Crazy Fortune 20: The Peripatetic Period
When I arrived in Denver, I picked up the car, which Richard had left for me at the airport parking lot. Then I started driving toward his sister and brother-in-law’s house in Grand Lake, about a two-hour drive that involved going over 11,000 ft Berthoud Pass. I wasn’t too worried, though, because it was the middle of October and the skies were clear. And I had arrived early in the day, so I had plenty of time.
However, right smack dab in the middle of the busiest section of I-70, our little Honda Civic died. I managed to steer it over to the shoulder, dodging a number of semis and giant pick-up trucks. Then I fumbled around looking for the catch to the hood. When I managed to unlatch it and prop it open, I stared in complete befuddlement at the engine, neatly and densely packed into the engine compartment.
I didn’t see any dangling wires, so I looked around for the nearest pay phone. A chain-link fence ran quite a ways between me and the access road, so I locked up the car and began walking. When it became clear that the fence ran from here to somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I climbed over it. I located a pay phone, and here is where another fateful decision came into play: Earlier that year, enticed by one of our credit cards companies, we had switched from AAA car service to theirs. I called this company and requested the road-side service that we had paid for, and then climbed back over the fence and walked back to my car to wait.
I waited. And waited. While I stood there in the gritty wind from all the passing cars and trucks, a guy in an old beater pulled up behind me, got out, and began chatting with me. He asked me if I needed a tow truck and I said, no, that I’d just called for roadside service assistance.
“What tow truck company did they tell you they used?”
I told him and he laughed. “Good luck,” he said. “I’ll be surprised if they ever show up.”
Well, this was certainly not good news. As we continued to stand there, a tow truck drove by and my new buddy waved at him.
“He’s on a call right now, but he’ll come back after he’s done, and if you’re still here, he can give you a tow.”
I wondered how he knew that, but an hour had now gone by without any sign of the tow truck I had called for; so that possibility was sounding better than it should have. I didn’t really relish climbing back over the fence to call again, not to mention the fact that now there was this guy hanging around my car, and I had a lot of my personal possessions in there. Plus, I was afraid that the minute I went to call and check, the tow truck would come by, see no one standing there, and drive away.
“I see highway patrol’s checking you out,” the guy observed, nodding toward a nearby overpass. Sure enough, there was a patrol car parked, positioned for looking down at us. I wished he would come check on me, make sure I was all right and wasn’t going to get kidnapped or mugged by this guy, who was making me increasingly uneasy. But no, he simply sat there.
The tow truck I called never did show up, but my new buddy’s buddy did come by, as predicted. By now, a couple of hours had passed, and I was starting to worry about how long it might take to get the car fixed. I accepted the tow, even though I had to pay for it out of pocket (I will never ever sign up for any other roadside assistance besides AAA again), and the tow truck driver convinced me that taking the car to the dealer would be way more expensive than taking it to a mechanic he knew and worked with. The tow truck driver seemed like a nice guy, so I let him take my car to his mechanic friend.
From there, I called my brother-in-law’s mother, who was in Denver, to see if she might be able to come get me while the car got worked on. She kindly came and picked me up. The mechanic took the entire rest of the day to fix the car, which turned out to be an electrical problem that I would have thought would have been the first thing to look for, under the circumstances. And the bill came to more cash than I had on me. I had no credit cards because they had all been stolen and then canceled. He refused to take a check. Thankfully, my sweet benefactor came through for me once again and loaned me the money I needed to get my car back.
Back on the road, I was feeling incredibly dumb, naive, and fleeced. By now, daylight was waning and towering clouds had built over the Front Range. I wasn’t looking forward to driving in the pouring down rain, but at this point, I just wanted to get to my relatives’ house and see if I could get ahold of Richard.
As I drove, rain did indeed begin to fall and I nervously increased my speed a little, wanting to get over the pass before I lost my light. But no sooner had I gone up 1000 ft in altitude than the rain turned into snow. Then a blizzard. Then a complete white-out.
I didn’t have any choice; I had to turn around. By now, it was late and I didn’t want to wake up my brother-in-law’s mother, especially since I had already inconvenienced her considerably. I had no cash. I had no debit card. I had no credit cards.
Right when I was seriously considering sleeping on the side of the road in my car, I remembered that I had a college friend who lived on that side of town, who happened to be home and told me I was welcome to stay the night. Thank God for friends and family.
The next morning, I headed up into the mountains, the skies sparklingly clear, the snow having melted enough on the road that I had no problems driving. In Grand Lake, I made contact with Richard and we figured out where to meet on I-70 as he and Paul drove west.
It was around this time that Richard and I started defining “home” as where our pillow happened to be residing.
Above: Still having fun with abstract designs. The above was taken yesterday inside of an old deserted barn.
Thursday, July 1, 2010