|
This website is an
informal communication forum for staff members of the University of
Oregon Library Staff Association. Contents and opinions expressed
herein
or on linked personal or external pages are those of individual authors
and do not represent official statements, policies, or positions of the
Libraries, the University of Oregon, Oregon University System, or State
of Oregon.
Page maintained by the LSA Web Committee
Terry McQuilkin
Laura Damiani
Jen Lindsey
Jennifer Rowan
Harriett Smith
Masthead Photo:
Eugene
by Laura Damiani
|
LSA News
No. 87, February 2008
Dean Walton
(continued)
The initial move led me to sights like the international hang gliding
championship in Telluride, Mesa Verde, the Grand Canyon, Big Sur and
Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. The second trip, rest stops, Taco
Bells, and the inside of Denny's Garage in the west end of Kansas. My
tow to Denny's garage was the first sign that this latter trip was going
to take longer than my planned 3-day drag race across the continent and
gave me a much better chance to get up close and personal with Kansas
corn while I waited for Denny to partially rebuild my engine. Ooooh, I
was so excited to see all those miles and miles and miles of corn.
Interestingly, we thought we had done things right about planning this
second trip. Yes, I was in intense pain from what turned out to be a
herniated disc in my neck. The chiropractor I saw the day before leaving
was great at increasing the pain but not at diagnosing the herniated
disk. On the bright side, I didn't need to worry about ever falling
asleep at the wheel. Every move I made was a jolt to my system. Between
my tears and spasms I was reveling at the thought of the travel
efficiency I could have by passing on sleep. Maybe I could make the trip
in two days!
Like my neck, I had the car worked over before I left too. The big
project here was a new timing belt for my '96 Subaru. Our mechanic in
Richmond was a gem - a bit on the quiet, quirky side but good with cars.
His secretary did most or all of the talking but he'd write up a 30 page
essay on what needed fixing and what he did to the car. A new belt was
at the top of the list.
So, with a twanging neck, an overhauled car packed with all the
valuables that I didn't trust the movers to keep from "losing," and our
dog Dinah, I set out on the open highway with Oregon on my mind. Day one
traveling on I-64 got me to some small town in Indiana. Day 2 was going
to get me to Colorado, to right about where I stopped on my first trip
to watch a small town rodeo in Deer Trail. The rodeo was hosted by the
2Lazy2P Ranch. The name came from their branding iron, a two, a two on
its side (the lazy 2) and then the letter P. It was the real deal.
Alas, it would not be.
After skirting northwestward to Indianapolis and onto I-70 and traveling
4/5th of the way through Kansas, I found myself, at dusk, in the middle
of nowhere. One second I'm fine and the next I hear a pop, the engine
quits and I'm coasting to a stop. There isn't a building to be seen and
I hadn't seen one for the last half hour or more. Luckily, I had just
gotten my first cell phone and was actually able to get cell service. A
panicked call went to my spouse Shelly asking her to get on the Internet
and find a tow service somewhere near where I was, somewhere east of
Oakley and Colby, Kansas. She gave me two numbers. The first of these
was answered by a recording. I left a message. The second call was
answered by the wife of the other tow truck driver. Unfortunately, she
said he was in Kansas City on the other side of the big state making a
mail run. He was coming back and could pick me up, but it would be this
time the next day. I was cold and I ached and I couldn't believe it. I
was stuck with a broken timing belt in the middle of nowhere. Then, the
phone buzzed.
To make a long story short, it was the tow first tow truck driver. He
was there within the hour, he towed the car to the nearest town with a
mechanic some 60 miles down the road, allowed me to stop at a hotel to
check in and unpack the car with my 300 pounds of tools and my dog, and
then took the car down the road to the only mechanic shop in town. It
would be 2 days before the replacement parts would get there. However,
although the bill was for $900, the work was done for free and was
billed to our mechanic, Fritz, in Richmond whom then billed the parts
manufacturer for the faulty part.
Once on the road again I stopped for one night in Wyoming and then made
it to Eugene Oregon where I met Shelly and my daughter Beatrice. They
flew out two days earlier when I was just leaving Kansas. I was now in
Oregon, and I couldn't have been happier to be here.
Return to LSA Newsletter |
