Month: June 2016

Chapter 60 – Flying by the Seat of My Pants

Posted on by petehurrey

Orlando ended on such a depressing note, I was happy to hit the road. For the first time since embarking on this End Game Journey, I would be doing an Interstate fly from east-to-west. I didn’t have any desire to hang around the east coast any longer. Although, since both Mike and Eric had day jobs, I was able to plow ahead bang out nine chapters of the new novel, ‘Collarbones.’ I love this ‘throw up on the page’ stage of writing. After a lengthy discussion with my buddy Andrea it was decided that she would bow out of the project. Our styles were just too different. We didn’t have an argument, just discussed the situation like adults – go figure!

Anyway, that opened up the floodgates and allowed me to plow ahead. We agreed that I would be free to use her character in my story and bludgeon out the rough story. Once I am through catching up on the trip here, back to the novel it will be. I was thinking, now I might actually have two novels to get into e-book format before Christmas. Cool. Maybe I might actually sell some this time! What a novel idea that would be …

Back to the trip …

I left early on June 15 and just headed north. My loose plan was to take U.S. 441 and U.S. 41 up to Valdosta, GA where I would pick up I-75 and take it all the way north through Tennessee, before heading west. At some point in the trip I needed to work my way up about 900 to 1,000 miles to get me back to San Ramon. Might as well be in the beginning parts of the trip as opposed to the end of the trip. At least I wouldn’t be going anywhere near fucking Texas!

The trip up 441 was fairly lazy and slow with local towns popping up every few miles along the way – requiring numerous slow downs. That was okay, I didn’t have a schedule to keep, so I just rolled along oblivious to the world, my brain took nap until I saw a sign for I-75.

I took the road and about ten minutes later, Lucy and I were zooming along at 80 and beating feet to get out of Florida.

Now, as is always the case, each Interstate has its own rhythm and pace and it usually took me about 20 miles to get in tune with that particular roadway. 75 was no different except I had to factor in about a million tourists heading home from Florida’s west coast. I can safely say that tourists are wonderful things unless you have to drive along side them trying to get somewhere, anywhere. Man, what a pain. Cars stuffed to the window brims with kids, dogs, souvenirs, and mostly bedraggled parents and grandparents. Talk about some grumpy people. I thought I was a grouch.

My experience is that after about a week in Florida, wallet drained, patience gone, tourists turn into closet monsters and gargoyles. Ever seen the original Dusk to Dawn? It’s kind of like that. All beautiful and fun and then the sun goes down and mayhem ensues. Typical of the tourists’ experience.

So factor in the normal frequency adjustment for a new Interstate, add in a bunch of tourists – ninety percent of whom are compete raving maniacs and about a thousand long-haul truckers and a few pitiful road warriors like Lucy and me and you can imagine the chaos. We didn’t figure out the rhythm of I-75 for about a hundred miles. By then I was as lunatic as the fucking tourists. Hell, even the damn rest stop pee breaks were a pain. A pain to find a place to park, lines at the urinals and rug rats running all over the place, including on the road into and out of the area. I was really, really, really happy to see the Georgia state line!

The thing noteworthy about my travels through Georgia on 75 was the fact that every whistle stop along the way seemed to have a “spa” where, of course, one could go to “relieve the stresses.” I thought it a bit strange that Georgia would allow a spa per exit until reaching Atlanta and the advertising stopped.

So did the traffic. Note to self: Add Atlanta to the ‘no drive’ zone much in the same sense as Texas is a ‘No drive’ zone whenever possible. I hit the southern outskirts of Atlanta at 3:30 and escaped the fifteen miles sometime about six. You think I was a lunatic earlier, I was stark raving mad by the time I got out of that fucking town. I even screamed aloud, I’m sorry to say. Go Back to Work! Assholes! Trucks diving two and three lanes, cars zooming by on the slow lanes, cutting four or five lanes of traffic and slamming on their brakes coming to a complete stop after almost killing half the commuters in their path. And few dumb souls who just pick a lane and hang out crawling along at between 5 and 15 miles an hour (and stopped). Of course, because Atlanta seemed to be a Mecca for all the Interstates in the area, on at least three different occasions, I found myself having to switch across two and three lanes of traffic to manage to stay on I-75.

I finally escaped, drove about another hour and found a hotel, got a room and drank myself to sleep. You think I was happy to see the Georgia state line out of Florida, you can’t imagine the jubilation of seeing the Welcome to Tennessee sign the next morning. Finally!

Tennessee was fairly benign and travel there was pretty easy-going until I hit the Nashville area and the merge with I-40. It wasn’t as bad as Atlanta, but it wasn’t fun either. I stopped at an eat-here and get-gas just before the Kentucky line. It was time to get something to eat, and, of course, fill up Lucy … again. Sigh. Damn girl will pass anything but a gas station.

It was there I met, Jennifer. Now, I usually have some banter with the clerks at these places, but Jennifer picked up on the fact that this store’s policy to card everyone showed that I was a Californian. We joked about me printing up my fake I.D. so I could buy beer and we both had, had similar experiences with the dreaded Texas and we ended up talking for a good ten minutes and laughing and joking. She represents the real reason I enjoy my road trips. The Jennifers and the Rogers (Cold Beer, NM) of the world make all the frustrations worthwhile.

After a 90-mile jog through Kentucky I finally hit the turn west in Southern Illinois. Not much there, but I was finally off I-75 and onto I-64 until St. Louis where I would pick up I-70. Now I won’t bore you with much in the way of commentary from here on out. There were no significantly important events or interesting people along the way from here on, until I got to the Bonneville Salt Flats on the Utah, Nevada border. Yep, central U.S., you’re pretty boring along your Interstates. I’ll give you a one sentence or one short graph about each state I managed to pass through:

Missouri – You’ll have to show me, I mean I got nothing.

Iowa – The whitest state I have ever seen, no blacks, no Hispanics or Latinos, not even Native Americans even though they probably own most of the state, They do have some Amish folk. At least that was different.

Nebraska – 404 miles of pretty much nothing. Omaha and Lincoln didn’t even bother with much of a rush hour. And, more cows in that state than any other through which I have passed.

Wyoming – Okay I couldn’t under stand most of them. Think Minnesota accent at 300 words a minute. What?

Utah – Absolutely gorgeous. Absolutely worthless to the traveler. I have never seen so many “No Services” signs on so many exits as I did when in Utah. The Great Salt Lake is a large puddle of white dead water with ugly shoreline.

Which all brings us to the Bonneville Salt Flats Speedway exit on I-80 which straddles the Nevada border. Sleepy little town on the Utah side and row upon row of Casino across the border smack dab in the middle of the town. Stop for the night at the first hotel and got my ground floor room, but had to fight for a room with a microwave so I could heat up my dinner. No, I have no idea what it was, just remember that it needed to be heated. Well the two clerks, one regular and one in training ended up doing a room by room to find me one with a functional microwave. Twenty minutes later I finally got to my room, cranked up the microwave with my dinner inside and pulled a steaming hot mess of nothing. The plate got hot, but not the food. I took three bites and threw the rest in the trash, popped a beer and day dreamed of a real vegetable.

That’s one interesting thing about everywhere I visited back east: No one regularly cooked anything remotely resembling a vegetable. Jeesh! When they did, it was corn or carrots, which are okay, but damn man, how about some broccoli or green beans or sprouts? Something?

The next day, I woke up stupid early and headed out. This was going to be the last push to home. Nevada went by amazingly fast considering it was 409 miles across. Then I hit the California border. Passed over at about noon and all progress ground to a halt. I guess everyone decided to go to the mountains for Father’s Day and decided to come home after lunch. It took me four and a half hours to get past Sacramento and to my turn off to San Ramon. Forty-five minutes later I was home and the house was empty. Well, except for the cats. They were there. But, I was home. I unloaded and popped a beer and propped my feet up. Ahhhhhh.

 

Chapter 59 – The Road Beckoned, I Answered, Fell Flat on my Face

Posted on by petehurrey

The wonders that are life experiences come in all shapes, sizes, and situations. This most recent road trip was proof that wonders never cease; at least for me, anyway. Of course, you can write that off as dementia and go to breakfast with a clear conscious. What do I care? If you’re right, I won’t remember, so scoff all you want.

So, I knew at launch on May 8 that I was going to have to scrape for money and believe me, scrape I did. I’ll spare you the details but with the generosity of a couple of kids, a couple of relatives and some friends, I managed to make the west-to-east Interstate fly by the skin of my teeth and fired the lazy-assed moths flying out of my wallet. Now don’t get me wrong, I never ran out of beer and smokes! That would have been a real disaster. I didn’t eat too much, not that you can tell by my ever-present beer gut. A snack here, a half a sandwich there, my usual ice cold beer and pack of smokes pretty much sums up a typical day on this leg of the trip (well, for the beer and smokes, that’s everyday).

I stopped in Albuquerque and got a free night staying with my daughter-in-law’s mother. (How does one classify that relationship? Beats me.) The good thing was that Carol fed and watered me pretty well. To that point, the trip had been a fairly boring run through the California, Arizona and New Mexican deserts. Seen one mile of sand and scrub, seen pretty much all of them.

After a nice breakfast with Carol where I had to choose green or red at the time of my order (If you don’t know what that means, you don’t live in New Mexico!), I was off to points east, which, of course, included the dreaded Texas. At least I only had to go through the panhandle this time. Ha!

So the speed limit up north there in the panhandle was only 75 as opposed to 80, which is pretty much the speed limit everywhere else in Texas (including Mabel’s driveway). Hmm I thought. I decided to dial back Lucy’s speed to 75 on the button instead of our normal 85-88 everywhere else. Did I tell you Lucy loves speed almost as much as I do? I got a kick out of hitting the ‘resume’ on the cruise control at about 55 or 60 and sitting back and enjoying the g-forces pinning me down. She accelerates back up to speed faster than any car I have ever owned. What a trip!

Anyway, for about two hours, we were just cruising along doing a rather pedestrian 75 when I noticed an interesting, black-on-black painted police cruiser sitting in that, official use only U-turn thingy, next to a blue station wagon (I guess they’re called crossovers now – way to go car manufacturers – you found a way to sell station wagons again …). Anyway, I checked my speed, which was stupid. Lucy never varied from her assigned speed by more than a half-mile-per-hour and that is downhill. Going up, she just glues the speedometer where it’s supposed to be and goes without even a change in RPMs.

I passed on by, not giving the cop a second thought … until he roared up behind me and flashed his blue and whites. Crap! Well I was in the slow lane and pulled over and stopped, rolled down my window and placed my hands at the old 10 and 2 like a good boy and waited. Of course, this arrogant snot came up to the passenger side, almost falling down the steep embankment there. (I had pulled way over to help him not get squashed by a rolling semi, but …) I, stifling a laugh, rolled down the passenger window and decided this was a perfect time to ask the age-old question, “Is there a problem, Officer?”

“Well I clocked you going 78 in a 75 and am going to ask you to slow down a bit,” was his polite reply.

“You’re kidding. I had the cruise control pegged at exactly 75, sir. Damn.”

“Those look like oversized tires, that must be it. You have to watch those big tires and their effect on your speed.”

Okay that was complete Bull Shit! This guy was just fucking with me – must have been low on his quota for harassing old farts in California-tagged red jeeps. I nodded.

“May I see your license and registration and insurance card, sir?” he asked. I’ll have to give him this – he was a polite asshole.

“Sure. I’ll have to get the registration out of the glove compartment, sir.”

He nodded and watched me lean over (after unbuckling my seat belt), and waited patiently for me to dig up the paperwork. Of course, I couldn’t find my insurance card – left it back in my bedroom in San Ramon. Can they send you to Texas prison for evading insurance responsibilities? Hoped not.

“Is this your car, sir?” he asked.

“Well, it’s in my son’s name because the bank wouldn’t give me the financing, but it’s my car.”

“Why wouldn’t they give you financing?”

“Beats the hell out of me, sir. I make the payments and I drive it, so it’s mine.”

“Will you accompany me back to my car so I can issue you the warning. Just sit in the passenger seat.”

This is fucking weird. “Okay.” I turned off the engine and followed him back to his car.

“Sit there in the passenger seat.”

I complied and watched him call in my license plate, heard him get the ‘no wants, no warrants’ and then listened getting steamed as he repeated the request for the second time. I know this guy is just fucking with me.

“Do you have one of those California wacky tobacky licenses?” he asked out of the blue.

“What?”

“Do you have a prescription for Marijuana?”

“No sir.”

“Well I smelled something funny when you rolled down the window. Do you mind if I take a look in your car?”

Fuck! “No, be my guest. I do smoke cigarettes, maybe that’s what you smelled. I just finished one when you pulled me over,” I said. I envisioned this local yokel looking through my seven scripts lying neatly in a box on the front seat and getting grilled about each drug. This guy is really just fucking with me. He was probably talking to a girl in that blue crossover and decided to show her a ‘real cop in action.’

Well he wandered around Lucy and opened one door and came back. “I’ll just issue a verbal warning to slow down, I can’t print it out, my printer is acting up. But, please slow down sir.”

“Thank you.” Then I added not being able to resist and having held my tongue for a half hour, “You know, that’s a pretty tricky deal with that paint job,” and I got out, started up Lucy and roared back onto the highway, stopping at 73 miles per hour. When I was over the hill, I hit the ‘resume’ button and we were once again going 75. Three state troopers, two county Mounties later, all of whom completely ignored us, I crossed into Oklahoma and pulled off to give Lucy a juice break. I hate Texas!!!

It was fairly early so after filling up the glutton and refilling my road tankard of soda, and of course, going pee, we hit the road. I retuned the cruise control to 83 and rolled on past Oklahoma City to about 100 miles from the Arkansas border and called it a night (meaning, drank my beer and ate the half sandwich left over from pre Texas asshole cop lunch).

No need to bore you with a regurgitation of the events in Maryland and Myrtle Beach. I hit the highlights there in Chapter 58.

Now comes Orlando …

I hesitated for quite a while before moving on to the town where I raised my kids and made a fortune or two (lost them both, too, but what the hell, easy come easy go …). I got there late on Thursday and the boys, Eric and Mike and I did our normal thing when we haven’t seen each other for a while, joke and play a Cribbage tournament. Then on Friday, we went out and shot pool with equal enthusiasm. Saturday, we met up with a more pitiful friend than a Redskin or a Red Sox sports fan – Brandon, a (wait for it) Cleveland sports fan. I’ll wait for a few moments for you to collect yourself. Better now? Okay. Yes the poor boy is a diehard Cleveland fan and has been waiting for something good to happen for his town for about 40 years.

While we were at the bar, a young woman come over and approached Mike (tall dark and handsome dude) and asked him if she could bring over her 5’11’’ friend to meet him. I interrupted and said, “While you’re in procurement mode, bring over any woman with a Santa fetish. I’m on vacation.”

“Okay Santa. Can I tell her who you really are?” she laughed.

“Just refer to me as Chris. After all, I’m off duty until 6 months from now while the stupid elves do their thing. Mostly a figure head.” I said. I rubbed my beer gut and stroked my road beard. “Go on, see what you can do. I’ll take you off the naughty list …” laughed and then added, “unless, you want to stay on the naughty list … the rumors aren’t true, sometimes naughty is very, very nice.” Laughs all around.

She came back with her Amazonian friend who proceeded to sheepishly talk to Mike. Eric leaned over and said, “I’m proud of you, man. How’d you come up with the Santa routine?”

“Seemed like the thing at the time,” I said.

The girl came over and draped her arm around my shoulder, “Santa. Sorry there were no takers?”

“Oh well, thanks for trying … unless you’re hiding a passion for old fart elves … are you?”

She gave me a hug and said that her husband at the bar would probably frown a bit.

“Invite him along.”

We all laughed and I headed back to the apartment leaving the boys to it. The Cavs lost setting up their miraculous come from behind victory over the Warriors. Brandon is happy, but …

We woke up Sunday morning and in my news feed on the computer was a headline about a shooting at an Orlando bar during the night. I clicked on the article in the Washington Post. Shit! At that time there were only 20 reported dead at the hands of what was thought to be a lone gunman at Pulse. Which is a club about three blocks from the kid’s apartment. When they emerged from their slumbers, the TV went on and for the rest of the day we watched as the senseless act was documented, over and over again, by ten talking heads. Making the situation worse was the fact that, in his position as point man for an Orlando beer distributor, Mike knew most of the staff at that bar and his phone was blowing up.

If you know me, by now you know I would normally be off on some rant about absurdity and stupidity, but this one kind of leaves me numb.

In my mind, there is absolutely no reason on earth to take the innocent lives of other human beings. I don’t care what their proclivities happen to be, I don’t care what gender they happened to be, I don’t care what religion they happened to be, I don’t care about the color of their skin, their nationality or even what their moral code might entail or encompass. We all have one little thing in common, and no matter how we want to couch it, it’s inescapable: We are all, at our very core, human beings and deserve the same rights, privileges, and respect as every other human on this stupid little planet.

 

I’ll write about the return trip in Chapter 60. I leave you with this: It is about time we started, as a race, to put aside our petty little differences and start to just do as that wisest of men, Rodney King once said, “ … just get along …”