Re-posted from my old blog - wow - I have certainly improved as a writer! I proofed this and it needs a megaton of editing! It's like going back and reading something you wrote in high school... I wrote this in 2009 - so try and work with the perspective shift.
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Sometime around 6 years ago in the beginning of July I had an honestly nice, fun, week long vacation. Aside from an extreme sunburn that I got from enjoying the pool too much, everything about this vacation was wonderful. But, I'm not going to tell you about that vacation. I am going to tell you about the next vacation I had about 3 weeks ago. Yes, that's 6 years I didn't take a real vacation. Instead, pretty much every year I was either too broke to do anything, or I had to use my vacation time to move here or there.
But this year I wanted things to be different. Sarah and I have finally found a house that we really enjoy living in, I have a stable if not low paying job at a computer shop and we had been saving our change and small bills in a jar for over a year. So we were determined. Some friends of ours told us about a condo that they rented for a week last summer that cost around $500 for the entire week and was awesome. Gulf-Coast Florida, 1 block from the beach, night-life every where, fun, freedom, and relaxation. But that didn't happen either. The day I called to make reservations for the condo, the manager had just gotten off the phone renting the place to someone else for most of the time we wanted to be there. So Sarah and I started brain storming and strangely enough an old movie popped into my head and gave me an idea. The movie (you're going to love this) was "Deliverance." No I didn't want to be... well you know... but a canoeing trip and camping did sound fun and so we made it happen. We found a place that rented canoes in West Virginia (near Maryland) and reserved a 3 day canoeing/camping trip. Nearly 60 miles on the Shenandoah River and 2 nights of roughing it in the woods (and maybe a campground). For the rest of the week we reserved a cabin in the middle of nowhere next to the Platonic river. Relaxation, freedom, and a lot of reading was in our near future. That was the plan. But if you know me, or have heard any stories about me from my family, I am sure that you know that there is nothing about this plan that is going to go the way I want it to.
So after weeks of planning and preparation, we loaded my 1995 Suburban to the brim with camping gear, food and supplies enough to last us 3 days on the river and another 3-4 days on the road and in a cabin. The drive started out beautifully. It was a wonderful, not too hot, Sunday morning and we set out to get br
eakfast. Of course everything was packed from the church people etc. So we drove and waited to see a Waffle House, Denny's, or whatever, to stop and eat yummy goodness. The first one we saw was one of those blue signs that says "food next exit" with a Waffle House logo. Of course we missed the tiny "20.0 miles" lettering under the logo and drove about 10 miles into Taylor county before we gave up and headed back to the interstate. So we drove on and found a Cracker Barrel right off an exit and stopped and ate yummy goodness. I also got to try on this wicked hat.
Off again we headed for West Virginia. We had to stop a couple of time to get gas and rest and so
it took us nearly 4 hours to get to the border of West Virginia. Then it happened. A little less than 30 miles into West Virginia (something like 300-400 miles to our destination) the truck started making a god-awful whining noise and when ever I took my foot off the gas and put it back on, the whole thing pulled to the right. I stopped on the side of the interstate and started looking for damage. I saw nothing. Back in the car, I put on the hazard lights and crawled our way to the next exit. I knew that we were screwed. I think that a normal person's reaction to this kind of situation would be to freak out a little bit, get angry, get sad, be in denile, but for me I just shrugged and said "it figures" and tried to figure out what the hell we were going to do.
I asked everyone I saw that looked like a local if they could recommend a shop. Oh - did I mention that it's Sunday late afternoon and we are in the small town of
Milton, West Virginia? We were lucky to find a gas station that was open. Pretty much everyone we talked to said that "Hubey" is the guy to take it to, but of course he would not be open until the morning. So I drove the truck, right passed the closed mechanic's shop and into an Advance Auto Parts. The truck by the way was literally screaming and clunking (more like banging) the whole voyage between the filling station. So at the auto parts store I started trying to figure out what is wrong with the truck. My best guess is that there is something wrong with the very used rear end that was put on my truck as a replacement for my very used and bad rear end that was already on the truck when I bought it. The guy's at Advance pretty much confirmed my fears and they as well recommended that I take the truck to "Hubey." "Not because hes my uncle either," said the manager of the auto parts store. There was no way that I could fix it by myself so we had no choice but to stay in this little town until we can get the truck fixed. In other words, we had to cancel our vacation. So I called and begged for my money back from the canoe people.
For a second you thought that's all there was to it. Right? Well you're wrong. There is more. There is a lot more. So our current goal was to find a hotel to stay in while we got the truck fixed. Well guess what... There is no hotel in Milton, WV. No bed and breakfast, no motel, no nearby camping. Nothing. Get a taxi you say? Go to the next town you say? Well there is no Taxi in Milton, WV and no Taxi service in any of the surrounding towns will come to Milton, WV to pick you up. Get a rental car you say? Well there is no rental car company in Milton, WV and none of the rental car companies in any of the surrounding towns will deliver you a car to Milton, WV. What? Maybe a hotel in one of those towns has shuttle service and will come pick us up. OH HELL NO. NOT TO MILTON, BLOODY, WEST VIRGINIA!!!!!!! How do I know all this you ask? I had phone book and a cell phone. I called ALL of them, every single one and nothing. We were quite literally stranded in one of the worst possible towns we could have broken down in (that is next to the interstate at least.) So I did what any independent, stubborn, strong willed 28 year old man would do in this situation. I called my Mama.
"What do I do Mama?"
"Da dudu DA! Mommy to the rescue!"
I should point out at this point that I love my mama. She is the shiznit. Top notch 100%. If there was a "Mom of the universe pageant " she would not only raise the bar, she would make a new bar, gold plate it, and her wonderfulness would lift it so high that no other mom in the entire spectrum of dimensions of universes would even come within a parsec of even seeing that bar with a telescope like Hubble, and a million years to upgrade it. Yeah that's right, my mom drove from Glasgow, KY, that's 5 hours in one straight shot, to Milton (insert ambiguous curse words here) West Virginia. She drove us to the next town over to a Hotel and told us that she was going to help us get a rental car and said, "You are going to have a vacation." RIGHT? I TOLD YOU! MY MOM FREAKING ROCKS!
The next day we set out to figure everything out. I clunked the truck to the auto shop where he estimated about $600.00 for what we both figured was wrong with it and it would be ready sometime around Friday and we would be coming back through town on Saturday. Perfect? Maybe... He said that he would look at it the next day. So I called the canoe people and asked them to cancel my cancellation and change our trip to a 2 day instead of a three day trip.
"No problem."
We went to Enterprise car rental and got a car. A nice car. a 2009 Toyota Matrix. Very cool, small, gas smart, power everything, all in all a very yummy car. So now our plan is to get in the rental car, canoe for two days, go to the cabin, relax, read books, then drive back and pick up the truck on Saturday. Good plan.
Mom headed home, hugs and kisses, and love. And we headed out to finish our vacation. I find that it is important to note that we found the best subway on the planet on our way. Not just because we were starving and there were no towns for like 100 miles that had food next to the highway. This subway had pizza and they let you pick whatever you want on it (anything from the subway bar) before they heat it up for you. AND THEY HAD MUSHROOMS! Every subway should have mushrooms. I had the most yummy subway cheese steak - with mushrooms and some other stuff. YUMMO!
We drove to the the town where the canoe rentals are and got a hotel room. The next morning, bright and early we ate breakfast and went to get our canoe. The company let us park the car in their lot and shuttled us 30 miles to the inlet where they dropped us off. We had a crazy person driving the van. He was a very good guy, very nice, good conversation, but when ever he did or said anything, his eyes followed his actions. So he would do stuff like turn his head behind him to look at me while I was talking.(so i stopped talking) And then, he went to grab his coffee from the cup holder. His eyes followed his action, just long enough to miss that there was an SUV stopped in the road about 20 feet in front of us. (we were in a big passenger van/bus with a trailor full of canoes behind us) Sarah and I both froze. Her and I both just could not make noise come out of our mouths. We braced and later we found out that both of us had thought and probably nearly the exact same instant "OH SHIT, WE'RE GONNA DIE!" He looked up and moved to the shoulder and stopped the van inches from the SUV - all was fine. So then he dropped us off at the inlet and took off. We loaded our 3 days of supplies into their largest, deepest canoe. In case you don't know, I weigh nearly 300 lbs, and Sarah weighs something like 140 or so. Our camping pack alone was like 100 lbs. We also had her gear and a cooler. That canoe was heavy, low in the water, and the Shenandoah was running pretty low. We were set to row about 40 miles in two days. There was nothing over a class 2 rapid the entire way (meaning no falls - just kinda maybe fast water and rocks). I had to try and tell Sarah how to handle fast water and rocks. I mean - I'm a rookie too, but I've been down a river and I get the engineering of how to paddle and stuff. We had several arguments about her doing all the work. I was steering and the way I was paddling, one of my strokes was like 5 of hers... So she was rowing a lot and I wasn't. It caused issues. Forgive me baby, but for this one I cannot let you off the hook. The first bit of fast water we came to - it was shallow and I was trying to tell Sarah to row hard and get some speed so that we would not get stuck. Yeah - that didn't work. The canoe got stuck on a rock, so Sarah freaked out and I started trying to get us unjammed. I looked up to tell Sarah what to do and seriously, she was not in the canoe. She had dropped her paddle, so she hopped up and jumped out of the boat and went after it. - I was upset. But that is part of canoeing - make mistakes, do a lot of work - bicker... We still had fun... At least for the first day.
So we rowed and rowed and stopped every once in a while for a break. We took it very easy - slow - it was very relaxing. And before we knew it, we had been rowing for 6 hours and it was time to start looking for our camp ground. We came across two obviously drunk, stoned, dudes floating along in tub
es and asked them where to find Watermelon Park. (we were right next to it) so we pulled in and started the adventure looking for someone to pay for a camp site. There was no one. The store was closed, the office was closed, there was no one there were no signs, nothing. So, we setup camp... As luck would have it, the very same guy that we had asked where the park is happened to be the guy that was running it. He floated up and we were like.
"Do you know who we need to talk to?"
"Well uh, I guess me, I'm kinda the manager or whatever. Just come find me later and I will open the store if you need me to. There's fire wood and stuff. I'll come over sometime and you can pay me."
Some manager... We put up the tent and I made dinner. Portobello caps with mixed cheese and herbs, fire roasted corn, and yummy vegetarian baked beans. My mouth is watering...
After dinner the phone calls started. Hubey, the mechanic, called to let me know that pretty much everything in the rear-end housing was shot. Pinion - axle gears - just gone. The entire rear end would have to be replaced. $2000.00. - I owed $3500 on the truck still. Its value had almost halved since last year when the gas prices hit $4.00 /gal. It was not even worth what I still owed on it. So the next morning I called Mom. I have to tell you that it is very very nice, weather you are an unlucky person or not, to know people who know people who know how to take care of stuff and are willing to help. And that is one of the reasons why my step-dad Ron is one of the most awesome people ever. He is a great guy. He and Mom fit together nicely. The awesomeness of those two together is like witnessing the birth of a universe. Ron is super nice and talks to anybody, makes friends, and people love him. And oh yeah - he plays golf, and he's good. So he's known and he knows a lot of people who are in business. And he is a good-ol-boy, meaning that he has been around the same few towns for a long time and he had done business with many people with whom he has gained much trust. Mom had Ron start making phone calls and I got more phone calls. Sarah pretty much took down and loaded up the camping gear by herself because I was on the phone the entire time. Ron's friend Jeff,from whom I have purchased several cars, called me and was brewing an idea. I told everyone that I was going to be unreachable, floating down a river, I could not talk for the rest of the day. That didn't stop anyone. They still called. So I put my phone in two bags, walmart bags, and tied it off to the seat of the canoe and we took off. I was on the phone pretty much the entire day talking to my banker, the car guy, the mechanic, Mom, Ron, the whole gang. One time we stopped on the shore to take a break, grabbed my phone and hopped out of the boat. As if God were trying to make my life just a little bit harder, the bags that I had the phone in ripped open and my phone fell, PLOP, straight into the water. I jumped and grabbed it. Took the battery out and freaked. Luckily, though it was wet, it still turned on and I was able to make more phone calls and finished to the point where I could take apart my phone and ask Mom if she could talk to people for me.
We rowed about 25 miles that day. We were stinky. The last mile of rowing was torture, but we made it. On the way we saw home huge fish, a lot of very beautiful herrings (blue and white) a small duck, deer, cows, a gazillion gaggles of geese, and one very sneaky water mochisen that swam next to us as we pulled in for a break. The guy that picked us up at the other end of the journey was really nice. As we pulled up to shore he said, "Are you still talking to each other?" We were all smiles, getting to the end was worth the journey and we loved it. The guy was super surprised at how willing we were to help him load everything onto the bus. I figure most of the asshole tourists that he deals with probably have the attitude that they paid for the trip and did all this and that's what he gets paid for and all that. Screw that, I'm no tourist and neither is Sarah, we have no problem getting our hands dirty.
Back on the road. Sarah got a picture of the Exit sign for the town where "Blaire Witch" is based.
And we wreaked. Sweat, dirt, river water, two day worn clothes. Wow it was bad. We drove to our next destination which was Berkeley Springs, WV to our cabin in the middle of no where. It sits 13 miles away from a town that is 30 miles away from the nearest Walmart. (this will be important later) It was marvelous. And we didn't get any pictures because we were exhausted. When we walked in the whole place smelled like candy. Hard wood floors, no cable service, no long distance, no cell service, there was a train just above the cabin (which was more relaxing than anything - it came by like a cool rumble and actually helped me sleep that night) We took showers and (nearly out of gas) went back to the town and went grocery shopping. I made black bean burritos and we fell asleep watching Kelly's heroes on DVD.
The next day as soon as we got to town, I found that I had something like 6 voice mails and I started making phone calls. So here's what I knew and what I found out about the truck situation. If you have heard of cash for clunkers it really saved our butts. The truck was not worth fixing so we had been talking with Jeff about getting me another car. In order to trade in my car, it had to be back (5-6 hours away from where it sat) in Glasgow KY. A tow bill of no less than $600.00 from one of the nicer people my parents talked to. And I would not even get that much for it in its current condition, just turning it in for a regular trade. My banker needed to talk with me, but I just gave him permission to talk to my mom and the others about my stuff so that they could figure stuff out. Jeff told mom about the cash for clunkers thing where I had to buy a brand new car, and I would trade in my truck and get like $4500 for it. Enough to pay it off and take some money off the car I would be buying, the only thing is that, the cheapest car I could get was a Pontiac Vibe for $17,000, but I was getting extra money off in factory discounts and like $1000 for getting a manual transmission. There was still the issue of how to get my car back to Glasgow. In case you don't know, my parents run a business selling storage buildings that can be delivered to a home via truck and trailer. Enter another wonderful person, Lyndon Yoder. He offered to come get the truck and bring it back for something like $350.00 (we gave him more - because he's awesome and more that you will find out later) - so finally we have everything figured out, but I am super stressed and I had forgotten to fill my prescription before we left for our trip.
That day we spent walking around Berkley Springs, looking at antiques and cool art and going to all of the cool shops (we had no money, but Sarah bought me something for my birthday, which was the next day, a dragon to add to my collection). After all this we started the adventure to find a place to full my scrip. I suppose you should know that I have problems with stress (wonder why..) and depression (really? no way...) So I take a generic version of Prozac to help level me out. I have this issue where chemical things (alcohol, THC, nyquill) effect me more than they seem they should (Sarah says I'm a cheap date). But in this case, when I don't have my meds, it effects me pretty badly. I get vertigo and irritable and headachey... All that good stuff... So this is important. Have to get my meds. So I went to the local rite-aid. At home there is this service where I can get a month's worth of my meds for $4.00. At the rite-aid in this town my meds were $107.00. Yep...$103 more... NO FREAKIN" WAY!!! So we drove again, 30 miles to the town with the Walmart so that I could get my pills and not have to buy hemroid pills along with them. But guess what, I waited in line and as I got there the lady took my sheet and started the paperwork and then was like - oh yeah - I can't fill this until tomorrow You should go to the next town to the next walmart and get it there. 20 more miles - and we went 10 miles in the wrong direction before we realized it. So 30 more miles to the next walmart - 60 miles one way to get some pills so that I would not blow a gasket... But we got them and we went back to the cabin. I made veggie burgers, fries and baked beans for dinner and we fell asleep, exhausted again, this time watching some other movie that I don't even remember.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! It's Friday July 31st. The first day that we had to sit down by the river and relax, read books, and do nothing. Pancakes. yumm... some war movie before Sarah woke up. Very cool. Loving it. Good day so far. I think it was around 9:00 when Sarah woke up and ate with me. We got dressed and grabbed our stuff to head to the river. Our plan? Nothing and as much of it as possible, just enjoy the day and each other, and relax. Pineapple upside-down cake for my b-day - pasta (my favorite) for dinner and I wanted to polish off a good chunk of the Stephen Hawking book Sarah had already given me as a present. We walked out the door and as I closed the door, Sarah said, hey do you have the keys? I need to get into the car... You should know that the doors to the cabin were tricky. If the door was locked, it would let you open it from the inside, but not from the outside and it didn't unlock it when you opened it. So as she said that, and I rocked the door closed, I realized that I had left my keys on the kitchen counter. We were locked out and our phones started ringing (from inside the cabin). We looked, hard, for a way to get in the cabin. Who ever put in the air conditioners was thorough and screwed them to the window seat. - no luck there. The back doors and all of the windows were tightly locked. Fortunately I have been locked out of my house many times... I found a vegetable garden on the back porch and found one of those little plastic, plant marker things in the dirt. By itself it was too flimsy to use, so i doubled it over and as long as it took Sarah to say "I've never been able to do that." I had the back door open.
Mom had called, all three phones - both the cells and the cabin phone. Later I heard the message on my voice mail. "JASON! CALL YOUR MAMA NOW!!!" So apparently this cash for clunkers thing was pretty new (like a week old) and already the program was starting to run out of money. So Mom was trying to call me to tell me all of this and to drop a bombshell. "You have to head back home now. You have to have the paperwork done and everything as soon as possible or they will not do the trade on your car." My birthday and as soon as we tried to do anything, we had to get back on the road. So we loaded everything up and left, a day early and without having more than an hour or two of waking relaxation since we left Louisville for our first vacation in 6 years.
I wish that was it. I wish that I could sum up my feelings about all this and get to the part where I tell you that everything turned out okay, yadda, yadda, but that isn't how life goes in my reality. More phone calls. Our friend Lyndon was on his way to butt*( I mean Milton) to pickup the truck etc etc. Our plan now is, take the rental car back to Louisville, pickup all the paperwork on the truck that we need for the trade, then drive to Glasgow and get a new car. So we figured we would call Enterpise as a courtesy to let them know that we would be returning the car in Glasgow. It really should have been that easy. I was driving fast, so Sarah called the rental place and they just flat out said "no, sorry you can't do that." HUH? we can't take the enterprise rental car and turn it in at an enterprise rental place? "no sorry we don't do that". So we called mom again and Ron called enterprise. They basically said that we could return the car there and go to Ashland KY to rent a car to take to Glasgow. The response that Ron received to his partially sarcastic question, "How do you expect them to get there? Hitch hike?" was - "Sorry sir I really don't know" - no sense of humor... So now what the hell are we supposed to do? Mom was freaking out and she thought that she was going to have to drive to Milton and pick us up, again. So we called Lyndon and that beauty of a Mennonite wonder waited for us for two hours after he picked up the truck and gave us a lift to Glasgow. On the way there, a 1995 Suburban blew a tire right in front of us and we stopped to help. It was a good thing too because the guy's spare was flat and I just happened to have a pump in the truck. We dropped the truck off at about 10PM that night and went to sleep in mom's guest room.
The next day I accidently set off Mom and Ron's fire extinguisher in the back of their brand new car and we headed up to Louisville to get the paperwork for my car. We needed the title, the past year of insurance cards, and the registration receipts. Believe it or not, I found all of that pretty easily. We stayed the night in Louisville and Mom and I went back to Glasgow the next day. I was supposed to be back at work on Monday, so I had to call my boss and ask if I could swap days to take care of all of this. (I swear if it were anyone else telling this story no one would have believed it, but Dan just said - wow, alright man - do what you need to do...Another cool person in a long line of cool people who helped me through all of this.) Monday. Mom and I started the process. We went to the dealer and I looked at the car they found for me. (cool car 2009 Pontiac Vibe, Standard trans. 130HP 3 months free xm and onstar and oh yeah the exact same car as the toyota matrix Sarah and I had been driving around. Made in the same factory) So the sales person tells us we need the lean released from the title. That means a trip to the bank in Edmonton. While we were there we did the paperwork and got a check for a car I have not even bought with a trade that has not even been approved (I got the car for about 12000 after everything including paying off the truck) The funny thing about kentucky and leans, is that the lean is registered in the county that you were living in when you bought the car... I move a lot - remember - 6 years of using my vacation time to move... When I bought that car I lived in Bowling green - about an hour drive from Edmonton and 45 minutes back to Glasgow. And the other beautiful thing about Kentucky and leans, is that they have to be released in the county that you lived in when you bought the car (except in some circumstances, but I'm not that lucky) So after talking with everyone again, we felt it was best if we just went ahead and drove to BG to get this dealt with (2 hours of driving for less than 5 minutes at the court house...BAH!) And that was it... Kinda... I had to wait 72 hours for approval for the trade. AND we gave the dude a check for the car that I have not even bought yet because we are waiting for approval for a trade and I could do nothing about it. Mom took me home. 2 hours to Louisville and 2 hours back. I told you my Mom rocks. Sarah lost her job as soon as she got back because 2 guys that were supposed to cover for her didn't show up and for some dumb reason the manager blamed Sarah and fired her (well she told him to shove it and she quit as he was trying to fire her...Go baby!) A week later Mom and Ron brought me my new car.
I love my new car. I calculated the miles per dollar at near current gas prices for the new car is about 13 miles per dollar. The truck was getting 4. I figured that the difference in gas is close to the difference in my insurance and car payment, so I think I am going to break even on it. Which is nice. It is really fun to drive and it is small - which I love. But man this was stressful... I'm sure that everyone thought that I was joking when I said that I was looking forward to getting back to work so that I could take a vacation from my vacation, but I wasn't. It was nice to get back to monotonous chaos of fixing computers and writing web pages.
I have a lot of stories that are a lot like this one. This is the seventh car I've owned and each one has at least one story for you. If you ask nicely, I might just post some of them.
If you proof read this, let me know what you find. I plan to revise this to be a more well rounded story.
