It was 3 in the morning when I pulled onto the detour in the next Olympic city; Salt Lake City, Utah. Jen was groggy. She didn’t want to sightsee. But as she was quickly becoming aware of, living along side of me means a one way ticket to the world of The Accidental Tourist.
The Mormon Temple was brightly lit white in the cold dark late night. We paid homage.
When the sun rose rosy pink, hot red, and out of the solar solstice; we were in Nevada. I had slept a few hours before and was now at the wheel. Jen slept -- sometimes with her head in my lap. The moonscape we drove through was desolate pink big west desert. I loved being there.
We had embarked out journey through the longest night of the year back in Colorado at sunset. Then the front end of the car started to slope up for most of the night. We were heading dead into the mountains. Our car was packed with everything we owned for another cross country road trip.
The freezing cold snap was still chilling everything and everyone, but most of the snow had been pushed from the roads in the last few days. The car was heavy, and non responsive. It wanted to only go forward, evenly, slowly. Up, up, up through the high country and ten thousand miles passes.
As we drove down the California side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains the car sighed a happy sigh. We drove into the Central Valley by noon. We cleaned up and spent the next few days having Christmas with Jen’s family. We drove golf balls, shot skeet, sipped pineapple wine, and listened to Elvis in a quintessential, California, Christmas.
Then it was time to go to Michigan.
Bay Bridge Blowout Jen’s Dad offered to drive us to the airport. A very nice jester we truly appreciated. We made good time to San Francisco and paid our toll on the bay bridge.I was driving, Jen’s dad slept in the back. Jen noticed a strange noise as we started over the bridge. She thought perhaps our rear tire was losing air, no big deal, we’ll pump it up on the other side.
Nope. Just past Treasure Island it blew. Merry
f****** Christmas. It was 9pm at night, and the bridge was packed. Where were all these people going on December 25th? I didn’t know, but I did know they were going at least 60 mph to get there.We pulled over on the right as the cars kept zipping by. Despite our blinking hazard lights, cars came up on us full speed, then darted out of the way at the last minute. The poor tailgating car behind them had no idea we were just ahead dead stopped. They didn’t have time to pull out and would lock up their brakes narrowly missing a rear end collision. It was happening every other car. Everyone in our car froze.
We buckled up and I straightened out the front wheels. I knew if we got hit, I didn’t want the tires pointing off the side of the bridge. I also didn’t want to be thrust into the busy lane of traffic that was zipping by at highway speeds.
I had to yell at Jen several times to get me the cell phone because with every new screeching car almost hitting us, she froze, like a deer in the headlights, unable to move.
I called 911 from the cell phone to report our life threatening stop. I was wondering if we should get out of the car. If we walked along the narrow emergency walkway, then when a car rammed our car forward or into the Bay, at least we wouldn’t be in it. Or would we get hit walking along the ramp? Or should we just say our prayers now?
The other end of the phone answered in seconds. What side of the bridge, what deck, what color car was all they needed to know. It seemed the bridge cameras had already picked up our distress and deployed a huge tow truck. It was in route and would pulling up behind us as we spoke. I couldn’t believe how efficient these guys were.
In less than a minute the tow truck guy set up a few flares. A police car had pulled in behind lights flashing. We felt safer. With the speed of a Daytona pit crew, he had us jacked up, taken the full size spare off the back, put it on the car, and threw the blown rim in the back. We were done in like 7 minutes. No charge. No time for Visa cards, or BS, just get this thing off the bridge before we all die. It was amazing!
I slipped him a twenty anyway. He had really saved us! Merry Christmas.
We hadn’t even lost any time. The full spare was fine to continue the rest of the way to the airport. We even had enough time for a beer before the flight. Jen’s hands were still shaken as she sipped her brew.
The adrenaline rush had her shaken up, but what were the chances of having anything else happen after this? We thought we’d be fine from here on out. (evil laugh off camera)
We flew to Michigan aboard a vacant red eye with two rows to ourselves. We slept. The flight out was perfect. On the drive north from Detroit it even started to snow. Finally, it felt like Christmas. And it basically didn’t stop snowing until the snow stopped us back in Mo-Town.
In-between the snow showers we caught up with my family and old friends and their new families. The water wasn’t frozen enough to play Broomball this year, and with the light snow cover we opted out of snowboarding since we’d been in powder the week before in Aspen. We weren’t as active as years past, unless you count supporting the local watering holes. Those of course were never frozen.
New Years Eve (party like it's 1999)Here I am carrying Jen to the New Year's party so she didn't get her shoes wet! (California girls?!:)
This party was at Patty and Brian's. Then dinner at Cadillac's famous Eldorado. (Notice Kolarevic is at home next to the pony keg)
It was good to be home, it always is. So the last day of the vacation we packed up our gear and drove to Detroit. Next stop California. Next chapter San Diego. (I hoped)
Yeah, right! Not just yet…
Detroit Metro Airport - The Year of the Rascal - Jan 2. It’s nearly twelve hours after my day began. I should be having a nice Italian dinner in North Beach; but we’re still in Michigan. First we got up in the dark and drove 3 hours through a developing blizzard. We scurried through the airport to catch an earlier flight to beat the bad weather that was coming, got stand-by tickets, boarded, waited forever for a bad luggage door to shut, pulled away from the gate, de-iced (which can take hours), taxied, revved up the engines, and started down the runway.Outside the accelerating windows, the snow was really starting to come down. But in a few seconds we’d lift high above the bad weather and shortly sail into California. I heard it was 70 degrees in San Diego on Saturday. I was ready for the warm weather.
When all of a sudden we heard a loud boom!
The airplane immediately slowed down. We began losing cabin pressure. It seems the latch on the cargo door wasn’t shut after all.
Shit.
Now we’d have to return to the gate (oh wait, we didn’t have one anymore and now we’d have to wait for one to open up before we could go back) then de-ice, taxi, and run through all those 2 hours over again.
With every passing moment, the snow came down harder. We moved back to the gate just in time to hear the announcement some several hours after sitting the plane waiting to take off that, oh, bummer, no one is going anywhere, the airport is now closed!
Closed?!
How can you close a whole airport? Well, they can. I’m now sitting in a bar still several more hours after booking back to our original flight, (it didn’t go either), but they tried the old, "let’s change your gate back and forth a few times, make you work up a sweat sprinting from one gate to another on opposite ends of the airport, only to later tell you we’ve decided just to cancel the whole thing after all."
It was extremely frustrating! They would say unhelpful things like, "the flight isn’t really cancelled just that the airport is closed so you don’t get miles or tickets or anything. It’s really not our fault. Maybe we can get you out on Tuesday morning." Did I mention is was Saturday? Was I supposed to shut the stupid cargo latch? Come on!
Now a couple beers later I’m no longer upset, just exhausted. Ready to sleep. Yet I can’t. There are of course, NO vacant hotels anywhere in Detroit.
I finally got a hold of my sister. She isn’t sure if Wally can navigate the now closing roads to come down and pick us up. She didn’t want to be widowed. No one is getting in or out of this airport everyone says. Looks like we’re sleeping on a hard floor.
Welcome to the year of the Rascal.
No! I won’t let it be that bad.
Only two nights ago we rang in the New Year with martinis and beers and cigars and friends. Minutes after the last year in the millenium began, Pedro dubbed it the year of the Rascal. His papa nicknamed me the endearing term a few years ago.
And so The Year of the Rascal opened in Cadillac with a traditional New Year’s Eve dinner with drinks & dancing, & old friends. This year Jen was there. Every year there are cigars. This year I’m getting married. Every year is more hopeful than the next. This year I’ll travel. We’ll travel. Round the World.
Hopefully this event is not an impeding omen; stuck in an airport.
Well if I’m going to be stuck, I might as well write. So I took advantage of the opportunity, and flipped open the laptop. Time to write. The rest will take care of itself.
(2 days later)
It’s been two days from the night I wrote the last entry. We were sitting in the bar exhausted and knowing that the airport probably wasn’t going to open for days. So disregarding warnings from Rachel, Jen, and others, I rented a car and drove off into the dark blizzard of a night.
It was over 50 slippery miles to my sister’s house north of Detroit. We drove from south of Detroit, on what used to be an eight lane highway, on a now reduced one lane in either direction 2-track. Our speed was kept down to a snail’s pace. The few cars on the road wanted to stay there. Mostly 4 wheel drive trucks and snowplows slowly lined up behind each other. Oh yeah, along with an occasional brave soul in a rented 2 wheel drive ford, laughing like a madman! Jen nervously laughed along.
All the way up the interstate, cars, trucks, buses, semis, anything and everything had spun out, crashed, smashed, and lay strewn on the banks littering either side of the snowy road. It looked like the day after Armageddon. And snow kept falling. And I kept driving.
Snow was drifting over and completely covering cars in only a few hours. The auto snowbanks cast eerie shadows on the road. A haunting reminder of what would happen if I let my tires catch one of the dangerous ruts on either side of the snow tunnel we were slowly driving through. A truly white knuckle ride.
Several hours later, around 11pm, we finally shown our headlights on what used to be Rachel’s road. I knew there used to be a road leading down the dead end street to where she lived. But in the blizzard, there were no tracks. No one had driven on her street in hours. So I figured if I kept the car between the few mailboxes standing several yards in front of each house I’d be OK.
I turned the car into what looked like a perfect Aspen snowy powder run. What would be awesome on a snowboard was a leap of faith in a rental car. I gave the sign of the cross and drove as straight and fast as I could.
Snow poured over the hood, my wipers fought to keep it off the windshield, and the car slid from side to side. Thirty seconds later we came to rest in her driveway. Alive. Safe. And completely stuck.
We’d dig the car out in a few days. We collapsed into her house and had a beer. Make that two.
For two days we were held like prisoners while the airport waited out the storm, then
very slowly, began digging itself back out. Jen and I hung with my sister and Wally and
played with my little cousin. Jen took him sliding. She loved the snow. She actually
shoveled out the car for fun. (those crazy California girls) 
Two days later we got back in the car. We heard the airport was opening at noon on Monday. We returned the rental by 1p.m. We prepared for the worse.
Stressed out passengers that had been sleeping on the tile floors for days fought with each other for layover seats on full flights. It was pandemonium. A media circus. The worse side of humanity. The lines were four hours long just to check a bag. Since my bag was lost days ago; went right to the gates and jumped into the bazaar.
Several tense hours later we had doubled booked ourselves on standby, got religion, and prayed to get on the next delayed flight.
We stood next to folks that couldn’t be confirmed on flights for another three days. No one smiled.
But our prayers were answered. I’m typing this from somewhere over Nebraska.
We still have to land, somehow find our lost luggage, and figure out a way to Sacramento. We were supposed to drive to San Diego several days ago.
Jen missed her first few days of work already. This trip still isn’t over, but I think we’re on the downhill side.
(I hope).
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