Trip I Have Known
Trips:
I went from Madison to Eugene in a 1955 bread truck 30 some years ago. It was quite an adventure. There were three of us and the truck was fitted out for camping. Unfortunately it wasn't fitted out for power or speed. On the highway we peaked out at 55 mph. That is if the terrain was flat. Once we reached the Rocky mountains it was apparent that we would need to skirt them somehow. We headed south and except for Raton pass on the border between CO and NM we made it. At the top of the pass me David and I had to jump out and push. It was lucky for us that it was late and the freeway traffic was light. Later we took a side road through AZ so late in the night that we never met another car. By the time we got to Eugene 2 weeks later we had chalked up a nice set of memories.
A few years earlier my girlfriend and I took a road trip to TN from GB. As was our wont we drove late. This kept the trip fun. There were fewer cars and fewer headaches out there in the dark. An additional fact was that the puny radio in our Mercury subcompact worked best after dark. In those days AM radio was where the music was and most stations played the same top 40 songs. A new song moving up the charts would be played incessantly which can be either good or bad. "You know what I mean" was good for us. That song wormed it's way into our brains and it seemed that as soon as it ended one could switch channels and hear it again (just like an I-pod on repeat).
Late night on the second day we were on an empty freeway in southern IN when we passed a large moving van. The road had become hilly and although we were small and underpowered we were young and just couldn't abide following a truck if we could pass it. It was then that we noticed the second van ahead. By then we were going down hill and the semis were really moving. Our passed semi passed us and we thought that was that - lets just fall in behind and convoy. It didn't work that way. The two trucks would slow to the point where we would pass them again and then catch us on the next downhill. At some point we realized they were playing with us, keeping us between them most of the time and also dramatically speeding up and slowing down. We were bouncing between 40 and 80 mph and not liking it one bit. Being stalked by two semi trucks , starts to make one nervous. It then makes one paranoid and finally it scares the shit out of you. When you look in the rear view mirror and see nothing but chrome grill and nothing but trailer in front, there is that cold grip of panic that needs to be fought off. After about 20 minutes we found an exit and were able to breath a sigh of relief. Later in 1971 Stephen Spielberg released "Duel" on TV. Anonamous truck driver hunting down innocent traveler in small car - how original!
Years ago one of my friends drove to Denver from Madison to make what was in essance a beer run. He was talking with friends about how special Coors beer was. Of course in those days Coors wasn't pasturized and therefore was only shipped to the local Denver area. This made it a somewhat mythical brew in a brew crazy town. Anyhow to settle the dispute Tom left his short order cook's job at 3 on a Friday and set off for Denver to buy some beer. I think he talked his girlfriend into going with him, I'm not sure. Anyhow by Sunday he was back in Madison with A trunkful of Coors and ice. What do you tell a guy who went all the way to Denver for a beer. Of course "it was the best beer I had ever tasted".
Years later my wife was a manager of a respiratory therapy department in a remote northern ID town. Manager in this case meant supervising and training one employee - Dierdre. D was a single mom who lived in a trailer and had adopted one of our red Dobermann Pinschers. She also had a Chevie Chevelle SS. This was a race car. The kind of car that today we look back at nostagically. Detroit heavy iron. This car was something else she had inherited from her lastest boy friend. She loved this car. She fixed it regularly. She talked more about her car than about her 2 year old daughter. Dierdre was what was known as a party girl, blessed with good looks and a hard personality. She relied on no one. So when she heard there was a "Kiss" concert in Spokane WA (60 miles west), she just had to go. Since she was also planning to visit her father in Phoenix AZ, she just rolled the two together. Friday night after work she got the kid and the dog in the car drove to Spokane, dropped the kid and dog off with friends, went to the concert, picked up the dog and kid at midnight and pointed the Chevelle south and headed for Phoenix. Later she told us the booze wore off by Boise and the hangover was over by Salt Lake City and that everybody was really really cranky by Phoenix. She slept 16 hours straight and showed the kid, car and dog off to her dad and step-mom and on Sunday headed back to ID. Would I have believed such a story if I didn't personally know Deidre? I don't know. There are a many such stories in ID.
When I was living in Portland OR there were occaisions when I would visit ID for a special holiday. One year I went for Christmas. I left Portland late in the afternoon and didn't get to the Tri cities until early evening. It was a snowy winter that year and the landscape was a cheery winter tableau or it would have been if it wasn't night and a storm wasn't moving in. The highway 395 shortcut run diagonally across the plains of eastern WA. The light snow and strong winds blew sheets of dry snow across the 2 lane highway. Somewhere along the way I realized that things had gotten a bit iffy. The only other traffic was the long distance truckers making their last pre-holiday runs. The road was now hardpacked snow on frozen asphalt. I kept lowering my speed until I was gliding along at 40 mph. Even that was too fast, however, any slower and I would turn an 8 hour trip into 16 hours and the weather was only getting worse. Half way to through I noticed that I wasn't able to stop. When I applied the breaks I immediately started to fishtail. From then on it was steady speed and straight steering. I made it to the freeway at Ritzville and I knew the four lanes of I-90 would make my job easier. All during this time I listened to my cassette tapes. Christmas eve is the worst when it comes to music on the radio. So this was the Christmas eve of Don Mclean's "Vincent" not "Rockin' around the Christmas tree". I also stubbornly refused to stop and put on the chains. I had hundreds of miles to go and chains just get destroyed at 40 mph. At last I reached the turn-off to the little house on Bear Creek. I was less than a mile from a warm hearth and more importantly a warm and strong Christmas drink. And I couldn't make it up the hill. I ran at that hill as fast as I could and each time near the top the tires lost traction. After almost going over the cliff while backing down, I finally got out and got dirty and chained up. All the while I was laughing at the irony of driving 10 hours through a snowstorm and then almost flipping my truck down a ravine.
Trips:
I went from Madison to Eugene in a 1955 bread truck 30 some years ago. It was quite an adventure. There were three of us and the truck was fitted out for camping. Unfortunately it wasn't fitted out for power or speed. On the highway we peaked out at 55 mph. That is if the terrain was flat. Once we reached the Rocky mountains it was apparent that we would need to skirt them somehow. We headed south and except for Raton pass on the border between CO and NM we made it. At the top of the pass me David and I had to jump out and push. It was lucky for us that it was late and the freeway traffic was light. Later we took a side road through AZ so late in the night that we never met another car. By the time we got to Eugene 2 weeks later we had chalked up a nice set of memories.
A few years earlier my girlfriend and I took a road trip to TN from GB. As was our wont we drove late. This kept the trip fun. There were fewer cars and fewer headaches out there in the dark. An additional fact was that the puny radio in our Mercury subcompact worked best after dark. In those days AM radio was where the music was and most stations played the same top 40 songs. A new song moving up the charts would be played incessantly which can be either good or bad. "You know what I mean" was good for us. That song wormed it's way into our brains and it seemed that as soon as it ended one could switch channels and hear it again (just like an I-pod on repeat).
Late night on the second day we were on an empty freeway in southern IN when we passed a large moving van. The road had become hilly and although we were small and underpowered we were young and just couldn't abide following a truck if we could pass it. It was then that we noticed the second van ahead. By then we were going down hill and the semis were really moving. Our passed semi passed us and we thought that was that - lets just fall in behind and convoy. It didn't work that way. The two trucks would slow to the point where we would pass them again and then catch us on the next downhill. At some point we realized they were playing with us, keeping us between them most of the time and also dramatically speeding up and slowing down. We were bouncing between 40 and 80 mph and not liking it one bit. Being stalked by two semi trucks , starts to make one nervous. It then makes one paranoid and finally it scares the shit out of you. When you look in the rear view mirror and see nothing but chrome grill and nothing but trailer in front, there is that cold grip of panic that needs to be fought off. After about 20 minutes we found an exit and were able to breath a sigh of relief. Later in 1971 Stephen Spielberg released "Duel" on TV. Anonamous truck driver hunting down innocent traveler in small car - how original!
Years ago one of my friends drove to Denver from Madison to make what was in essance a beer run. He was talking with friends about how special Coors beer was. Of course in those days Coors wasn't pasturized and therefore was only shipped to the local Denver area. This made it a somewhat mythical brew in a brew crazy town. Anyhow to settle the dispute Tom left his short order cook's job at 3 on a Friday and set off for Denver to buy some beer. I think he talked his girlfriend into going with him, I'm not sure. Anyhow by Sunday he was back in Madison with A trunkful of Coors and ice. What do you tell a guy who went all the way to Denver for a beer. Of course "it was the best beer I had ever tasted".
Years later my wife was a manager of a respiratory therapy department in a remote northern ID town. Manager in this case meant supervising and training one employee - Dierdre. D was a single mom who lived in a trailer and had adopted one of our red Dobermann Pinschers. She also had a Chevie Chevelle SS. This was a race car. The kind of car that today we look back at nostagically. Detroit heavy iron. This car was something else she had inherited from her lastest boy friend. She loved this car. She fixed it regularly. She talked more about her car than about her 2 year old daughter. Dierdre was what was known as a party girl, blessed with good looks and a hard personality. She relied on no one. So when she heard there was a "Kiss" concert in Spokane WA (60 miles west), she just had to go. Since she was also planning to visit her father in Phoenix AZ, she just rolled the two together. Friday night after work she got the kid and the dog in the car drove to Spokane, dropped the kid and dog off with friends, went to the concert, picked up the dog and kid at midnight and pointed the Chevelle south and headed for Phoenix. Later she told us the booze wore off by Boise and the hangover was over by Salt Lake City and that everybody was really really cranky by Phoenix. She slept 16 hours straight and showed the kid, car and dog off to her dad and step-mom and on Sunday headed back to ID. Would I have believed such a story if I didn't personally know Deidre? I don't know. There are a many such stories in ID.
When I was living in Portland OR there were occaisions when I would visit ID for a special holiday. One year I went for Christmas. I left Portland late in the afternoon and didn't get to the Tri cities until early evening. It was a snowy winter that year and the landscape was a cheery winter tableau or it would have been if it wasn't night and a storm wasn't moving in. The highway 395 shortcut run diagonally across the plains of eastern WA. The light snow and strong winds blew sheets of dry snow across the 2 lane highway. Somewhere along the way I realized that things had gotten a bit iffy. The only other traffic was the long distance truckers making their last pre-holiday runs. The road was now hardpacked snow on frozen asphalt. I kept lowering my speed until I was gliding along at 40 mph. Even that was too fast, however, any slower and I would turn an 8 hour trip into 16 hours and the weather was only getting worse. Half way to through I noticed that I wasn't able to stop. When I applied the breaks I immediately started to fishtail. From then on it was steady speed and straight steering. I made it to the freeway at Ritzville and I knew the four lanes of I-90 would make my job easier. All during this time I listened to my cassette tapes. Christmas eve is the worst when it comes to music on the radio. So this was the Christmas eve of Don Mclean's "Vincent" not "Rockin' around the Christmas tree". I also stubbornly refused to stop and put on the chains. I had hundreds of miles to go and chains just get destroyed at 40 mph. At last I reached the turn-off to the little house on Bear Creek. I was less than a mile from a warm hearth and more importantly a warm and strong Christmas drink. And I couldn't make it up the hill. I ran at that hill as fast as I could and each time near the top the tires lost traction. After almost going over the cliff while backing down, I finally got out and got dirty and chained up. All the while I was laughing at the irony of driving 10 hours through a snowstorm and then almost flipping my truck down a ravine.
posted by garrison at 3:19 PM
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