August 15, 2011 - Winding Down in Willcox

            It’s day three and my hopes and dreams are all about a boring trip with no drama!!!!  As write this I am happy to report I made my trip in one piece and the car starts and the cats even have a little room to move around (not that they aren’t still complaining).

            So I called my mom to tell her the good news of my first day of success only to find while my day went well, hers has not!  She fell last night and broke her nose and foot.  What is going on in the world???  I am happy to report she will be fine, but she’s now in a long term recovery mode after having had to handle so much loss with my leaving and her good friend dying recently.

            I am finding that as I drive so much of what I am experiencing are perfect metaphors for life.  As I approach hills (now associated with overheating and breaking down) they all seem to look much steeper right before I climb them than they really are once I’m about halfway up…much like life’s problems which always feel harder before than about halfway through them.

            Also, when trucks and cars pass me, they cause my trailer to sway around.  Much in the same way that people blow through our lives with little or no thought how they are affecting those around them.  The trucks that insist on passing me closely and with the most speed cause me the most chaos.  I send my blessings to the truckers who pass me slowly!

            And, once the trailer starts swinging around, the best course of action is really not to panic or do much.  Also good advice for problems that hit us from behind.  I’ve also learned that if I pay attention to who is driving up behind me, I can avoid most of the sway if I slow down and let them pass on by…..though we’ll see if I remember that the next time a beautiful but broken man shows up in my life!

            The only other big topic for today is that CLEARLY the rest stop designers did NOT have a woman on their planning team!  When you are dragging a trailer, you really need big open spaces you can pull through, so stopping in the city fast food joint to use the facilities isn’t much of an option.  But for those of us who need breaks for our bladders, legs, psyche’s, and older engines – TWO plus hours apart is NOT practical!  Ill admit, I barely made it today to the rest stop.  I did actually take some pictures as it had the most interesting rocks, but not sure if I’ll get those pics up today or not…sorry!

            As I write this I’m now on page four, so I think I’m done for the day.  Today has been the first day I’ve felt real hope as I go forward.  Once I cleared Tucson, the land really opened up and the big clouds filling the sky were stunning to view.  This was a lot more how I pictured this trip going.

            Tomorrow I begin the next phase of this journey.  I’ve put the first farm on a two day delay to go to a campground where a nice man named Norm has offered to help me repack my trailer so it’s loaded properly.  I didn’t really cover that whole issue with the extra and poorly distributed weight that seems to be dragging my back end of the Bronco to the ground….just hoping it gets up the hill tomorrow!

            My goal is to take everything out, try and not die of the embarrassment of how much stuff I brought that I SHOULD NOT have and then put it all back in with the added miracle of making room for me and the cats to sleep in it tomorrow night!  Stay tuned for tomorrow’s adventure!

           

August 14, 2011 - Vapor Locked in Casa Grande

            I got ready this morning and took off just as the light barely began to crack the horizon.  It wasn’t cool, but the heat wasn’t as oppressive as the night before.  What had been an empty parking lot was full at 5:00am when I was loading the truck and trailer to get ready to go.  So many people traveling without the drama, what was up?

            Today’s take off went much smoother than yesterday’s.  I made it all the way to my second destination, Casa Grande, Arizona.  It was about 200 miles, the most I think I’ll be able to do on an average day. 

            I’m learning a lot as I go and the death grip I’ve got on the steering wheel really takes a lot of energy and staring at everything around me as I try and not hit it or let it hit me takes up what energy I have left to focus with.  The complaining cats sitting next to me isn’t really helpful either!

            So, jumping ahead to the next drama, I get to my next Motel 6, go to move my truck which is parked really far from my room….and it won’t start.  Really?  I try it a little while later and still again, it won’t start.  Two more panic phone calls to my stepfather and my mechanic (who I am sure were less surprised by more problems than I was) and again they both patiently talked me through what could be wrong and what I could do.  It being Sunday, there wasn’t anyone to try and find, but like yesterday I was no more inclined to make Casa Grande my new home than I was in Blythe!  My truck really needs to work every day if this is going to work out!

            Okay, it turns out that when your gas gets too hot it “vapor locks” – when it cools down it starts, which it did about two hours later as I tried it, ready to faint if it didn’t.  Apparently all these heat related disasters to the cars used to be really common per my mom and stepdad – which spawned the thought later that so much of what we call “progress” really has caused us to pay less attention to what is going on around us.  For example, when it’s ridiculously hot – don’t drive up a hill with a trailer.  Granted I really didn’t have a choice, but I sure could have made better arrangements!

            So after another cool down moment of relief, I was finally able to eat something which was one of my favorite comfort foods – cheese enchiladas, thank you to whoever cooked them!

            Also, two more insights I want to share.  First, NO ONE gets to their dreams alone.  I am SOOOO aware how the slightest support from others makes a huge difference.  Even the check in girl broke the rules a bit by giving me the handicap room because it was the only clean one on the first floor – or she thought I might be handicapped based on the wild and frantic look I presented with!

            Second, remember to bring your compassion to all the men, women, and children who are struggling to protect their families and animals.  When I was causing such distress to my cats – who are my children really – my heart went out to all those who struggle to protect those who they love.  There are SO many people who have so few resources or options to prevent the suffering of those they love, it really made me realize the gifts so many of us could offer in so many ways.

            I am able to slow this trip down and stay in air-conditioned motel rooms as I putt putt across this desert.  But many don’t have these luxuries.  When the family with the girls was watching my cats, their mother mentioned they didn’t have any food and I was SO happy I had brought snacks with me I could share.  By the way, the case of water I had in the car which had seemed foolish at the time turned out to be the best item to bring after all – between sweating out gallons of stress and my radiator overflowing!!!

            Day two is down, and day three is soon to be on the horizon….

August 13, 2011 - Burning up in Blythe

            I’m writing this all down two days later, but want to get it while it’s fresh!  Saturday was the first leg of the new adventure!  Getting out was hard.  Saying good-bye to my mom was tearful and sad, but life is moving me forward….at least that was the plan!

           

            It began with the RV lot owner pointing out I didn’t have my trailer hitch down all the way.  If I had left like that, well, I wouldn’t be here I’d be back in California!  Thanking the very nice man for pointing out this lifesaving fact, the hitch got connected and I was off!

            My original plan was to leave at 8:00am, but it was much closer to 9:00am.  The reason this is important was my very tight timeframe to get to the town of Blythe by 11:00am in which I would still be south of 100 degrees!  Well, not so!!!!

            There is a 10 mile hill after Indio (the last place to stop before Blythe) and just at the top is a rest area.  I made it up the hill with the temperature gauge still short of overheating, stopped at the rest area, tried to use the restroom (details I will spare you!), and came out to see the lovely florescent green liquid streaming from out of my engine and onto the ground!

            I had just seen that same scenario a week earlier when my water pump had broken and I had to replace it.  This wasn’t good!  When I opened the hood the overflow tank was literally boiling up and out!  Another very nice man stopped over to tell me he didn’t think anything was broken, but I had just overheated.  That would be best, because now I can’t find my cell phone….not the auspicious start I was hoping for!

            I took the cats out of the truck and as luck (?) would have it for me (not for her) a nice woman with her two daughters and mother were sitting in the shade because their radiator had broken too.  Her two lovely daughters were very happy to see the cats, so I had two babysitters while on to fixing this problem!

            I am very blessed because I’ve got two very good car/rescue me sources.  I called both my mechanic (who thought he was free of me when I drove away – hah!) and my stepfather.  Both talked me through what to do and how to do it.  In the meantime, I kidnapped another man fixing his broken car to double check mine.  He wasn’t sure about my car, but a little while later I saw he’d been rerouted to the other families vehicle where a full blown repair job was going on!  I’m sure he never thought he’d be stuck in the desert fixing stranded women’s cars and not his own!   (side bar:  great money making opportunity at the top of steep and hot inclines!)

            Anyways, eventually I go on my way thinking the worst was done – hah!  Blythe was two hours away for those who could drive faster than 50mph tops, so for me, much longer.  The heat kept going up, the cats crying kept getting louder, and my anxiety and fear kept increasing with each passing minute and degree of heat.

            I’ll be honest, I was SO stressed I barely noticed the 107+ heat in the car, but the cats were panting and in a lot of distress.  I bordered and beyond the hysterical mark not able to tell what was sweat and what was tears.  The only requirement of this trip was not to hurt or kill the cats and I was very, very close to doing big damage to them at any moment.  This could NOT be God’s plan for me!

            I cried, prayed, and felt myself far, far away from the joyful, peaceful place where this plan had originated.  But, clouds did cover the sun and finally the blight that is called Blythe rose out of the horizon with the most beautiful Motel 6 sign I’d ever seen.

            I got the cats out and onto their new transport dolly (pictures soon) and headed straight for the air conditioned lobby.  Relief, tears of joy, and looking like a maniac as I gushed all over the very young and very not interested boy manning the desk of my joy and relief that I had made it with everyone alive.

            The level of relief was drastic at that moment, but was soon replaced with the terror of having to do all this again tomorrow.  It’s not the fear of driving the trailer, it’s just the fear of everything that can go wrong and how vulnerable I felt.  I never was able to eat that day with the knot of terror in my tummy holding court all day and then most of the next.

            I’d like to say I slept, but that didn’t really happen either.  The alarm clock went off and it was time to do it all over again…