
Staying off main highways is the key yo enjoying the MG. We took HW 50 out of Lake Tahoe and managed to get to Austin NV before our first problem. Austin is of course in the middle of nowhere. While stopping for gas I noticed a leak from the left rear wheel. The attended noted that it looked like a bearing seal as the fluid dripped down over my wire wheels. Closest town Ely NV 147b miles but no repair facility there. Next town Wendover NV another 120 miles, now facility there either. Next town was Salt Lake City another 123 mile; but we made it and after spending the night we got the seal replaced at a British Motors dealer and it was still under warranty. Onward and still not at our destination. Zipping onward we gat into Illinios. Late in the afternoon and hot as heck. Still on the backroads we sped by the local ice cream stand and breaking hard spun around and drove back to the stand. As I shut the engine down I heard a tink ⊠really a tink. Sounded like Iâd dropped a dime in the engine compartment. My wife and I looked at each other, shrugged and went in for our ice cream. Back to the car and, and, and it would not start. Just cranked, like it was out of fuel, whick it was not. So we get a tow to Bellville Ill, about 45 miles. The only place in town was a Dodge dealer but I was assured that the mechanic could fix me up because he also worked on John Deere Tractors, what that was supposed to mean. Left the car at the shop and found a motel near by. Next morning I was at the shop bright and early. I was seated in the customer lounge and could see through the glass the mechanic who was working on the car. He worked and worked for over 3 hours before he could get it to start. Finally he cam into the lounge, glared at me and asked if I had 75 cents. I gave him the coins, he put 50 cents into the pepsi machine and went back into the shop. About 20 minutes later he came back out and said that in his 45 years of working on all kinds of machines, he had never experienced this. He had rebuilt the distributor, checked and rechecked the carbs (down draft SUs), tested the fuel pumps spark and everything. But now it is running. I asked him how much and he said the pepsi was enough and to get out and never come back. Laughing we shook hands and he wished us luck.
We made it into Richmond Va then down to Charleston and headed back with no further trouble, until we got out in the middkle of the dessert of Arizona, about 30miles west of Gila Bend. Now the fan belt broke. Along side the interstate heading to LA the highway patrol stopped, checked us out then called for a tow truck. About 45 minutes later the truck still had not arrived but a panel truck stopped to see if they could help. It seems that these guys were washing machine parts delivery, and they gave me two washing machine clutch belts, I put one on and I was off again. Got to LA and back up home to San Jose. By the way that belt did break again about 6 months later but I had a spare and used it. About a year later I did get the correct belt replaced.
OK now your asking what was the fix in Bellville Ill ⊠Lets see if you guys or some listeners can resolve that one. I try to listed every week but if I miss the show send me an email and Iâll let you in on the secret ⊠it is really unbelievable but it was an MGB. My email is rlms@rschutte.net
Dear Tom and Ray
Our Car Hates New York
We have a 2008 Buick Lacrosse purchased, last July, that now has 8500 miles on it. For the first 6000 miles, we had no problems or issues with the car at all, but then my wife decided that she wanted to go to the outlet center in Woodbury NY. We live in Oxford, CT about 30 minutes from the NY border. It was a cold, drizzly, February day when we headed for the outlet center and I kept turning the wipers on and off. We were almost there when I turned the wipers on again and nothing happened. No wipers. My wife did not like this so we turned around. I kept trying the wipers but they would not come on in any position. Just after we had crossed the CT border I tried them again - they worked. We took the car to the dealer, but they could not reproduce the problem. They did check the system and re-tightened all of the connections. We did not realize that this was a warning.
A month later, they weather was better and my wife again wanted to go to the outlet center. About 20 minutes into NY, I I jokingly said it would be funny if the wipers didnât work and tried them - no wipers. We kept going which was a big mistake. Five minutes later, with no warning or trouble lights, the car died completely in the passing lane. Luckly I was able to coast to the side, but RT 84 is two lanes in this area and where we were there was no shoulder so we were unable to get totally out of the right lane. Tractor trailers were flying by within inches of the car at 70 MPH. The car shook everytime one went by. You can imagine what my wife was saying. There was no connection at all when I turned the key to start. No dash lights, no trouble codes, nothing. We had to wait about an hour for an authorized NY tow service to tow the car back to the nearest dealer in CT. When we got to the dealer I got in the car and turned the key - it started normally. The dealer changed an ignition module and said that it should be fixed.
A month later my wife wants to try again to go to the outlet center. This time we were only five minutes into NY when the car again died completely in the passing lane with no warning. Again it would not start. There was battery power, but when I turned the key to start there was no crank and all the dash lights shut off. Again we are towed back to the dealer in CT and when I got in the car it started as if nothing had happened. Luckly the tow truck drivers in both instances had tried to start the car, so I was our sanity was not questioned.
The dealer then changed a body control module and the wiper motor. We have had no further problems with the car, but we have not been back to NY. We have gone to outlet centers in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, which were longer trips, with no problems. The car just hates NY.
I had been wanting a singlecab VW truck (âtransporterâ) for some time, to use here in Maryland in my Westfalia/Vanagon repair business. After passing on a beautiful blue one in New Brunswick (too nice to use for a work truck!), I found what seemed to be the perfect truck, located way over in Alberta! What the heck, I thought, I need a road trip to get away for a few days! So, I flew into Edmonton, and was met at the airport by the owner. After getting a notary to witness the bill of sale, he drove with me to the edge of the big city, so that I would not get lost on my way out. We stopped at a light, he hopped out, and I into the driverâs seat, and on my way I went. The truck was running great, I was cruising with the other vehicles out there, ahhhh, on the road again. I love road trips! Within in a few hours, I noticed steam coming from the rear, so I pulled over to investigate. Coolant was boiling from the overflow tank behind the license plate. I thought, oh well, it must just need bleeding of air in the system, a common occurrence with the VW Vanagon. I added a bit of water, got to the next town where I purchased a pair of cheap pliers and some coolant, and bled the thing then and there. All was well for awhile, when it all happened again. This was the way I spent the next few hundred miles. Finally, I looked closely at the coolant expansion tank cap, and noticed a small sliver of blue silicone had lodged into the cap, causing it to stay in the partially open position. I stopped at an auto recycler just down the road, which of course had absolutely NO Vanagons. Oh well, maybe an Audi 4000 cap will work, it will hold pressure, but vent to the outside. That worked for some few hundred miles. I decided to cross the border at the town of Estavan in Saskatchewan, and chose a entry point where there would likely be little problem going through. Well, big problem: the paperwork had the wrong VIN printed on it! So, I spent the night in Estavan, and the proper certificate was faxed to me there. In the morning, no big deal at the main border crossing at North Portal, except the unfriendly, non-smiling woman there thought for some reason I was hauling something not âapprovedâ, and decided to search the whole truck. When she came back to me inside the office, she held up her âillegal substanceâ: two nice oranges I had just purchased in Estavan. âCanât have them, they are probably from Brazil or someplace with fruit fly infestation!â. Good grief, what a great govât we have, even protecting me from an unsafe piece of fruit! (What jerks, I thought, really, couldnât find any contraband, letâs take his food!) Finally, back in the US. What a relief to have that crossing business done with! With 200 miles done with no adding coolant, I thought I had the problem licked. No such thing, as at that exact moment, about 30 miles northwest of Minot, ND, the temp gauge suddenly shot up. I pulled over once again, and to my disbelief, the radiator was shooting a spray of coolant straight out into the road about 30 feet ahead! The only place that appeared to be open for business in the small town I had landed near to was a strip bar. Luckily, no strippers were on at the time, just a few folks sipping beers. The owner filled about six gallon jugs for me, hopefully to fill the truck long enough to make it to Minot where I hoped to have a better chance at repair. The water was still shooting from the front, so in desperation, I searched through my everything I had with me for something to temporarily stop the leak. I found my snack baggie of dehydrated bananas, and thought âwow, perfect!â. After carefully softening a piece of dried banana in my mouth, I applied it to the hole, and voila! No more leak! Super! I made it to Minot and located a radiator repair shop, which kindly and carefully soldered the hole shut, even allowing me into the shop to help out, as they really had no clue how to properly fill and bleed the weird Vanagon cooling system. At one time, three people were on the job, and when done, they only asked for $40. I expressed my gratitude for dropping everything to help me out, and off I went. I left the coolant cap loose, thinking that all would be better with no pressure to cause more holes in the rotten radiator. Once underway, I resumed my search also for a new coolant cap, to no avail, so continued on the way, continually stopping every 30 to 50 miles to refill the coolant again, as for some reason it still wanted to occasionally boil over. Once I must have mistakenly tightened the cap too much, as out in the middle of nowhere, it blew yet another hole in the radiator. No worries, I have more dried bananas! At a service station, I found a bottle of Barsâ leak, not something I would normally use in anything I own, but hey, this is different now. Problem is, there is no cap on the radiator, which is the best place to add the Barâs leak, if you want it to act quickly. So, back inside the store, I got a straw from the small restaurant, poked it through a styrofoam cup, and added the liquid to the radiator through the tiny bleeder hole in the radiator! Problem is, the little sealant pellets would not go into the straw willingly, so I dropped then one by one into the hole, all 400 or so of them, while the frigid wind froze my fingers. But, it worked! Yay! For good measure, I also applied some more dried bananas! I still needed to add coolant occasionally, but managed to make it all the way to Ohio, where it suddenly began to overheat again! This, of course, happened in a construction zone, with no shoulders, and also just as a traffic jam started due to an accident ahead. I inched forward until there was a spot wide enough that the truck wouldnât fall off the grass shoulder, shut it off, and just sat there, reading, snacking, and waiting for the jam to disperse. It did, finally, so I filled and bled one more time. Somewhere in the night, I began noticing something seriously wrong, a distinct tire vibration. Upon inspection, I found that the tread plies were separating, causing the tread to bulge, and the tread was worn very thin. No worries, again, Iâll just put on the spare. Well, the lug wrench broke. Begged passing motorists for a wrench, finally finding the proper size, and then the truck drove wonderfully smooth again! I made it safely to the PA turnpike, through the tollbooth, and suddenly, once again, the gauge shot skyward, and I pulled over, feeling defeated. This time, the hole that I had recently patched blew wide open, and spurted coolant in a stream about 30-40 feet from the truck! I felt that this was the end, I would need a tow from here, sadly. Then the âMacGuyverâ in me reawakened, and said âhey, there are still some bananas, donât give up yet!â. So, I carefully cleared the rotten fins surrounding the split in the tube, and ever so carefully packed pieces of bananas into the spots where the fins once were, compressing the crack so that the Barâs leak could seal the hole once more. Not thinking that this would hold, I desperately searched for something to wedge between the patch and the sheetmetal of the truckâs front sheetmetal, to ensure that the patch stayed securely. I found a nicely sized rock, shaped ever so perfect, like it was placed there just for this very purpose. This fix lasted all the way home to Maryland, although I did need to start adding more antifreeze/antiboil to the mix to ensure that it would not boil terribly driving through the mountains of western PA and MD. I MADE IT! What an unbelievable couple of days!