Las Vegas is legendary for it's shows, everything from Wayne Newton, Celine Dion, Tom Jones, Penn and Teller, a whole string of magic acts, Cirque Du Soleil, to the constant never ending trapeze acts over the gambling floor at the Circus Circus. But today, the best show in town, without a doubt, was watching me maneuver a 32 foot motor home and 12 foot trailer down Las Vegas Boulevard.
It seemed like a simple proposition, there were only a few turns to negotiate once I left the Boulder Highway to get to the conveniently located RV park right behind the Circus Circus Hotel and Casino, within a stones throw of the strip. I had the route programmed into my GPS, I'd looked it up on Mapquest to familiarize myself with it as much as possible, I even checked Google Earth so I'd know what the entrance looked like so I wouldn't have any trouble recognizing it. What I hadn't counted on was that the RV park was no longer operated by the KOA chain, and that their sign had come down resulting in me overshooting the entrance. That led to me and my 44 foot train weaving all over a whole series of streets with up to 5 lanes of traffic going each direction as I tried to circle back to the hotel.
I wound up back on the strip going the wrong direction once more overshooting the street I wanted at another congested intersection when I spotted my solution ahead of me at the next intersection. It was a sign showing the 3 left hand lanes turning left, with the leftmost lane getting the OK to do a U-turn. Perfect! All I had to do was make a quick U-turn and I'd be right back where I needed to be.
I now know the answer to the age-old question about just how much room it takes to make a U-turn with a 32 foot motor home and 12 foot trailer on Las Vegas Boulevard. The answer is: More Room Than I Had.
I made it about 3/4 of the way around before I realized I was in trouble, but by then it was way way way to late to just do a left turn and continue circling the neighborhood. I ground to a halt firmly planted sideways across the road, completely blocking the busiest street in the city. I started to quickly back up to try and cut the angle, wriggling the whole thing back and forth, resulting in the trailer jack-knifing to a right angle with the RV just as the light turned green and the traffic started on the cross street, resulting in total gridlock in every direction. I don't know if they spotted it on traffic cameras or if it was the several hundred horns blaring that alerted them but the first Cop was there within a minute.
He strolled up to the window, politely tapped on it to let me know he was there, and when I rolled it down he congratulated me on my optimism, questioned my sanity, and expressed surprise that it wasn't somebody considerable older or younger that would attempt such a boneheaded move. After I assured him that I was sober, the rest of the cops who had come to see what all the commotion was about cleared enough room for me to maneuver, and the first Cop guided me around the turn. The entire process from beginning to end took 6-7 minutes, with me expecting to see news cameras show up any second.
Once I'd finally cleared the intersection he had me pull over to the side, and after the ritual of checking drivers licence, registration, proof of insurance, he asked me where I was trying to go. He must have been afraid I might repeat the stunt, which is why I arrived at the entrance to the Circus Circus Hotel and Casino RV Park with a police escort.
I didn't offer an explanation to the guys at check in who had clearly seen me get led in, nor did they ask for one, in fact they seemed to consider it normal. This is Las Vegas after all.
I'm safely installed in Slot 82 with the slides out, plumbing and electrical hooked up, and the bar is open.
I'm now living the life that everybody imagined they would have when they retired. If they had one hell of an imagination.
Friday, January 30, 2015
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Ladybug Ladybug Where Have You Been.....
"Ladybug Ladybug where have you been...
I've been to London to visit the Queen"
Or, in this case, they've gone to Arizona, no doubt to devastate the cotton crop. When I was shopping for an RV south Ottawa was under attack by an onslaught of Ladybugs, resulting in dozens stowing away on board the RV. They went into hibernation in the cold and have been coming back to life over the last few weeks. I had been capturing them and setting them free outside until it occurred to me that they're probably an invasive species. If the Arizona cotton crop is destroyed in a few years by a mysterious invasion of orange shelled bugs with black spots on them.......
The Canadian Invasion is over, the madness has ended until next year, Skydive Arizona has become a ghost town compared to what it was just a few days ago. I've been remiss in keeping the blog up to date, I've been way too busy taking part in the general nonsense and stupidity to report on it. Here's a few high points, in no particular order.
The best entertainment going for the last couple of days has been watching the test drops to certify the new Curve container to a new TSO standard. Stu, Beth's Boy-Toy, has been tossing dummy loaded containers out the back of a Skyvan at 400 feet, the previous week he was the dummy, jumping out with intentional malfunctions packed into the container, but at a much higher altitude. Parachute Test Pilot might sound like a fun job, but it would have to a damn well paid one to interest me.
Diane gets a special award for one of the best bruises of all time that didn't result in a broken bone. She was launching a 2-way with a student when she clobbered the back of the door frame with her upper right arm. The livid black yellow and blue bruise went from elbow to shoulder, and when she put a tensor bandage on it to try and keep the swelling down she managed to turn it into a kind of waffle weave pattern, it was really quite pretty. She didn't think so though and when pictures got posted on Facebook she insisted they be taken down before anybody at work saw them. She went for an X-ray, nothing broken, she could still use the arm ok and kept right on jumping.
Aidan had slept in the RV the night he got there and I made the mistake of making breakfast and coffee in the morning, resulting in him becoming my morning wake up call as day after day he knocked on the door, mug in hand, with a hopeful smile on his face. A couple of mornings I came back from a run and found him inside, with a full pot brewing, so it worked out for both of us.
I can't remember how it got started but on the last Saturday the beer that Philippe had bought wound up in the landing area, resulting in several near collisions as everybody tried to beat everybody else to the cooler. All the discipline everybody had been showing all week went straight out the window with people bumping canopies on final in an effort to be first. Even though we were well back in the pack Curtis and I tried to beat each other resulting in us kiting our canopies up the landing area until Monique bellowed at us to get them on the ground, there was still a dozen people coming in and we had turned ourselves into 20 foot tall moving obstacles.
I had stocked the RV with beer and Vodka on my way to Eloy, my room mates Phil and Ray both bought beer, I received a bottle of Tito's Ultra Premium Vodka from Cassandra as a thank you for all my coaching, a couple of other bottles showed up mysteriously, and then when the Canadians left they gave me all the booze they had left. Beer, Vodka, Wine, Jack Daniels, Fireball Liqueur, a plethora of mostly oversized partly full bottles no doubt purchased by drunken Canadians trying to get their heads around the incredibly cheap prices. I have more beer than I can possibly drink before I return home (really! I swear! Even Me!), I went through the liquor and gave a bunch to the retired Airborne Colonel in the RV next to mine, he's having a Super Bowl party this weekend.
I haven't jumped since Sunday, I've spent all my days tearing about on all the roads I've wanted to run on previous trips and didn't get the chance.
The RV has proven itself to be one of the wisest purchases I have ever made. Living right on the DZ, steps away from manifest, our own kitchen, bathroom and shower, warm and quiet. I have only eaten out half a dozen times since I left home, and with all the food that was left with me when everybody went home I won't have to buy groceries for a week. And I won't have to buy salad dressing or condiments until I'm in Ottawa. I had so much of some things that a lot of it would have gone bad before I could us it so I took all the extra over to the packers, they were even happier to get the free food than the Colonel was to get the free booze.
The only problem so far with the RV was getting the plumbing working. I had been given a 5 minute tutorial when I picked it up, and all I gathered from that was "Water goes in there and there, and comes out there." Simple enough. Until I hooked up a hose and immediately had water coming out there there there there and there, with a rapidly growing muddy lake spreading out around around the thing. Several of the storage compartments quickly flooded with a mix of water and pink RV antifreeze. A couple of neighbors saw my predicament and came to my aid, and it turned out that a couple of fittings had cracked, probably from being improperly stored, and after running all over Casa Grande for parts I got that all squared away and continued the process, turning the water back on.
Which resulted in a whole new series of leaks starting inside the RV. If anybody ever needs to know anything about RV plumbing, just ask me, it took 3 days to get it all sorted but now I have hot and cold running water on demand, the toilet flushes just like it's supposed to, and all the water stays where it should.
I was supposed to leave tomorrow for Vegas to meet up with Mark, he's working a trade show there and has taken some time off afterwards, but there's rain moving in so I'm going to leave as soon as rush hour traffic clears in Phoenix. Mark has rented a fast motorcycle so we're going to explore the the area at speed and try not to get arrested.
After he leaves I'll be heading down to Perris for a bit before leaving the RV there and going to Palm Springs to hang out at Beth's place, returning to Perris for the Dueling Drop Zones Competition (more on this later).
If anybody is looking for a few days away from the frigid north, send me an email, I have plenty of room and can be talked into going just about anywhere within a days drive, you can pay your rent in beer, and Beth and I need 4 more team mates for the Dueling DZ's February 14th.
I've been to London to visit the Queen"
Or, in this case, they've gone to Arizona, no doubt to devastate the cotton crop. When I was shopping for an RV south Ottawa was under attack by an onslaught of Ladybugs, resulting in dozens stowing away on board the RV. They went into hibernation in the cold and have been coming back to life over the last few weeks. I had been capturing them and setting them free outside until it occurred to me that they're probably an invasive species. If the Arizona cotton crop is destroyed in a few years by a mysterious invasion of orange shelled bugs with black spots on them.......
The Canadian Invasion is over, the madness has ended until next year, Skydive Arizona has become a ghost town compared to what it was just a few days ago. I've been remiss in keeping the blog up to date, I've been way too busy taking part in the general nonsense and stupidity to report on it. Here's a few high points, in no particular order.
The best entertainment going for the last couple of days has been watching the test drops to certify the new Curve container to a new TSO standard. Stu, Beth's Boy-Toy, has been tossing dummy loaded containers out the back of a Skyvan at 400 feet, the previous week he was the dummy, jumping out with intentional malfunctions packed into the container, but at a much higher altitude. Parachute Test Pilot might sound like a fun job, but it would have to a damn well paid one to interest me.
Diane gets a special award for one of the best bruises of all time that didn't result in a broken bone. She was launching a 2-way with a student when she clobbered the back of the door frame with her upper right arm. The livid black yellow and blue bruise went from elbow to shoulder, and when she put a tensor bandage on it to try and keep the swelling down she managed to turn it into a kind of waffle weave pattern, it was really quite pretty. She didn't think so though and when pictures got posted on Facebook she insisted they be taken down before anybody at work saw them. She went for an X-ray, nothing broken, she could still use the arm ok and kept right on jumping.
Aidan had slept in the RV the night he got there and I made the mistake of making breakfast and coffee in the morning, resulting in him becoming my morning wake up call as day after day he knocked on the door, mug in hand, with a hopeful smile on his face. A couple of mornings I came back from a run and found him inside, with a full pot brewing, so it worked out for both of us.
I can't remember how it got started but on the last Saturday the beer that Philippe had bought wound up in the landing area, resulting in several near collisions as everybody tried to beat everybody else to the cooler. All the discipline everybody had been showing all week went straight out the window with people bumping canopies on final in an effort to be first. Even though we were well back in the pack Curtis and I tried to beat each other resulting in us kiting our canopies up the landing area until Monique bellowed at us to get them on the ground, there was still a dozen people coming in and we had turned ourselves into 20 foot tall moving obstacles.
I had stocked the RV with beer and Vodka on my way to Eloy, my room mates Phil and Ray both bought beer, I received a bottle of Tito's Ultra Premium Vodka from Cassandra as a thank you for all my coaching, a couple of other bottles showed up mysteriously, and then when the Canadians left they gave me all the booze they had left. Beer, Vodka, Wine, Jack Daniels, Fireball Liqueur, a plethora of mostly oversized partly full bottles no doubt purchased by drunken Canadians trying to get their heads around the incredibly cheap prices. I have more beer than I can possibly drink before I return home (really! I swear! Even Me!), I went through the liquor and gave a bunch to the retired Airborne Colonel in the RV next to mine, he's having a Super Bowl party this weekend.
I haven't jumped since Sunday, I've spent all my days tearing about on all the roads I've wanted to run on previous trips and didn't get the chance.
 |
| The road enters the frame on the bottom left, it took 10 minutes of constants twists and turns up Mount Lemmon to get up to where I took this picture. 2,000 feet to 8,500 feet in 25 miles. |
The RV has proven itself to be one of the wisest purchases I have ever made. Living right on the DZ, steps away from manifest, our own kitchen, bathroom and shower, warm and quiet. I have only eaten out half a dozen times since I left home, and with all the food that was left with me when everybody went home I won't have to buy groceries for a week. And I won't have to buy salad dressing or condiments until I'm in Ottawa. I had so much of some things that a lot of it would have gone bad before I could us it so I took all the extra over to the packers, they were even happier to get the free food than the Colonel was to get the free booze.
The only problem so far with the RV was getting the plumbing working. I had been given a 5 minute tutorial when I picked it up, and all I gathered from that was "Water goes in there and there, and comes out there." Simple enough. Until I hooked up a hose and immediately had water coming out there there there there and there, with a rapidly growing muddy lake spreading out around around the thing. Several of the storage compartments quickly flooded with a mix of water and pink RV antifreeze. A couple of neighbors saw my predicament and came to my aid, and it turned out that a couple of fittings had cracked, probably from being improperly stored, and after running all over Casa Grande for parts I got that all squared away and continued the process, turning the water back on.
Which resulted in a whole new series of leaks starting inside the RV. If anybody ever needs to know anything about RV plumbing, just ask me, it took 3 days to get it all sorted but now I have hot and cold running water on demand, the toilet flushes just like it's supposed to, and all the water stays where it should.
I was supposed to leave tomorrow for Vegas to meet up with Mark, he's working a trade show there and has taken some time off afterwards, but there's rain moving in so I'm going to leave as soon as rush hour traffic clears in Phoenix. Mark has rented a fast motorcycle so we're going to explore the the area at speed and try not to get arrested.
After he leaves I'll be heading down to Perris for a bit before leaving the RV there and going to Palm Springs to hang out at Beth's place, returning to Perris for the Dueling Drop Zones Competition (more on this later).
If anybody is looking for a few days away from the frigid north, send me an email, I have plenty of room and can be talked into going just about anywhere within a days drive, you can pay your rent in beer, and Beth and I need 4 more team mates for the Dueling DZ's February 14th.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
My TARDIS
In the science fiction series Dr Who the main character gallivants about the universe in a time and space machine called the TARDIS, for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. From the outside it looks like an old British Police Public Call Box, but on the inside it's huge, leading everyone who first sets foot inside to exclaim "It's bigger on the inside!' Well, my motor home, though not small from the outside, is like the TARDIS in that once you push out the slides it's even bigger on the inside. When I was storing it in Kim and Mathieu's driveway I couldn't put the slides out all the way because of the proximity of the houses on either side, but now that I'm set up in Arizona, IT"S HUGE! And I LOVE IT! I'm not sure I like it much when it's rattling and clanging it's way down the highway but I sure love it when it's parked in Arizona.
I've been here for 5 days now and haven't done a jump, but I've been out for hours and hours on my bike every day. Yesterday I went for a ride with the Loud Crowd from Eden North (both the machines and the riders), and today I went to Salt River Canyon. It's been hot since I got here so despite John Smiths repeated warnings that it would be cold I decided to head into the mountains. For the first couple hours the sky was clouded over and as I climbed up higher to where there was snow piled up at the side of the road he was proven correct, it was damn cold, and I didn't care. I was doing 80 miles an hour on a twisty mountain road, grinning like an idiot despite my shivering.
This was the road I got pulled over on twice for speeding by the same cop when I was here 2 years ago. He let me go with a warning both times, so this road holds a special place in my heart. The sun came out just as I reached the canyon and started down the switchbacks, encouraging me to go even faster as I went. It's about 4,000 feet to the bottom, then you cross a bridge by the ghost town before starting back up the other side. As soon as I reached the top on the far side I turned around to do it again. When I was nearing the top I started catching up to a slow moving tractor trailer laboriously dragging itself up the steep hill. Not wanting to get stuck behind it I dropped a couple of gears and wound in a bunch of throttle while I was still able to safely pass him, and shot past doing well over 100 miles an hour before quickly leaning into the corner. Just as I was about to slow down I realized that I was about to climb up the ass of a Highway Patrolman that had passed the truck a minute before. Even if he hadn't seen me he had to have been warned of my approach by the screaming of my engine, and even before I grabbed the brake he had his roof lights on.
Crap.
I slowed to his speed, put on my turn signal, and got ready to follow him onto the shoulder, which is when his roof lights went off, and he just kept rolling along down the highway at 55.
A moment later a Mustang came tearing around the next corner going to beat hell - roof lights on - the Mustang slowed down, - roof lights off. And the trooper kept rolling along at 55. Over the next 30 miles the process was repeated several times, everybody slowed down, nobody got a ticket, and everybody had a good day.
As I followed that cop all the way into Globe I wondered if it was the same one who 2 years earlier had told me "You were doing 86! That's a felony! I'm just going to give you a warning, but SLOW DOWN!" I decided I didn't care, that I probably couldn't get away with this a fourth time, and decided that tomorrow it was time to start skydiving, it would probably be safer.
I've been here for 5 days now and haven't done a jump, but I've been out for hours and hours on my bike every day. Yesterday I went for a ride with the Loud Crowd from Eden North (both the machines and the riders), and today I went to Salt River Canyon. It's been hot since I got here so despite John Smiths repeated warnings that it would be cold I decided to head into the mountains. For the first couple hours the sky was clouded over and as I climbed up higher to where there was snow piled up at the side of the road he was proven correct, it was damn cold, and I didn't care. I was doing 80 miles an hour on a twisty mountain road, grinning like an idiot despite my shivering.
This was the road I got pulled over on twice for speeding by the same cop when I was here 2 years ago. He let me go with a warning both times, so this road holds a special place in my heart. The sun came out just as I reached the canyon and started down the switchbacks, encouraging me to go even faster as I went. It's about 4,000 feet to the bottom, then you cross a bridge by the ghost town before starting back up the other side. As soon as I reached the top on the far side I turned around to do it again. When I was nearing the top I started catching up to a slow moving tractor trailer laboriously dragging itself up the steep hill. Not wanting to get stuck behind it I dropped a couple of gears and wound in a bunch of throttle while I was still able to safely pass him, and shot past doing well over 100 miles an hour before quickly leaning into the corner. Just as I was about to slow down I realized that I was about to climb up the ass of a Highway Patrolman that had passed the truck a minute before. Even if he hadn't seen me he had to have been warned of my approach by the screaming of my engine, and even before I grabbed the brake he had his roof lights on.
Crap.
I slowed to his speed, put on my turn signal, and got ready to follow him onto the shoulder, which is when his roof lights went off, and he just kept rolling along down the highway at 55.
A moment later a Mustang came tearing around the next corner going to beat hell - roof lights on - the Mustang slowed down, - roof lights off. And the trooper kept rolling along at 55. Over the next 30 miles the process was repeated several times, everybody slowed down, nobody got a ticket, and everybody had a good day.
As I followed that cop all the way into Globe I wondered if it was the same one who 2 years earlier had told me "You were doing 86! That's a felony! I'm just going to give you a warning, but SLOW DOWN!" I decided I didn't care, that I probably couldn't get away with this a fourth time, and decided that tomorrow it was time to start skydiving, it would probably be safer.
 |
| View from a lookout as I neared the bottom heading east |
 |
| In front of the jail in the ghost town |
 |
| Looking west back across the canyon |
 |
| Note the 4 roads, what you can't see are all the squiggly bits at the ends. |
Saturday, January 3, 2015
"Been Shopping?"
"No! Been Shopping!
Whatchya buy then?
I bought a piston engine!"
You'd have to be a Monty Python fan to understand the sketch those lines were taken from, but everybody should understand the punch line. I've decided to celebrate the collapse of gas prices by purchasing the biggest most enormous engine I can find, a Ford Vortec V10, and heading south to see just how cheap the gas price will get. If you add up the engine displacement of my car and motorcycle and double them, this thing is even bigger! By a fortunate coincidence it came attached to a 32 foot motor home, complete with a trailer hitch to pull the bike. All told the thing is 44 feet long, and handles exactly like you would expect of a vehicle that's wider than a standard house lot.
Many times over the years I've cursed motor homes as they swayed slowly down the highway or crawled even more slowly up a twisting mountain road, leaving me trapped in their wake as I waited for a place to pass. You can't see around the damn things so you can't get a good sight line to see what's coming the other way, and more often than not the cursed things seem to travel in packs requiring you to pass several at once. Even with the power to weight ratio advantage of a motorcycle getting stuck behind one can be frustrating, at times even dangerous. I've never liked motor homes. And then there's the drivers. Far too often they seem to piloted by a senior citizen, no doubt with fading eyesight and deteriorating reflexes, and no matter how big it is they don't even require any special training or licence to operate.
Whatchya buy then?
I bought a piston engine!"
You'd have to be a Monty Python fan to understand the sketch those lines were taken from, but everybody should understand the punch line. I've decided to celebrate the collapse of gas prices by purchasing the biggest most enormous engine I can find, a Ford Vortec V10, and heading south to see just how cheap the gas price will get. If you add up the engine displacement of my car and motorcycle and double them, this thing is even bigger! By a fortunate coincidence it came attached to a 32 foot motor home, complete with a trailer hitch to pull the bike. All told the thing is 44 feet long, and handles exactly like you would expect of a vehicle that's wider than a standard house lot.
Many times over the years I've cursed motor homes as they swayed slowly down the highway or crawled even more slowly up a twisting mountain road, leaving me trapped in their wake as I waited for a place to pass. You can't see around the damn things so you can't get a good sight line to see what's coming the other way, and more often than not the cursed things seem to travel in packs requiring you to pass several at once. Even with the power to weight ratio advantage of a motorcycle getting stuck behind one can be frustrating, at times even dangerous. I've never liked motor homes. And then there's the drivers. Far too often they seem to piloted by a senior citizen, no doubt with fading eyesight and deteriorating reflexes, and no matter how big it is they don't even require any special training or licence to operate.
Well, if ya can't beat 'em....... As part of my retirement plan - my very vague retirement plan - I had given some thought to buying myself a motor home at some point in the future, far, far, in the future, and spending the winter swanning about the southern US with my motorcycle in tow. The future has arrived. I just didn't realize how noisy the future would be. Think about taking an average house and putting it on wheels, then think about all the noise all the crap in it would make as you bounce down the road, the dishes and cutlery, pots and pans, especially all the doors and windows. No wonder all those people drive so slow, it's a futile attempt to keep the cacophony down to a tolerable level. And the reason they go so slowly as they make their way into a parking lot is because they're overcome with panic as they desperately survey all the traffic and obstacles and think "NOW WHAT?!?!?!"
The cheapest fuel I've found so far was a couple of blocks from Graceland Tennessee. $1.86 A gallon. Two years ago I paid more than that per liter at Saskatchewan Crossing in the rocky mountains. I was there on new years day, Graceland was going to open late, there were bad thunderstorms coming so I kept on going, that gives me an excuse to come back next year. I spent New Years Eve at a truck stop somewhere in Tennessee, partying with a bunch of truckers who'd started a bonfire in a barbecue pit. The cops came by to see what all the fuss was about, cautioned us against drinking and driving, then kept going.
Right now I'm having breakfast in a Starbucks in Midland Texas, across the street from the RV park of last resort, Walmart. Yesterday the weather had gotten worse and worse, rain becoming heavy rain, then snow, then freezing rain, then sleet. That's when the carnage started. First there was a tractor trailer on it's side in the ditch, then half an hour later another, a few minutes later another, and quickly it began to look like the set of a Mad Max movie. Vehicles of every description were strewn all over the landscape with varying degrees of destruction. There was even what was left of a pre-fab house still attached to what was left of the flatbed that had been carrying it that looked like it had rolled several times on it's way to the bottom of a ravine.
Enough is enough. It's not that the conditions are bad by Canadian standards, but there isn't a single salt truck in the entire state. I decided to call it a day and pull in to the next Rest Stop but when I got there the access road had a bunch of road flares burning across it. When I rolled past I could see 3 tractor trailers still on their wheels neatly stacked on top of each other in the ditch. It looked like they pulled onto the ice covered roadway and one by one were blown off at the same spot to slide into the ditch.
I finally made Midland just before the State Police closed the Interstate, and pulled into the first parking lot I saw, Walmart. It was only mid afternoon so I headed in for some shopping to be confronted by a scene of pandemonium. The place was jammed, everybody was buying warm clothing and emergency supplies, the aisle where the water should have been was barren, the battery and flashlight racks were empty, and I began to realize that I'd managed to drive a few thousand kilometers to put myself in the middle of a disaster. As I returned to the RV I could see that all the hotels in sight already had No Vacancy signs displayed, and I was glad that I had brought my own room with me.
It surprised me how many people had mentioned staying at Walmart when I needed, and I had slept in their parking lots many times in my car as I've made my way back and forth across the country. But it's not without it's hazards. I wasn't inside for a full minute before there was a knock on the door. I opened it to receive a well rehearsed pitch from a scruffy guy who was living in an even scruffier van asking me for money. At least a real RV park doesn't have panhandlers.
The Interstate has reopened, I will probably get to Eloy tomorrow night, the Canadian Invasion starts next Saturday, and my room-mates will be arriving soon after that. When that's over I'm heading to Vegas where Mark will be just finishing up a trade show, and after that the plan gets kinda' vague. I don't have to be anywhere anytime soon, and the only goal I have is to return home after the snow has all melted. Both here and there.
The cheapest fuel I've found so far was a couple of blocks from Graceland Tennessee. $1.86 A gallon. Two years ago I paid more than that per liter at Saskatchewan Crossing in the rocky mountains. I was there on new years day, Graceland was going to open late, there were bad thunderstorms coming so I kept on going, that gives me an excuse to come back next year. I spent New Years Eve at a truck stop somewhere in Tennessee, partying with a bunch of truckers who'd started a bonfire in a barbecue pit. The cops came by to see what all the fuss was about, cautioned us against drinking and driving, then kept going.
Right now I'm having breakfast in a Starbucks in Midland Texas, across the street from the RV park of last resort, Walmart. Yesterday the weather had gotten worse and worse, rain becoming heavy rain, then snow, then freezing rain, then sleet. That's when the carnage started. First there was a tractor trailer on it's side in the ditch, then half an hour later another, a few minutes later another, and quickly it began to look like the set of a Mad Max movie. Vehicles of every description were strewn all over the landscape with varying degrees of destruction. There was even what was left of a pre-fab house still attached to what was left of the flatbed that had been carrying it that looked like it had rolled several times on it's way to the bottom of a ravine.
Enough is enough. It's not that the conditions are bad by Canadian standards, but there isn't a single salt truck in the entire state. I decided to call it a day and pull in to the next Rest Stop but when I got there the access road had a bunch of road flares burning across it. When I rolled past I could see 3 tractor trailers still on their wheels neatly stacked on top of each other in the ditch. It looked like they pulled onto the ice covered roadway and one by one were blown off at the same spot to slide into the ditch.
I finally made Midland just before the State Police closed the Interstate, and pulled into the first parking lot I saw, Walmart. It was only mid afternoon so I headed in for some shopping to be confronted by a scene of pandemonium. The place was jammed, everybody was buying warm clothing and emergency supplies, the aisle where the water should have been was barren, the battery and flashlight racks were empty, and I began to realize that I'd managed to drive a few thousand kilometers to put myself in the middle of a disaster. As I returned to the RV I could see that all the hotels in sight already had No Vacancy signs displayed, and I was glad that I had brought my own room with me.
It surprised me how many people had mentioned staying at Walmart when I needed, and I had slept in their parking lots many times in my car as I've made my way back and forth across the country. But it's not without it's hazards. I wasn't inside for a full minute before there was a knock on the door. I opened it to receive a well rehearsed pitch from a scruffy guy who was living in an even scruffier van asking me for money. At least a real RV park doesn't have panhandlers.
The Interstate has reopened, I will probably get to Eloy tomorrow night, the Canadian Invasion starts next Saturday, and my room-mates will be arriving soon after that. When that's over I'm heading to Vegas where Mark will be just finishing up a trade show, and after that the plan gets kinda' vague. I don't have to be anywhere anytime soon, and the only goal I have is to return home after the snow has all melted. Both here and there.
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