By 9:30 we had loaded 90% of the stuff I own into the Penske and went to pick up a few items for the trip. Then we both loaded into the truck and headed over to Suzanne's. As soon as we got there, we cornered Stromboli and stuffed one of the tranquilizers I'd gotten from the vet the week prior down her throat. The we shut Flounder, Squeak and Stromboli into Suzanne's truck and proceeded to load everything I had at Suzanne's place into the Penske. Suzanne came home from work and wished me a safe trip and said goodbye.
After that, it was time to load the cat for transport. I wasn't really sure what to expect when I opened the door to Suzanne's room. Would Stromboli even be tranquilized? Would she be lying in a pool of vomit? Would I find Flounder and Squeak feasting on her paralyzed body in the manner of Carrion Crawlers? Luckily, the cat situation was a lot more ordinary than any of the situations that I could imagine. Flounder and Squeak were simply curled up on Suzanne's bed looking disturbed while Stromboli was on the floor in front of Suzanne's vanity eating one of her shirts.
"Hello Stromboli," said I to the cat. She turned and gave me her very best "you're harshing my mellow, dude" look and a let loose a long drawn out "Mmmeeeooorrrowwwaaaarrrr." Needless to say, Stromboli was in a state that as I've been saying lately, "would make Nancy Reagan cry." She didn't really seem to be able to stand up and she offered no resistance when I picked her up, carried her to the dining room and placed her in her extra large cat carrier. She let out a few plaintive meows like the first, and then got down to kneading and chewing on the towel that I'd placed in the bottom of the carrier. After that, she was loaded into the Penske, followed by myself and Scottland and we were off!!
We stopped at the Penske store one last time. The guys there hooked up the trailer for my car and then Scottland and I loaded it up. Another indication of just how great Scottland is occurred when I got all spazzed out and snappy while driving my car onto the trailer. It was making a lot of weird noises and I was completely paranoid that it was going to pitch off the trailer and crash onto the ground. My fears were totally unfounded, and Scottland handled me very well. Once the car was loaded, we took a few pictures and then we were really off.We got to Vancouver almost exactly on schedule. We hit very little traffic and it only took us about three hours to get there. We needed to gas up and both of us were pretty hungry. So, we made our first attempt at getting off the freeway in the now gigantic 15' Penske / Car Trailer road hog. Needless to say, this thing made WIDE turns. Getting into a gas station was relatively easy, but getting food was not.
We drove around a big block of strip mall and saw a Wendy's that we sorta thought we'd be able to get into. I guess I underestimated how long this thing was, and thought I'd be able to pull into two parking spots that were empty, in the sort of way that semi's and trucks pull into those longer parking spaces at rest stops. Unfortunately, I had vastly underestimated the length of our "rig" and was now blocking some other cars that wanted to pull into the drive through. Honestly, this whole thing was probably the dumbest move I made during the entire trip. When you're driving a big vehicle like I was, you need to always be thinking about how you're going to get into a place, where you're going to park and how you're going to get out before you even think about turning in.
Anyhow, so once I realized that we weren't going to fit, I looked around and saw where we should have tried to park. The building right next to the Wendy's had a long row of empty stalls with an entrance and exit that were both easy to pass through. To get there, we had to get out of our current predicament. My initial idea was that we would back up the way we came and then go around the block so that we could get into the parking lot I could see. Unfortunately, I had not tried to pilot a trailer in reverse in many years and Scottland never had. I knew that you had to turn the wheels of the truck in the direction opposite to what you wanted the trailer to go, but Scottland didn't. So, with me at the wheel and him directing me, things got really screwed up and we made no progress escaping from the predicament.
As my level of stress was steadily increasing, things proceeded to get even more difficult and weird. It's hard to really do the following scene justice with words. Basically, this really skanky old looking pick-up comes lurching into the parking lot. The guy behind the wheels appears to be gunning for the space immediately next to the one that the Penske is occupying. It looks like maybe his clutch is about dead, because he's having to over-rev the engine to keep it from cutting out. So, the truck literally lurches forward a few feet, starts to stall, the engine revs and the truck lurches forward a few more feet. All this while he's trying to edge into the spot next to where I'm at, no matter that I'm standing in that spot and that the door to the truck is sitting open because I've just gotten out to make alternate plans with Scottland about how to get out of this predicament.
So I'm yelling at the guy to stop as it looks like he's going to (a) smack into the truck and (b) smack into me. He manages to avoid hitting the front of the Penske, but he basically smacks the driver side door of the truck shut with the bumper of his. The idiot finished moving into the parking spot and I let out a big "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!?!?" Seriously, I was about an inch away from pulling him out of his car and just beating the shit out of him right then and then. Then I remembered that assault is a felony, and that being arrested and thrown in the clink isn't conducive to getting your PhD. So, I continued to just ask him what the fuck he thought he was doing.
That's when I realized how seriously weird this guy was. He was sort of a middle aged white guy with a gray mullet and a face that looks like it belongs to someone that smokes too much. He starts to "what the fuck" back to me, and I notice that his voice is oddly slurred, like he's on tranquilizers or something. Apparently, he's as upset as I am, only it's because having to avoid hitting my truck made him spill his recently purchased pop. So, maybe the problem of the lurching car was compounded by his dumbassedness trying to drink a soda while attempting to park a manual shift truck with clutch problems. I pointed out that he was a real dumb shit for tapping the door of the Penske, since that was obviously completely voluntary on his part, and I'd have shut the door if he'd given me a chance to. He then says "I suppose you want me to pay for it?" And I reply with a "Hell yes I do." And he replies with a "Well, are you gonna pay for a new pop for me?" Only, he says it in a way that's clearly meant to be some kind of threat. So, I'm starting to think there's something seriously wrong with the guy and I'm getting a little nervous now that I realize he might really be crazy.
So I reply, "Sure, I'll go into the Wendy's and get you a fucking soda pop." While I'm saying this I'm starting to think that we need some sort of de-escalation here because the guy is seriously bent over the loss of his soda pop, and I'm worried that he might pop out and start stabbing me or something. Then he says in a tone of voice that's trying to sound all bad-ass and offensive but really isn't, "Do you wanna lick the pop off my floormat?" At which point, I'm just done with the guy. "Get the fuck out her you freak" I say, pointing towards the exit of the parking lot which he can easily reach. Amazingly, he just starts up his truck and leaves.
I'm all worked up at this point and look around for Scottland. He's right behind me, just out of sight from where the guy was, which is exactly where he needed to be if things started to get physical. There's nothing like an ally stepping out of the shadows to really make an asshole think twice about getting in a physical confrontation. Anyhow, I'm too jittered to think so he comes up with the plan that pretty quickly extricates us from the parking lot of doom. We go around the block as planned and make and easy entrance and stop in the row of empty car stalls. Oddly, crazy dude is back. He's sitting in the spot he had previously occupied and was gobbling down the last of the food he'd bought at the Wendy's. At that point, things sorta finish clicking in my head and I figure that the guy is probably Schizo, OCD and probably on heavy meds. We were in the spot that he HAS to eat his dinner from Wendy's in. Which explains why he was so intent on that particular spot. So I feel kinda bad for him, but am mostly glad that it's over with. I notice another really sketchy looking dude talking to him that then tries to come into the restaurant to use the bathroom but then leaves. So, I suspect maybe there was a halfway house or something in the area.
After that, the rest of the trip was relatively uneventful. We filled up the truck in Grants Pass around 11:30 that night and stopped at a Motel 6 in Medford. Stromboli was totally sober at that point and I let her out of the carrier to eat, excrete (I love saying it like that) and explore. There was nowhere for her to hide, so she ended up under the sheets with Scottland and I. The next morning, we gave her more drugs and loaded her into the carrier after taking showers and getting dressed. We got back on the road and pulled over in Ashland to eat breakfast. That was a bit of an adventure too, as we again had to play the "where are we going to park" game and the roads we were on weren't exactly designed for large vehicles.
After breakfast we got back on the road and subsequently experienced the other fun and exciting part of the journey. Shortly south of Ashland is the beginning of the pass over the Siskiyous. The first ten miles of it is probably the worst part, too. Basically, you go up a 6% grade for about seven miles and then down a 6% grade for five. You do some more ups and downs after that, but none of them are as bad as that one. Going up was relatively uneventful, except that we were only able to go about 45 miles and hour and the truck started to overheat. Luckily, I was able to turn the heat on full blast and bleed enough heat out of the engine to cool it back down. Going down the other side was quite a bit scarier. Scottland started getting a but freaked out because from his side you could see a LONG ways down. I started getting freaked out because I discovered that the Penske/Trailer system started developing a harmonic resonance when braking between the speeds of about 35 and 50 mph. I didn't want to go faster than that because I was freaked out about the brakes failing or something, but I really couldn't go slower than that on account of all the twists and turns in the road and the bad sight lines. So, I pulled over and tried to calm my frazzled nerves. Once I'd calmed down, we got back onto the freeway and I tried to be careful to oscillate the speed between 50 and 55 mph.
We made it through the rest of the pass relatively uneventfully. We stopped at a rest stop about 100 miles north of Redding. I'm amazed at how much nicer the rest stops in California seem to be compared to the ones in Washington and Oregon. It's weird and I don't know what the reason is. Maybe California just takes better care of it's infrastructure or something. Anyhow, we drove through Redding and stopped in Willows for gas. At around 5:30 in the evening on the 1st of September, we rolled into the rental shop in Dixon (which is about 10 miles west of Davis on I-5) 
and turned in the car trailer. We took the truck to my new home, unloaded it and returned the truck to the rental place. We dined at Chevy's after that and then went back to my new place and went to sleep about 10:00 PM.And now, I live in Davis.
1 comment:
Yes he does. :)
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