Ever Had a Road Trip from Hell?

[guitarman]

Dear Tom and Ray,

It was Christmas break from college in 1966 and I was visiting a friend, lets call him “Ray” in Norfolk, VA. We went to different colleges, so it was catch up time. Ray got a call from “Tom” one of his college friends who was home for the holidays in Cleveland, Ohio inviting us to drive up and go to a rock concert. Dude! We’re so there! The drive up was uneventful and we arrived in Cleveland in the middle of the night in a snowstorm. We were very lost. And then Ray spun out of control and wrecked his car. We weren’t hurt but the car was undriveable. The police and a wrecker came. The police could not or would not take us to Tom’s home, so we spent the night in a conference room at the local police station. Sometime late morning (no breakfast) Tom came to pick us up and apologized. He had not asked his parents permission for us to come visit and they did not want us there. Tom then took us to the Greyhound station in downtown Cleveland, let us out and drove off. Did I mention that we were broke? Some small change and a gasoline credit card and that was it. Luckily Ray had a girlfriend with a job, so we called her collect on a pay phone and she agreed to wire us bus fare via Western Union. We then walked the ten blocks in the cold and snow with no hat, scarf, gloves, heavy coat, boots, no warm clothes at all, to the Western Union office. We were then informed that it would be hours before the funds would arrive. With no place to sit, we walked back to the Greyhound station and sat and waited. Cold, hungry, dirty and broke in Cleveland. Some road trip. Hours later we walked back to the Western Union office in the dark to get our money. There was only one other customer in the office, a little old lady doing some kind of paper work. We were two scruffy dirty unshaven long haired hippy college students standing there being handed money by the clerk when the 1966 version of the police SWAT team burst in waving guns and commanding Ray and I to raise our hands, don’t move or they would shoot. To quote Lynrd Skynrd “I’m telling you son that it ain’t no fun staring straight down a forty-four.” Or forty-fives, or shotguns, and what looked like machine guns. A dozen police cars in the street, at least twenty policemen, and Ray and I. The clerk said “whats going on?” And the head cop says “aren’t these guys robbing you?” “No” says the clerk, “they are picking up some money that was wired to them from Norfolk, VA.” The cop mutters and expletive and goes into the back to re-set the alarm and the others turn away. As we exited the Western Union office one particularly nasty looking cop with a shotgun looks at me and says “we woulda had ya!” After that the bus trip back to Norfolk was uneventful, but we did have to walk back to Rays place. Oh, and his apartment keys were on his keychain with the car in Cleveland, but that is another story.

[rwaterbor]

In 1966, upon graduating from Harvard, a friend and I decided to drive cross country in his mother’s (un air-conditioned) Pontiac. We had just 2 weeks to circle the US starting from Milton, Mass. The first few days went well. As we had just 2 weeks,attractions like the Grand Canyon got maybe 10 minutes. In Montana we got to Glacier Park 1 day after 2 people were attacked by grizzlies. As we slept on the ground usually (little money) we slept very little that night. In San Francisco we stayed at the Y and his car was robbed during the night. On a wet rainy night in Washington I almost totalled his car. Finally we got to Texas where it was over 100 degrees (it was mid-July), and besides having no airconditioning, I got intense diarrhea from a taco stand in Amarillo. On the never-ending drive across Texas, I went through all my underwear, previously used and unused, and a peculiar smell permeated his mother’s Pontiac. Arriving at the newly built Astrodome finally, we didn’t want to leave the air conditioned place, but had to due to time constraints after half an hour. As a final insult, the one souvenir I’d bought, a black cowboy hat from Idaho, blew off my head and into the North Carolina countryside as we sailed down the interstate. He finally left me off in Philadelphia as he continued to his house in Mass. I don’t think we said a word to each other from Texas on, and I’ve never spoken to him since!

[liasings]

Many years ago, I and a friend decided to travel in my 1978 Subaru wagon from central Virginia to South Carolina. I had the car readied for a trip, we loaded up and pulled out. All went well for about the first 40 miles. I was taking an off-ramp and the car started backfiring violently. It ran smoothly when it wasn’t backfiring and because of this and some issues with my friend, I decided to keep going. This was a mistake. We made it to Greensboro, the car and my temper getting worse by the mile. By the time we hit the Greensboro city limits, the car would only move if I mashed the accelerator to the floor and kept the car in 2nd gear.

Did I mention that it was 3:30 in the afternoon, Saturday, July 3rd? It was pre-cell phone, pre-GPS-we were on our own. As it turns out, that was better than the alternative.

We found a service station that was open, and the “gentleman” who was there looked at the car and could find nothing obvious wrong with it. His solution was to leave the car there over the weekend and go “hang” with him and some of his buds. Some of the “attractions” he cited to sweeten the deal were: his great fun friends; the alcohol that would be there, the motorcycles, the drugs, the music, and,(the piece de resistance) the little cross-burning party that they would be having later in somebody’s front yard!

I pretended to ponder this for a few minutes, then “regretfully” declined, saying that I’d agreed to meet my dad further down the road in about twenty minutes and he’d be furious if I were late. As we were driving off, engine revving like mad, my friend actually said, “I thought you were going to say yes!” I nearly drove into the ditch! I explained to her that one should try to avoid insulting racist bikers, particularly if one’s car won’t go faster than 42 mph!

We drove down the road to a shopping center and she insisted on buying some Mountain Dew because the price was really good and a couple of bananas. From her behavior, you would have thought nothing was wrong, until I suddenly shoved her behind a brick pillar. Our party-boy pal was pulling into the parking lot! He had to have seen the car and was looking for us. It is unlikely that he alone could have overpowered both of us, but I was beginning to have serious doubts about my friend’s grasp of reality and wasn’t sure she wouldn’t wander off chasing butterflies while he was clubbing me over the head and shooting heroin into me.

He hung out in the parking lot for a while and we hung out behind the pillar. Eventually, he went away and I went into crisis management mode. I had been waiting for my friend to pony up the credit card to temporarily fund the damage control, because I didn’t have one, but it had become increasingly clear that she was oblivious to the growing problem. She was ready to go into the little country store and shop around because “those stores are just so quaint”!

I broke it down for her:“It is almost 4:00 on a Saturday on a holiday weekend. We are lost and the only thing that we recognize is a scary man on a Harley who is following us, because he wants us to help him light crosses in peoples’ yards. Our car won’t run, so WE can’t run. I need a credit card to get this car towed to the trucking terminal where my father worked and a motel room with a door and a lock between us and drunken racist revelers. Now give me a quarter so I can call the police.”

To make a long story a liitle shorter, the police didn’t know where we were either and suggested that we drive the car to the terminal. I thanked them, hung up, called a tow truck company and we waited. The very nice tow truck driver towed the car to the terminal, which meant going through that section where three interstates converge. If we’d tried it ourselves as the police had suggested, we would have died. I called my mother when we got to the terminal; she said she’d come and get us (a miracle), we toured the facility (a lovely treat for my friend-how exciting!), and we retired to sit in the car for 4 hours and wait for my mom.

Eventually, the car trouble was diagnosed as a blown piston: which I still have as reminder to always speak up, especially if the person with you doesn’t appear to understand the gravity of the situation.

[lvgolfer]

I lived in Chicago and my best man decided to get married to a lovely lady from Youngstown, Ohio. They scheduled the wedding for mid-January. I had an Olds 4 Dr sedan that was 6 years old at the time. To be sure it was in good condition for this trip, I took it to my mechanic to check everything out, including the heating system.
My wife and I were joined by 2 good friends for the trip. We left very early Sat. morning in temperatures that were below zero. Unfortunately, about one hour into the drive on the turnpike, the heating system stopped blowing warm air. We
finally stopped in South Bend, Indiana and sat in a truck stop restaurant until the car dealer was open at 8 am.
The local oldsmobile dealer could not do anything for us before Monday. So we drove over to the Sears store and bought all the warm clothing and blankets we could afford. We finished the “frozen” trip to Youngstown about 10 hours later a lot worse for wear but we made the Saturday night reception and the wonderful wedding on Sunday.
The bride’s father had his mechanic look at the car first thing Monday morning and found that my mechanic’s employee put something in my radiator that totally clogged the water from going through the radiator and clogged the heating coils. The radiator was replaced and we drove home a little warmer than we arrived.
Whenever our frat friends and I meet for dinner, somehow the frozen drive subject comes up and brings lots of laughs -except for my wife and our 2 friends.

[kaynine]

Dear Tommy and Ray,
I have a story to share with you. It was about 20 years ago when I was one of many poor graduate students in Michigan. I decided to go to New Orleans to attend a coference with 2 other classmates and additional friend of one of the classmates. So 4 of us in a car driving from East Lansing to New Orleans by cutting the US vertically in half. The time was still in hot summer, and we needed to open the car windows (didn’t want to use extra gas on AC), but when we were driving through Tennessee, we got harricane, so we quickly closed all the windows. It was really hot and humid, and the air was unbearable in the car. Then, one of my friends cut a cheese… Oh my god! It was horrible!! He happened to be Korean, and he ate lots of garlic in him meals so that his gas was extra powerful. Rest of us threatened him to leave him in the storm, but we made him promise not to do it again, and he could stay with us. Well moving on, again we were poor students that 4 of us shared 1 room of a cheap motel which has 2 beds and 1 bathroom. The morning after the harricane insident, the same guy craeted a another disaster. He occupied our only bathroom for over 2 hours in the morning! Because he ate so much Korean food (kimchi and other spicy food) he always had constipation, he said! Don’t get me wrong, I love Korean food, and he is a really cute, funny and charming person, but I found out that Korean food and long distance road trip in a summer time (or winter time either) didn’t go together. Any way, we finally got to New Orleans, but a coming back was pretty challenging with this guy…

[unclchas]

It was 4:30 AM on December 23rd when we set out from Long Island, New York, bound for Florida to spend Christmas with our daughter and grandchildren. Our brand new Mazda 626 was packed to the gills, reminiscent of the car in the Beverly Hillbillies. The split fold-down rear seat allowed us to put luggage, Christmas gifts and our 4 small dogs on one side, while my 80-year-old Mother-in-Law sat on the other side with her Shih-Tzu, Mopsy, on her lap.
Our dogs were accustomed to the long trips we often made to dog shows, but Mopsy was another story. Nervous in the car, she began panting at the end of our block at 4:31, and did her best imitation of a steam locomotive through New York City and most of New Jersey. I tried to ignore Mopsy as I spied the first glint of sunrise in the sky to my left. Even though my Mother-in-Law had told us numerous times that she couldn’t possibly stay the whole day in her half of the back seat, our hearts were secretly filled with hope that we might just make the Orlando area by bedtime, and have all of Christmas Eve day with the family.
A sign breezed by me, informing me that the Delaware Memorial Bridge was mere minutes away, and we still had the full day of sunshine to drive. Just at that point, before my wife and I had the chance to give a big sigh of relief, we began a climb up a long, gradual uphill stretch of the Jersey Turnpike we have since dubbed “Breakdown Hill.” I felt the Mazda buck rather severely, and my wife promptly warned me, “Stop downshifting - it’s an automatic transmission!” When I told her that I wasn’t downshifting or otherwise needlessly fiddling with the car, she knew we had a problem. Another sign told me that we were just 2 miles from the last Service Center on the southbound Turnpike, and I was determined to make it.
Our now crippled Mazda pulled into the stop, right in front of a service station that was fortunately not busy at all - what luck! It didn’t take long for the mechanic on duty to tell us that we needed to get towed to a Mazda dealership - the problem was beyond him. Fine, I said, get us a tow truck!
It took 3 minutes to call a tow truck, and maybe 3 hours for the truck to arrive. The driver informed us that the nearest dealership was in Delaware, and that he would put the 626 up on his flatbed for the short interstate trip. When I asked where my wife, Mother-in-Law, 5 dogs and I would go, he simply shrugged and pointed to the flatbed.
So off we went, in the car, on top of the flatbed, as the thought went through my head that we might be the first car to pick up a ticket for the Turnpike but never pay the toll for it. I pictured a clerk somewhere in New Jersey scratching his head, trying to figure out what happened to the car that entered the Turnpike but never exited.
The view crossing the bridge was spectacular from the height of the flatbed tow truck. My wife’s cell phone rang, and she was greeted by her cousin in Florida asking, “So where are you?” He probably expected her to say “Virginia” when she blurted out “on a tow truck” in between sobs and laughs. He replied, “On a snow truck?” and we knew he had no idea what we were going through.
We arrived safely at the Mazda dealership in New Castle, Delaware, and were taken care of promptly. The service manager informed us that the transmission had overheated because of a blocked flow of transmission fluid through the radiator, and that we needed a new radiator. He quickly added that it was covered by the warranty - great news! Not such great news: they had no radiators in stock, and had to get one in. A now-grumpy Mom joined us in the cramped waiting room, where endless showings of “The Jerry Springer Show” ran on the TV, and none of us had the nerve to change channels while the tatoo-laden crowd waiting with us appeared to be fascinated.
After a suitable lunch break for the crew, our new radiator got installed, and we were back on the road by 3:30 PM. Eleven hours into our trip, and only 3 states! My wife was determined to make a state with the word “Carolina” in its name, while my back and eyes screamed “Stop!” Just when I figured that neither of us could drive another mile, we saw the “Welcome to North Carolina” sign, and pulled off at the first exit. We checked into the only motel we could find, right on the exit ramp, and settled in for some rest.
We set out at 6 AM on Christmas Eve morning, with 3 1/2 BIG states in front of us. Just as I was merging the car into the southbound lanes of I-95, I heard an almost-apologetic 80-year-old voice behind me say, “I don’t have my purse.” I stopped the car, and determined that it was still too dark to risk backing down the entrance ramp to the motel. I set off on foot, and discovered that 30 seconds by car translates into about 15 minutes on foot. After explaining the situation to the desk clerk, they let me into the room to find Mom’s purse perched on top of the room heating unit. Another 15 minutes back to the car, and we were finally on the road, with Mopsy still doing her steam locomotive impression in my right ear.
The South was uneventful, and we finally pulled into our daughter’s driveway at about 5:30 PM on Christmas Eve, barely in time for dinner. I would tell the story of how the putrid Florida water gave all 5 dogs diarrhea, but that’s not really part of the “Road Trip,” is it? But wasn’t the trip itself bad enough?

[pnelson]

In 1974, I worked in Los Angeles for a large computer manufacturer. That firm had a contract with a ministry in Poland for the sale of a manufacturing license to make an obsolete (in the US) computer peripheral in Poland. I had been the training manager for some months, as teams of Polish engineers would come to LA to learn the product and otherwise have a good conduct pass out of then Socialist Poland.

My parents lived in Colorado, and my wife, daughter, and I drove to CO for the Christmas holiday in our wonderful Renault R16 sedan. That car was amazing, with something like 35 MPG and excellent interior room, etc.

I got a phone call in CO from my boss in LA, telling me that I needed to return immediately to LA to be ready to leave for Poland via the Polish consulate in Chicago, on the day after New Years Day. There were contract problems that needed me to be in Warsaw (my first trip there) immediately.

So, we left CO to drive back to LA, on the day before New Years Eve Day. As we were speeding along the highway in Northern Arizona (the freeway that replaced US Route 66), the distributor rotor blew apart near the little desert town of Holbrook, Arizona. There we were, stuck along side the highway, with the clock ticking.

A state patrol officer stopped almost immediately, and after hearing our story, he towed us into Holbrook to a motel, and then drove with me to all the auto parts stores in town. With such an orphan car there were no parts in Holbrook, but one store located a rotor in Phoenix. We ordered the part, of course, for delivery by UPS on New Years Eve Day. In fact, I ordered two of these…just to have some backup!!!

The part arrived, and of course it took all of five moments to install it, and we were on our way to LA. My boss had made the airline arrangements and off I went to Chicago to the consulate, and then on to London and Warsaw.

The consulate was efficient, and that stop took no time at all once in the office. At Heathrow, I transferred to the Polish airline, LOT, for the trip to Warsaw. The Cold War was still in effect, and even that airline could not overfly East Germany so the route went over Denmark and then into Warsaw from the north. Absolutely the worst air trip I’ve ever had…only time I’ve seen the airsick bags in use, for example. AND, my luggage did not make the transfer at Heathrow. I was four days without that luggage in Warsaw, making a daily trip to the airport there to telex the LOT office at Heathrow to learn daily that the luggage would be on the next flight. And then to meet those flights to find still no luggage and send another telex…FOUR days and I was getting ripe with no change of clothes at all.

So, the auto trip from hell (although it went from hell to success) was just the beginning of what became an excellent adventure all told. I had many super experiences in Poland in three months there, but that’s for another tale.

Paul Nelson
Tucson Arizona

[kucklick]

I’d have sold that Motor Home for plane fare home but I didn’t have the title with me.

We bought a late model motor home for the dream vacation “out west” with our kids from our home in Michigan. It worked fine on our shakedown cruise to Tennessee, and I decided to play it same and replace all the belts, hoses, and spark plugs. I discovered that the big 440 V8 stuffed into the van chassis needed to have its radiator removed and engine jacked up to install the parts, so I put the parts and a tool box under a seat, and off we went.

A tire failed in Montana, so we visited a tire dealer. Then, also in Montana, some component in the dash board turned into smoke, all the power to the instrument panel failed, and we went to a car dealer to get it replaced.

In Utah the engine quit running, but would restart after a couple of minutes. Okay, a fuel filter must need attention. I cleaned the one in the carburetor, but the same thing happened a few miles down the road. I replaced the fuel pump in the parts store parking lot.

The following day, Sunday, the same thing happened, so AAA towed us to a dealership in a nearby town. The guys there said I needed a new fuel pump, but I had the last one in town already mounted on my engine. The dealer’s owner flew his own plane over the mountains to buy one. The thing still wouldn’t run for long. We pulled and cleaned the fuel tank, replaced fuel lines, and decided it must be fixed. On Friday afternoon we pulled out; the kids cried, because Utah is full of friendly kids, and our kids had been invited to a birthday party and had generally enjoyed themselves.

An hour down the highway we heard and felt a huge rumble. The bottom had fallen out of one of the side compartments, and our jack, charcoal grill, tools and other lumpy stuff was scattered all over the Interstate.

On our way to Las Vegas the engine quit again and again, and an RV repair place in Arizona said it needed an electric fuel pump mounted near the fuel tank to prevent vapor lock; they do it all the time. With our new electric fuel pump ticking away we headed for Las Vegas, only to have the engine sputter, cough, and quit about 73 times in the next 50 miles. I concluded this engine just wouldn’t run when it got hot outside, so we started our days at 5 AM and quit by noon, and the engine ran fine, except at high altitudes.

Then the driveshaft center bearing failed in an Indian reservation. I couldn’t replace this myself, so we made another trip to a repair place. The service rates posted on the wall for RVs were ten bucks higher per hour than for cars or trucks.

Just before we lurched home (we had spent 10 days out of three weeks in repair places) I bought a For Sale sign at the hardware store. We parked the RV at the street with the sign under the wiper blade, with the engine still ticking while it cooled, as we unloaded and cleaned out.

When I went back to work one of the guys asked “would the engine run when it got hot?”

[KellyDelong]

Back in 1991 my wife and I were newly married and living in Delaware. Her Sister and husband were also newly married and living in Indiana. Since my brother-in-law and I were both Cincinnati Reds fans, we decided to get tickets for a weekend series and meet in Cincinnati. Five hours into the trip my 1985 Ford Escort went BAM! and died on the PA turnpike in Monongahela. It was all I could do to get it onto the shoulder of the road. The car was dead and lucky for us a kindly older couple saw us walking away from our car and took us to a phone.
We were towed to a station where the station manager assured us that it was only the water pump and that we would soon be on our way and still make the first pitch. After an hour or two the mechanic said the job was done and that he was taking the car out for test drive. We waited and waited for his return. A half hour later we saw him walking back. He got in the tow truck and brought back our car. “Just an adjustment,” the manager said. “You’ll be on the road in no time.” Five hours later he was dropping us off at a motel and assuring us that we’d be on the road first thing in the morning.
Morning came, he picked us up and took us to the station. The mechanic said he was going to try a different water pump. For the next several hours my wife and I played Uno on the front stoop of the station, threw a frisbee in an abandoned, overgrown playground behind the station, took long, depressing walks by the Monongehela River. At first the manager would assure us that we would be leaving soon, but as the day wore on he tried to avoid us when he saw us coming his way. By the end of the day, he was dropping us off at the motel again, and again he assured us that the car would be ready first thing in the morning. We woke up optimistic that finally would would be on our way. Our weekend was shot, but we just wanted to get out of there and back home.
Come morning, the station manager was positive that this was the day our car would be ready. For Five days, Five LONG days, he assured us of the same thing every morning he came to pick us up. For five days, twelve hours a day, we did everything we knew to keep ourselves from jumping in the river. Monongahela is a fine place to see from the road, but you don’t want to get out of the car there.
Distraught and afriad we would never see our families again, we talked my mother and stepfather into driving out from Allentown to save us. They did. We hugged them so hard when they arrived that my petite mother needed oxygen once she was freed from our embraces.
A week later our car was ready. A Ford dealership needed to rewire it. My mother and stepfather drove us back out. We told them they were forbided from letting us out of their sight. We would not be stranded in Mononeghela again!

[pnelson]

In 1959, I was a second lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers, stationed for school at Ft Belvoir, Virginia, near Washington, DC. It was Christmas, and we got leave to spend at home. I flew to my family home near Denver, and found that my Christmas present was a 1957 Rambler sedan. This car was one of a very few that had been built with a V8 rather than a 6 cylinder engine, and was an orphan in some other ways.

Dad had put brand new retread snow tires under the Rambler, and on Christmas Day I set off to drive to Minneapolis to visit my fiance for a few days, then via Milwaukee to pick up another new officer and on back to Belvoir. We were on a short schedule, because the leave ended on the dot.

Exactly 100 miles from my home, the treads on these snow tires separated and there I was, Christmas Day, at Fort Morgan, Colorado. Fortunately, I found a tire dealer who would put NEW snow tires on the car, charging them to my father, and would put the bad tires on the TRAIN back to my home town for credit. That took only a few hours, and I got to Minneapolis with no problems. I had a good visit with my honey, and set off for Milwaukee to pick up my friend. Just into Wisconsin the muffler FELL OFF, and it was frigid winter of course. I drove across Wisconsin with the driver window open to avoid death by Carbon Monoxide. My friend’s father had lined up a muffler house who could create a muffler for this orphan Rambler, and that was done.

We got back to Belvoir just in the nick of time!

[Alaskan_Jim]

So I moved from Valdez to Wenatchee Washington a few years back and after three years in Washington I had to move back to Anchorage Alaska. I owned a 1980 chevy shortbed pickup and a 17’ Bayliner cuddy cabin. My wife and I had reservations to catch the ferry at Prince Rupert Canada, so we were on a set schedule to arrive at Prince Rupert. If we didn’t get there on time we would miss the boat and have to drive the Alaskan Highway.
We were down to the last day in Wenatchee and had to leave sometime that day in order to make it to Prince Rupert in time to catch the ferry. It was raining cats and dogs that day and I had to chance the silinoid that switchs fuel tanks in my truck. Each fuel tank held about 15 gallons and I didn’t want to drive all that way on a single 15 gallon tank. So I’m under the truck changing the silinoid and the rain keeps hitting me in the face as it drips down betweens the cab and the box. I eventually stuff a towel in between the cab and box to keep the water off my face and proceed to change the silinoid.
We need to get moving and have the truck and the boat filled with all our worldly possessions, I get the boat hooked up and we finally get on the road to Prince Rupert. We cruise up the Columbia river to Canada and cross the border with no problems. It’s now getting pretty late and it’s dark and hard to tell exactly what road to take to get to Prince Rupert. We take a slightly wrong turn and end up heading up a steep pass into the mountins. As we keep climbing up in elevation we get to were some light snow is coming down and as we cruise up the hill with this overloaded truck and boat I notice that on the pristene snow covering the road that there is some orange flickering going on under my truck.
As you can probably guess I had forgot to take the towel out from between the cab and box of my truck and after getting to the top of this steep grade my exhaust has gotten very hot and ingnited the towel on fire! I stop in the middle of road realizing that my truck seems to be on fire and get down look and see the towel on fire and in the next split second I think of all my stuff that is about to go up in flames, including my truck, boat and worldly possessions. Also in that split second I review the entire inventory in mind looking for something I can put the fire out with. I realize that I have nothing to put the fire out with, no fire extigushers no liquids, nothing. So I reach under and start pulling the burning towel out of the gap and eventhough my hand is burning I figure its better than my truck and boat burning. I finally get the towel out and though it was right next to the fuel lines and the fuel tanks, I get it out before any thing else starts on fire.
Well we start driving again and all I can say is " The Towel" “The damn Towel” while my wife is hyperventilation from all that just happened in the span of a few minutes. Needless to say we had a horrifing few minutes as we almost were stuck at the top of a Canandian pass with no traffic and a burnt up car and boat. We did make it to Prince Rupert and made the ferry and onward to Anchorage, but that is one road trip we will NEVER forget!

[57belairvanagonman]

PS: Tom and Ray, I should mention that since my nearest VW Dealer was over 200 miles from North Platte, Nebraska, I found a rebuild engine on E-bay for $200 and had it shipped to Sioux Falls, SD. to replace the engine on my Vanagon that had over 400,000 original miles on the engine in lieu of just replacing the water pump. I later hitch-hiked to Sioux Falls to pick up the Vanagon that I still have around the house today and drove it home with the rebuilt engine. Yes, the head gaskets on the original engine leaked for the last 300,000 miles on the original engine.

[csanpietro]

Driving a Land Cruiser through Kenya?s Tsavo National Park was easy until I hit a hidden boulder in a dry streambed. It blew out both driver side tires and the Cruiser came to rest on top of it. We changed one wheel and then had to jack up the car several times and push it sideways off the jack to get it off the boulder.

I had a second spare tire but no rim. An Italian couple in a VW bug unexpectedly appeared and he agreed to take me, the spare tire and the blown wheel to a gas station 10 miles away. There was no room left in the VW so his wife stayed with my wife and the couple we were traveling with. The gas station was closed but I was able to find its owner in the village and convince him to turn on his compressor so we could mount the good tire.

When we returned to the Land Cruiser, the four stay-behinds were standing on its roof, surrounded by a dozen elephants. We waited until the elephants moved on and then mounted the other tire. It was now late afternoon and we had to decide to either go back 20 miles to our last hotel or drive another 40 miles to our next. We foolishly decided to press on and the Italians agreed to follow us.

We drove onward until a Land Rover with 8 locals armed with rifles and machetes flagged us down. I was a bit concerned until they identified themselves as soldiers. They told us that the road to the park boundary was not a bad drive.

Several dry streambeds later, the Cruiser?s wheels spun as they broke through the dry sand to the mud hidden beneath it. We gathered brush to put under the wheels and get enough traction to move. The VW was sitting on its belly pan. We excavated it by hand and repeated the brush operation to free it from the mud.

The road?s wheel ruts became so deep that we had to straddle them. In our headlights glare we saw a lone elephant flap his ears, curl up his trunk, and begin to trot toward us. Not wanting a tusk through my radiator, I furiously motioned to the Italians to drive backwards. Both cars sped in reverse, straddling the ruts, until the elephant lost interest and stopped to graze by the road. We waited until he wandered a bit farther away and then raced past him.

When we got to the national park exit, a locked gate separated us from the paved road outside. We walked the boundary with our flashlights until we found a section of downed fence and covered the fallen barbed wire with rocks so we could drive over it.

We arrived at the hotel I had reserved at about 1 AM and it was totally dark. We banged on the door until we awoke a clerk who fed us leftover box lunches, our first meal since breakfast. A road trip from hell? Yes, but not a bad adventure.

Craig SanPietro, Conshohocken, PA

[system]

I had just moved across the state in my old ford granada. i still had my trunk full of stuff. i needed to go to a state office in a torential downpour,the Portland Oregon area is known for rain. i went through a large puddle which was the over flow of a creek. got to the state office, i forgot it was a federal holiday. turn around only to be stopped by the police along with a lot of other people. the policeman told me what steet to take. this was fine until i came to a T in the road. being a country girl i have a good sense of direction. so i turned in the direction of my new home. soon i came to a crossing, to deep, two more crossings with no luck. after wandering around in the country for awhile i finally found another and was about to turn around when i saw a man in a pickup truck cross the water successfully. i am brave so i decided if one could do it i could also. i started across. as i noticed i was floating alittle i started to plan my escape. grab my wallet was the plan, i thought i could swim with a walet in hand and might need it later. just as i reached for the wallet the car caught on the road and continued across. i pulled out on the other side my adrenelin pumping. i did not stop til i got home. when i looked at the car. the water had come up to about a 1/2 inch below the window, but none got in the car. i learned later that the undercarriage of this car has a large cover so not water got in the electrical. if you ever need to cross water i recommend a Ford Granada and slow and steady.

[smjtbrightbill]

I want to describe my immediate family?s vacation trip from Los Angeles to the great state of Idaho. Our reason for going? In retrospect, I?d like to say foolishness, but that?s getting ahead of myself. We were taking my grandparents, George and Louise, up to their Idaho house for the purpose of moving out all of their stuff so that they could sell the place. We needed to drive his GMC truck up to Idaho because the camper that fit in the back and a snowplow for it were at the house in Idaho. Along with them went my parents, Marilyn and Sam, myself, and my younger brother, Timothy. From the beginning, my parents tricked my brother and me into believing that this misadventure would be fun. They told us it was a ?camping trip,? probably because it sounded better than the word ?punishment.? Although, to be fair, they themselves had no idea what we would be getting into. Let me begin by describing the vehicles that we took to Idaho. First of all, there was my mother?s blue ?88 Camry, a very reliable car. By reliable, I mean it could be counted on to break down at least once per trip. The other car was George?s 1974 GMC pickup truck, which, at one time, could probably have been considered a vehicle and not a human rights violation. Allow me to elaborate. The truck had several problems, which I will list, in order of least to greatest severity: no air conditioning, severely cracked windshield, rusted body, six inches of play in the steering wheel, gas fumes leaking into the cab, no radio, Satanic possession, and the tendency for pieces of the engine to fall out and bounce sprightly along the highway. Of course, just to make sure it wouldn?t be TOO easy, we also used that truck to tow a trailer (which just happened to be the back of another old pickup truck). There was also a side tank of ten-year-old, watery gasoline to use just in case we ran out of problems.
We divided up, with Marilyn, Louise, Timothy, and myself in the Camry and George and Sam (lucky them!) in the GMC. We had borrowed a set of walkie-talkies to communicate with one another, in case of trouble. Had we not had them, I think I can safely say that we would not be here today. We started off at 10:45 a.m. After just half an hour on the road, the cartop carrier (on top of the Camry) split open. The fact that the cartop carrier was only 30 years old and and had started to come apart before we even left home had not deterred my wonderfully optimistic father from assuring my doubtful mother that, just because a few threads in one corner were broken, that didn?t mean that the whole thing would disintegrate on the road. I seized the walkie-talkie as a can of mosquito repellant flew past the window and we all pulled off the road to safety. After loading the contents of the carrier into the trailer, and dumping the remains in a trash can, we set off again. At 12:45 pm, Sam and George decided that the trip was going just too darn smoothly and decided to switch to the old gas, subsequently dropping the truck?s speed to 40 mph. The truck died at 3:49 pm, (yes, I was taking notes) due to the fact that part of the choke fell out of the engine a few hours back. We attempted to cool off in this 100 degree heat while Sam strove to fashion a spring to repair the choke. Shortly after five, Sam dropped a paper towel, and, upon picking it up, found a paper clip underneath. Acting upon a strange impulse, he replaced the missing spring with that paper clip and, by golly, it worked! Of course, the truck wound up breaking down half an hour later, but, as a credit to Sam?s skills, it was because of an entirely different problem (vapor lock). We got it running again, and it was running splendidly for the next ten feet, but then it died again. It broke down, on average, about every thirty minutes. It was funny at first, but after four hours of this, I had to admit, it was losing its comic appeal. Mom, overheating from temper, was not soothed by the death of her Camry?s air-conditioning system. ?Dog-gone it? (or words to greater effect) ?this is the third time we?ve had this fixed and it only lasts two weeks.?
I lost my cool after we got to Vegas. I could see people pointing and laughing at us, but the bad part was when I realized that I couldn?t really blame them. At one in the morning, the truck gave up the ghost, right in the middle of a right turn onto the Strip. Mom?s car, utterly demoralized and following suit, quit running and refused to move. So, here we are, in Vegas, on the main strip, two broken down rigs, blocking traffic, awaiting a tow truck, disgruntled, grumpy, smelly and can you believe it? Mom is smiling. ?It?s just like all the trips we took as kids,? she confided. When the tow truck arrived to tow the truck towing the trailer, the Camry miraculously decided to run again. We were able to stay at a friend of George?s, and Sam and George worked on the truck from her house. It took a day and a half to fix, during which they replaced just about every part in the truck, including the fuel filter that had been totally gummed by the bad gas. They finally coaxed it to run about noon on the third day. Incidentally, we were already supposed to be at George?s place in Idaho by this time. We set off again (carrying a spare fuel filter at my mom?s insistence) and for six hours there were no problems. Then, miles from nowhere, and hundreds of miles from Idaho, at George?s urging, Sam announced that he would switch to the old gas. Marilyn immediately gets angry, because, for some strange reason, she doesn?t consider breaking down every twenty miles fun. Two hours later, the truck can only do forty again, and it was slowing down fast. Of course, just to make life interesting, there were trucks tailing us at 70 mph. This was taking a considerable toll on Marilyn?s sense of humor.
As communications officer, it was my job to relay any urgent problems, bathroom requests, messages, etc. to Sam and George via the walkie-talkie. However, as we slowed down even further, it soon became my job to censor and convey Marilyn?s thinly-veiled threats of violence and divorce to Sam, to the point where he soon began dreading the sound of my voice. I can only imagine what he was going through; on one hand, George was urging him to forge onward with the old gas, and, on the other, Marilyn was, um, forcefully suggesting (through me, the unlucky messenger) that we never use the old gas again. Well, when the truck finally died, Marilyn blew her stack. She became a whole different person. My brother and I watched with a kind of fascinated horror usually reserved for natural disasters, nuclear explosions, and that scene in Star Wars where the Death Star annihilates Alderaan. After Marilyn finished venting her godlike fury upon Sam and George, we limped back to the nearest motel. The next day, we started off again with the good tank of gas, (after replacing the fuel filter). I know you won?t believe it folks, but we didn?t have a single problem with either car. Big success! Granted, we arrived three days late, but at least nothing exploded. (Except Marilyn, that is.) Sam continues to assert, ?Hey, that old gas had nothing to to with it. It?s merely a coincidence.?
Since we were nearby, we decided to make lemons into lemonade by driving to Montana and visiting Yellowstone. Marilyn and Sam told me that this would be the fun part of our trip. I, however, had learned my lesson from the drive up, i.e., that only disappointment can follow optimism, and decided to be pessimistic and cynical throughout the course of our visit. We had originally planned to spend three days there camping. It was pretty cold, but that was to be expected. What wasn?t to be expected was the rain and the 40 mph wind. It was at this point that camping lost some of its appeal to Marilyn, but Sam, who was either a real man or completely insane, still wasn?t convinced and would probably have stuck it out with nature had it not been for the lightning, snow, hail, and dark threats from Marilyn. Looking back on it, it was probably the dark threats that nudged him away from camping. We wound up camping out inside a motel.
Later, we found out that Yellowstone was in the middle of a drought, and that day, August 25, was the only rain there had been in months and was the earliest snowfall they had gotten in thirty years. This of course, proves my point that it pays to be pessimistic and cynical; that way you?re never disappointed. I was feeling pretty smug until I got sick on our second and final day in Yellowstone. Marilyn and Sam decide to cut our trip a day short, which I really am grateful for, and return to Idaho. Naturally, our car promptly dies, right at this most inopportune time, when I?m too sick to be cynical. The fuses blew and our lights died. Mom actually caused this calamity, by smashing the trunk wiring when she slammed the trunk lid shut. This may be why Mom and Dad remain married to this day. Both folks ended up with equal grievances. Fortunately, Sam got the lights working again, thanks to the fact that we had several extra fuses along (as this problem had happened before). So, we drive back to Idaho, getting back just in time for my birthday.
Marilyn says that when she was a kid, she took lots of camping trips, a lot of them like this one. That?s when I discovered the answer to a mystery that had been puzzling me for a very long time: Why are parents so eager to take their children camping at least once? It gets even weirder when these very same parents who have experienced that horror so many times as a child, horrors even worse than those which we encountered on our trip, are the ones who so enthusiastically desire to ?pass that experience? on to their children. I finally know the reason: spite. Their childhoods were ruined by bad camping experiences, so now they?re trying to ruin my generation?s childhoods just to make themselves feel better.

Epilogue:
Our attempts to move everything out of George and Louise?s house were ultimately unsuccessful, due to the presence of 30-year-old, unstable dynamite in the camper in their garage. ATF was called in by the police when they saw crystallized nitro seeping out of it. The ATF said the only option to keep it from exploding was to burn down the garage. When asked if I wanted to travel back up and watch them light the match, I politely declined.

Jeremy Brightbill

[gramsay]

This isn?t exactly a car trip disaster story. . oh, it?s a travel disaster story and there was a car involved. . .but it was attached to a 25 foot Penske rental truck. . . .my wife and I were moving from Littleneck, NY, to Plantation, Florida. . .and we?d heard all of the stories about moving companies over-charging for shipments. . .so, we made arrangements for the aforementioned Penske truck and the car trailer, the type that allows one to drive onto the trailer with the front wheels only. . then to strap it down.
We?d hired someone to load the truck and they managed to get just about everything we owned into the truck before we departed, late, for the south. . .it was the Monday of the Labor Day weekend. . .traffic was horrendous and we set out for the New Jersey Turnpike, hoping to make it to Washington, DC, that evening. . .
We arrived on the outskirts of DC around 11 PM and we needed fuel. . .the signage in the Washington area did not help much in finding a service station that was open at that time of night on a Holiday weekend. . but we found one. . .I?m not certain where it was. . .but putting $80 worth of gasoline involved going back and forth between the pump and the attendant since they would not allow you to charge more than $50 at a time!
Then, we headed back to I-95. . .exhausted since it was now 11:30 PM and we?d been awake since 5:30 AM getting ready for our trip. . .and here?s where the disaster starts. . .
We?d been looking for a likely motel or hotel to stop at overnight and we spotted one off to our right-hand side of whatever service road we were on at the time. . .and being determined to stop, I took the next exit road. .hoping to drive back to the hotel we?d spotted. . .one of the problems I?ve discovered as I get older is that whenever I am tired and hungry I become, well, the proper word would be ?stupid?. . .I prefer, ?less aware? but ?stupid? I am. . .and I ignored my wife?s comments that the signs said that this exit was closed.
Now how could that be? It was open at the exit. . .but it certainly wasn?t at its distant end. . .there was a gate across it. . .so, there we are, car in tow, on a very narrow exit lane, in a very long truck. . .and we need to turn around. . .and, it?s started to rain.
So, I got Ronnie, my wife, to drive the car off the trailer after I?ve unstrapped it. . .then I unhooked the trailer from the truck and turned it around so that I could push it up the road beyond the truck which was facing the wrong way. . Ronnie moved the Volvo down the road out of the way of any impending disasters and I got back in the truck and after many many turns and back and forths, in a very narrow space, and with Ronnie standing in the rain guiding me whenever I got too close to a ditch, got the truck facing the right way. Then I hooked up the trailer again but it was now pouring rain so hard and there was no lighting to speak of. . .so we agreed to drive to an illuminated parking lot and put the car back on the trailer. . .all of this was further complicated by the fact that the Volvo was running on empty. . .we didn?t need gas in the car, right?
We found a Sears parking lot, hooked the Volvo back up to the trailer and then headed back down I-95 into Virginia where Ronnie spotted a largish hotel off to the side at an exit that was open. . .and while that?s another story. . .we got there and managed to get some sleep before leaving for Savannah, Georgia, the next day.

Gord Ramsay, Ronnie Heller
1859 NW 96 Avenue
Plantation, Florida
33322

[karencruce]

Highway to Hell
Or
The Trip from Hell
Or
Moving home to Houston from San Diego

My relationship had come to an end. It was time to move home to Houston. My other ex-husband came to the rescue and offered to drive the U-Haul back to Houston with all my possessions and 2 cats while I drove my car with the 2 dogs. I had flown my 9 year old son home the previous week for my parents to care for until I arrived.

We packed the U-Haul and car in record time. Interstate 10 all the way. Everything was on schedule until on fine morning leaving a motel in the Arizona desert. I asked my ex, ?Do you have enough gas?? Plenty to get to the next town was his reply. We agreed to meet at the next rest stop. I arrived at the rest stop, walked the dogs, got the dogs water & sat down to wait. An hour later a man pulled up and asked if I was waiting for a person driving a U-Haul. AAA would be by soon to give him gas.

After another hour, we were gassed up and off.

San Diego to Houston is approximately 1500 miles & takes about 3 days. Half of the drive is in Texas. So until half way through the move home, the gas was the only problem ? a minor inconvenience.

A little past El Paso, my Chrysler LeBaron started to have electrical problems. The air was no longer cool and I was having trouble with the electrical windows. Between El Paso & Fort Stockton, we are still in the desert & we were in the middle of July. Soon, the windows were permanently in the up position and the air ceased to exist. The only window that worked was the back driver small triangular window.

I was tooling down the highway miles in front of the U-Haul. I noticed a highway patrol car behind me. Well, I always drive the speed limit. The cruise control was set on a firm 55 mph. Yet, he continued to follow me. Finally the lights began flashing. I pulled over.
My dogs were no Chihuahuas. One was a 55 pound Springer Spaniel while Norbert was an 80 pound husky mix. They too were hot and cranky. They didn?t care for the uniformed man making his way to the car. Fortunately for him none of the windows would come down. I spoke with him among barking dogs through the small rear window. My cruise control is obviously set 5 mph too high. I was traveling at 60. It warranted just a warning.

After that my dogs became restless. The dogs would swap sitting in the front seat. As you know, since you are Click and Clack, the Chrysler LeBaron had the gear shifter not on the steering wheel neck but on the floor between the driver and passenger seats. One of the dogs wanted shotgun a little longer and a fight ensued. Suddenly at a steady 55 mph my car was thrown into reverse. I quickly, like lightning, corrected this. I waited for the car to die, or just crumble to bits on the interstate. Everything seemed fine. That night I tried to back up to the motel room, but the wounded LeBaron was having none of that. The damage had been done.

By the time we limped into Houston the next day, there was black smoke coming out of my tailpipe. After many dirty looks from fellow drivers and one verbally instructed me to ?GET IT FIXED!? I was finally at my folks house. It was good to be home with my 2 cats, 2 dogs, parents, ex-husband and my son.

Soon after my arrival, I traded my car in for an Isuzu Trooper. When the car dealer took the LeBaron out, he asked, ?Does anything on your car work?? Yes, the radio.

The 1990 Trooper lasted until just a year ago when I sold it for $1,000. All three children learned how to drive a stick on the Trooper.

Oh yes, one more ditti about the LeBaron. While in California, the car would not pass the emissions test. Despite my efforts to repair whatever was wrong, it never passed. A letter was forwarded to me stating that I needed to bring the car in for another test. I corresponded back to the State stating that I not only moved from that state, I had sold the car. I thought I was clear. Another letter arrived from the State of California declaring that my moving out of state or selling the car did not release me from still having to bring the car in for another inspection. If I did not comply, a warrant would be issued for my arrest.

[HARIVERA]

Let me start by saying I had just graduated from college, attending night classes, and I purchased my new first car. A 1977 Ford Pinto Wagon, a woody with three doors including the rear one. It was perfect?.well maybe!
I had two children (ages 5 and 1) and we were going to visit Disneyland in Southern California for the first time. OK now it?s set. Traveling on I-5 for a few hours, the 5-year old decided to take his seatbelt off and move around the back. I stopped the car in the side shoulder on that busy California freeway; with the driver-side door against my back (remember 3-doors), the driver seat punched forward, proceeded to re-buckle my son. Then an 18-wheeler about the size of a 747 speeding at about a thousand miles per hour, shot by me and my 1977 White-Woody Pinto Wagon. Without any physical contact, I was levitated and being pulled towards the road; I had to hold on to the seat and the inside on my White Pinto Death Wagon for dear life. Only to see my Pinto Wagon?s driver-side door chasing after the 18-wheeler, bouncing and turning like an Olympian gymnast. Apparently, the doors on my 1977 Ford Pinto Wagon were being held in place by two paper clips! After getting both my heart and family settled, I pick-up the remains of the side door, and tied to the roof of my wagon (minus one door) and staring to look for a Ford dealer. Needless to say we missed a day at Disneyland while finding the dealer in Fresno and we were required to explaining what happened about 15 times, I know the guys at Ford were laughing and while making me re-live the event. Especially the part about the door chasing the truck
First new cars are special, its? like your first high-school crush, well I sold that 1977 Ford Pinto Wagon after two or more recalls.

Hal

[jfingon]

Hello readers:
I wonder do all bad things come in threes?
What is unique about my tale is that these three stories honestly happened to me in the SAME ORDER on the SAME trip on our first wedding anniversary many years ago. My kids love hearing these stories over and over again… at my expense, although they are pretty ridiculous but were NOT funny at the time.
Story #1 We were in a car rental in the Florida Keys and my late husband and I were going to drive to a nature preserve to observe key deer (very cute small deer). We used NO map and of course, got lost (pre GPS) and my husband didn’t want to ask for directions. Somehow, we got off road and then the road looked kinda funny and there were no road signs. It wasn’t until I saw a WIND SOCK outside my side car window that I realized we were in real trouble, at a small airport and you quessed it-- a small plane was taxiing down the runway towards us! Luckily, we made a quick escape.
Story #2 On the same trip mind you… my husband decided to stop at a rest area and change his shoes and left his sneakers and our BRAND NEW camera on the roof of the car. As we drove off I said ‘I heard something’ and he said ‘it was nothing’. When we realized what had happened and we went back we found his sneakers, but not the camera, hence, no camera… NO PICTURES of our trip.
Story #3 This one happened after going to the beach. My husband wanted to pack clothes for us so later we could change and go to a fancy restaurant for dinner. He packed two nice dress shirts and 2 pairs of pants— but since we had similar color pants, yup…both pants were his not mine! So, I had NO pants and only a bathing suit bottom to cover my bottom. I was so mad I made him buy me an expensive pair of pants in the nearby boutique shop so we could go to dinner, hence, an VERY expensive dinner!
Morale of the story …never trust a guy who doesn’t know where he is going, leaves things on the roof of a car, or packs clothes for you that you might need later. It is a miracle we didn’t get a divorce after all that!

[cdrenan]

Picture this. It’s the 60’s and we’re one of just a few dozen American families living in Luxembourg, Luxembourg. A bunch of the families decide to go to Austria for a ski vacation. My dad’s driving our Plymouth Fury in the wee hours of a snowy Sunday morning down a hairpin turn mountain. I’m frightened but I’m only 15 so I figure I should just go to sleep as there’s nothing I can do. As soon as I close my eyes, BAMM! Dad runs off the road and into a tree. We’re precariously perched on the side of a steep mountain with just a tree wedged between the front tire and the driver’s door that’s holding us up! My parents say, “Nobody move!” They then climb into the back seat and then we each ease out of the back doors one by one.

After we get out, my dad walks to the nearest house to ask for help. They call a buddy who brings a little flatbed truck used for hauling coffins. The truck weighs less than our car. In fact, there are no tow trucks big enough to haul out our “big” American car. And the trucks have to head uphill when hauling us because there’s a rock face wall on the other side of the road.

With each attempt, our car is sinking farther and farther down the hill. Someone chains our car to the tree. Finally 2 trucks and a jeep work in tandem to pull out the Fury. The jeep was hooked up between one of the trucks and our car. It bounced up and down off the road when the truck started pulling! Miraculously, the car is still drivable and we got to Austria that day!

Sadly, the Fury came to a poor end. It was dropped when being offloaded from a ship when we moved back to the States. Both axles were broken. The even sadder thing is that my dad sold his MGA for $35 in Luxembourg because he wasn’t going to pay for a 2nd car to be shipped back! He was a family man after all.