Doug's Epic Journey

Everything started out fine. I drove Mariah’s new car down to LA to do a couple meetings, then out to Walnut for a stop at the shop to fix her check engine issue. My meetings went great. No problems, got to the mechanic and he found and fixed all known issues with the car. It took a little time, but I expected that. As I am leaving my mechanic says “you have a bad radiator cap, you fix next time”. So I get done with my mechanic and start to Utah. I check my sigalert road conditions and the main road to Utah has a huge traffic jam, so I say “hey there is a windy mountain road”, I need to test the car’s handling, maybe this will be faster than going through that big traffic jam. So I happily go up into the San Gabriel mountains. The car does great. I climb up over 7 thousand feet and pretty much get lost. I am trying to google map my way out and make a turn that pretty much sends me back to where I started….. The road was so twisty I got car sick… So I found my way back to the road and started toward the traffic jam figuring that I would get there faster in a traffic jam than going back up in those mountains. So I survive the traffic jam and start heading toward Barstow (more about Barstow later)… Anyway I am three miles from Baker and I look at my temperature gage on the car and it is way over heated. I pull off the road and add some water and limp into Baker. It’s now 9:30 at night, I still have many hours to drive to get to Cedar city where my hotel room is. I purchase a bunch of coolant and refill the radiator. It was pretty much just a little steam when I first open it up. I add over a gallon and say a prayer. I have a gallon and a half of extra coolant and water in the back of the car. I then start driving again. I get to Vegas around midnight (hit a big traffic jam). Then drive on to Cedar City. Get there at 3:00 am local time. Collapse into bed and sleep till around 8 the next morning. Get up. Eat. Purchase a new radiator cap and drive up to Salt Lake. Have a good meeting with a prospective client and then check into my hotel and collapse into bed again. About 40 minutes later Elise calls. I need to pick her up. She is running in the Salt Lake Marathon the next day. So I meet Elise and Austin and we have dinner together. I do my don’t wait for everything to be perfect before you marry speech, and we have a nice time. I go shopping for final race stuff. Go to bed. Get up at 3:00 am to take Elise to her marathon bus. Can’t go back to sleep for a bit. Wake up late. Valet can’t start car. Drive up to top of mountain to watch Elise run and give her stuff if she needs it. Unload bike. Tires low. Try to pump up. Pump not working right. Don’t have the right fitting. What now?... Drive down to town. Ask a bike rider if he has a pump? Victory, pump up tires. Drive back up to the top of the mountain and start riding down to catch Elise. Pass hundreds of runners. No Elise. Ride over 40 minutes at 30 MPH and still no Elise. Finally, at mile marker 16 I catch up with her. I start doing my sag support job (here drink more water)… Clock her speed. She is doing 6+ mph by this point. Over the last 2 miles she steps it up to 7mph. She finishes in 4 hours and 4 minutes. She passes at least 50 runners in the last 3 miles. We get to the finish, no sign of Austin. He is on foot and lost. Dad is a bit annoyed but not saying anything… Elise has to walk at least 1 or 2 miles to get back to the place where she can get a ride. Finally, she sits down and says I am not going any farther. Get me a ride. Austin starts working on getting the Sanstrums to pick her up. I decide I have to get back to the hotel since my checkout time is noon. I ride the bike back, shower and change and wait. It took another 45 minutes or more for Elise to show up. She showers and changes and we go to meet the Sanstrums at a pool by their house. Elise just sits in the pool. She is shot. I do a couple can openers and swim around a bit then we have to get going to pick up Mariah. I drive Elise’s car since she didn’t think she could shift. I drive down and pick up Mariah. She had a great time at the camp. She met many very cute soccer and lacrosse boys. She also met a swing dancer who she had a lot of fun with. I drive back to Elise’s house. Switch cars and take Mariah shopping. She spends 3 hours looking at pants at that huge mall. Doesn’t find much. I take her to dinner then take her down the street to Ross and Tj max. She finds a pair of jeans in each store and we start toward home. Mariah drives from Provo to Cedar City. I try to sleep. Somewhere in the middle of this section she hits something and the car starts making a funny noise. I am too tired to care. Finally, I wake up and make her pull over. The rubber cowling under the engine was knocked loose and dragging on the ground. It is pretty much rubbed in half by the time I find it. I also attempt to fix an issue with the stereo and proceed to knock out the dash lights. I start using the flashlight to determine her speed. Make it to the hotel. Go to bed around 11:00 pm.
Get up the next morning. I attempt to solve the problem. Fix the 12V power issue with the car but the dash lights still don’t come on. So we start driving again. On the way to Vegas I did a speed test on the car. I hit 115 and backed off. Fortunately I slowed down because 2 minutes ahead of me was a Nevada trooper. Find a huge outlet Mall in Vegas. Take Mariah in and we start the pants shopping again. In the middle of the mall, Mariah said “I give up”. I want to eat and we abort further shopping and go to Panda for lunch and start driving again.
I get through Barstow. The car hasn’t overheated. I think I am home free. It is 2:30 pm and very hot. Suddenly I hear a loud explosion and figure out my left front tire had blown. Grrrr. Pull off the road. Unload the 250 pounds of Costco stuff in the trunk. Jack up the car. Pull off the tire. Try to put the spare on. Clunk, Clunk. The spare won’t fit over the modified brakes on this car…Grrr. Call AAA. Spend 20 minutes explaining where I am to the dispatcher. Get referred to the supervisor. Finally, they decide where I am and send a driver. Put the original tire back on. Tighten the lug nuts and reload the trunk. Still no driver. Call AAA back. Spend another 20 minutes explaining where I am. Get a call from the tow company. I am outside their area. Ask, can’t you just drive a couple more miles and get me? No. Rules are rules. Call AAA back. Spend another 20 minutes telling them where I am. “you see there is this sage brush on my right and this fence right next to it”. I have my laptop up and I am mapquesting the place where we are supposed to be. Tell the AAA person, “if A can’t pick me up then B must be able to do it, I can’t imagine you have a C tow truck driver for this section of road.” My logic was beyond the poor person and I had to try to explain where I was again. Just when I think it can’t get any worse a CHP pulls up. I am going what else can go wrong. I explain my sad tale of wo and he tells me where I am exactly. He also gives me some cold water. I told him that he was providing the best service my tax dollars have ever provided and thank you very much. I call AAA and give them the location the CHP gave me. They still can’t convert that into where I am on a map…
Finally, I figure out there is a rail line that comes close to the road at one point right by me. Finally, they start getting the idea that there are no other real landmarks and they send out a truck. Then the tow driver calls. I explain again. Say just drive east on the 58, my car is a blue green Acura you can’t miss it. By this time I am like 120 degrees, Mariah is ready to jump out of the car and start running home.
I say a prayer, “Heavenly father I am getting really hot, please help me get out of here”.
As I was praying the phone goes off and the tow truck driver is on the line. He asks me where I am. I tell him and say “look for a green Acura”. He finally sees me and pulls up. Nice guy. He is really unfamiliar with this section of the road. I give him directions to the Walmart and we were off. While driving there his phone rings. He has a gollum phone ring tone. He is wearing overalls. Has a mullet. I should have gotten a clue, but more to come... I get to the Walmart and finally get the tire thing going. They take a close look at my tires. Two other tires are showing cords. One is semi ok. I order 4 new tires and go off to get some water. I am majorly dehydrated by this time. Mariah and I search the store. Mariah wants a soft serve cone. Go to the Mcdonalds. No soft serve. So we go looking for an ice cream case. She finds one. I have found some water and put it in a cooler so I can have semi cold water. We get into line to buy our booty. I am behind a couple. He has too many tats to count. She is really rough looking. No bra black lady. They are having a disagreement with the clerk trying to determine how much money is on their Walmart cash card. This takes at least 5 minutes to sort out. Finally they figure it out and she has to put a bag of really scary looking cookies back so they can afford to purchase their stuff. Finally, we get to the front of the line and I get my total. $6.66 is my total. The clerk says ooo that’s a bad number. I say yeh I had better buy something else. I am too exhausted to buy anything else so I just pay my money and Mariah and I go over to the Mcdonalds to drink and eat ice cream. While we are sitting there I notice a sign on the wall “refills are free for this visit only”. I think boy what a funny sign. Imagine having to put something like that on the wall. Right about then I stream of drop drawerred, tattooed scungy looking teens walk into the walmart with their cups, walk through the golden arches and proceed to fill up their drinks. Then I start really looking around. Wow maybe this was the crowd those anti Walmart clowns were concerned with. I also noticed a large contingent of chubby, too little clothes, weird hair girls trolling the halls and hanging out with the drop pants boys. I then take notice of a family. Two boys around 18 and 20 with really long hair, tattoos and drop pants with chains and tattoos, I then see the dad. A 40 something dude with tattoos and a pony tail. The mom is wearing a white trash outfit and I am starting to think I fell off the earth and straight into hell. Mariah is now looking around and wishing the car was done. A kid runs up to his grandpa who is sitting by us. He tells his grandkid to buy a drink for him. The boy has a dollar and runs up to the counter. He doesn’t have enough for the tax and has to go back to the grandpa to get more change. It is getting a little surreal now. Finally, I get up and go with Mariah back to the tire department having had enough white trash entertainment for the day. I am convinced by this point that I have truely entered into deliverance land. My car is still not done. The clerks are having to check out regular customers because they parked by the tire store instead of in front of the Walmart. I am really tired at this point and just want to go home. Finally, my car is ready. I try to pay for the tires with my company card. It bounces. Says I am doing fraud. AHHHH! So I pay for the tires with the AMEX and run out of the Walmart wanting to get back to safe old Atascadero. I get back on the road. I pass the spot where the tire blew. It was now 4 hours later. Talk about twilight zone.
We drive back to Atascadero. No problem. I am on 101 in front of the church and I see red lights behind me. I am going “Oh no!”, I can’t get another ticket, I will loose my license. The cops walks up. Says, “your tail lights are out”. I tell him my sad tale of wo. He has mercy on me and tells me to get it fixed. No ticket. He tells me I blew a fuse. I say thank you and drive the last 2 miles to the house and collapse.
That is the end of my epic journey.

Epic Journey postlude.
The next week Mariah is driving the car and it overheats. I am in San Diego and get a call at 12:30 pm.
She says my car is broke. Mom picks her up and I get home. The next day I fill up the radiator and drive it to church and back. It empties the radiator again. I notice this time a stream of steam coming from the top. I know that my prayer is the only thing that could have brought that car 1200 miles without over heating. I am glad God is looking out for a simple person like me. Imaging the miracles he has in store for you if you just ask.