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| Articles: One to remember |
Posted by
ravinsaend on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 01:07 PM PST
I recently made a short trip to see my father, a few hours drive from here, nearly halfway across the state. It turned out to be probably the most interesting night I've had in years.
I just randomly decided to go that night and visit my father for a short bit, for lack of anything else to do. I'm too compulsive for my own good, I really am. Anyhow, I left home at somewhere around 8PM. I don't live in a major city or anything..ust a decently small town, yet somehow(and i still havent figured this one out yet) I didn't get out of town until after 9.
Being that i was driving there just for something to do to begin with, I looked up and printed off a map of the areas I had to go thru, so I could take the little county highways and such, and avoid having to deal with the truckers trying to kill me the entire way. I mean that literaly. I had one actually PUSHING my car down the highway a few months ago. Truckers IN their trucks frighten me.
About three minutes after I got out of town, I was already lost on some messed up backroad.
It didn't help that I had NEVER wandered around outside that particular edge of town, as I did the others. It took me forty minutes to get to where my maps started, when it should have taken me ten. It doesn't help that my car has transmission problems, thus has no reverse, and only has neutral when it's OFF. It also doesn't help that it's an old Lincoln. Heavy, and very hard to push without a downward slope, especially when you have to turn the wheel without the help of power steering.
The trip went smoothly from there until I got about 2/3 of the way there. Then, for some reason I can't remember now, I turned off the road onto some random gravel meandering out through a bunch of farmland. Minus the farms. Meaning ditches, fences, and no nice big open yards to turn around in. I drove down this almost single lane road for nearly half an hour..not even the direction I needed to go. Finally I found a small field that the gate was busted open on. Good luck for me. I thought.
I pulled into said field, ignoring the odd noises from the suspension. When I started to swing it around, the car caught on something I couldn't see, as it was fully well dark by then. Something solid enough to stop an older Lincoln Town Car in it's tracks. The car stalled. I put it in neutral since it was off anyway, and attempted to push it back off of whatever it was. Up a slight slope.
It took me a good 45 minutes, due to aforementioned slight slope, and the fact that whatever it was didn't want to let go of the car.
Then it wouldnt start for another half an hour or so. It gets hot when it bottoms out or otherwise gets stuck somehow, so it overheated. I swear my car's sentient enough to get mad at me. It never fails.
I got out of the field ok after that, and back on the road..thing went smoothly until I had maybe half an hour left to go. Then my map lied.
A road that I was rather counting on, that was on the map, didn't exist(quite literally, the road doesn't exist). And the road I was on went right off the edge of the maps I had. So I was in completey unfamiliar territory with no map. Yay.
Well, that was ok. A few miles up the road it came to a T with a couple other roads. One of which had a sign denoting that I was near a highway I knew and that so far down it was a intersection with it. That road came to a T with another, and had a sign showing the highway i was looking for one direction, and the freeway the other. I preferred the highway, as the freeway was further out of my way.
JUST after I got turned onto this road far enough that I couldn't swing around without going thru a five foot ditch, I saw it.
"Road closed to thru traffic. Bridge out."
Boy, that sounded fun. Especially considering I was pointed downhill. Of course, the sign wasn't lying. I came up to the construction zone, and skirted the signs. Now obviously, they're doing road work, THEY have to have somewhere to park and/or turn around. And usually when doing little bridges on backcountry roads they make their OWN temporary bridge.
I stopped just on the edge of the actual work zone, and went for a walk. I spent twenty minutes finding a way I could get thru it without demolishing the car. Of course I hadn't thought to bring a flashlight, so all i had was a lighter for light.
I finally got back in the car, and started probably the ballsiest thing I've ever done. Driving a Lincoln Town Car thru a heavy machinery work zone, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. If you think about it, that takes some SERIOUS balls. Especially when you KNOW the nearest building is ten miles away.
It took me half an hour, what with bottoming out innumerable times, and going as slow as humanly possible to avoid doing it even more, But I made it. And my car no longer has half of the exhaust system.
After that it went fairly smoothly. I got on the highway, and just took it the rest of the way there. Then ended up leaving to come home ten minutes or so after i got there, just so i could make it back by morning. I took the highway back, of course, what with all that happened on the way there simply because I chose to take the back ways.
Perhaps not so interesting a story to you, perhaps so. I know I'll never forget a single detail of it.
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| One to remember | Login/Create an account | 3 Comments |
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Re: One to remember
by Alugarde (SoulCiphyr@aol.com)
on Oct 02, 2002 - 04:27 PM
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Almost sounds like you werent supposed to be there that night and something was stopping you.
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Re: One to remember
by MorteAscendo (corpsmanwix@aol.com)
on Oct 02, 2002 - 05:41 PM
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Sounds like when i drove from L.A. to Riverside in a VW Bug....oh man...i have do drive 87 miles on 1/5 of gas...and when we tried to stop for gas we tore apart the car for change and put in $2.80 worth of gas in...heh...it was during the day...and it sucked because the gas station guy was laughing at us...embarrassing non the less
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Re: One to remember
by bettie_x (strangersangel@hotmail.com)
on Oct 02, 2002 - 09:04 PM
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Oh my god that so sounds like some of the "short trips" I've made before!!
Michael and I went to a "bat walk" at some waaaay out of the way place called beaver lake or something equally hillarious which is WAY the fuck up north in washington in a place called issaquah.
We made it GREAT. PERFECT directions. Not a single flaw in my driving.
Little did I know that when the sun goes down demons come out and switch all the roads around because all it took was for one wrong turn that should have been the RIGHT turn to get us royally, exceptionally LOST. I'm talking BLAIR WITCH lost.
Mile upon mile of dark, unmarked, two way highway in the buttcrack between giant hills. THREE HOURS OF DRIVING STRAIGHT. Ended up in a little town called sioux falls, then spencer, then to the freeway. Barely made it to the bar before last call *snicker*
Another time was driving up to carbonado to see a friend of mine that had just had a baby. Milk thick fog the whole fucking way through a mountain town I knew well enough to find my way in the dark even, but not the fucking fog. Ended up at the carbon river bridge which is a single lane contraption that they CALL a bridge, over a 300 foot chasm. Big blasted boulders on either side. "this is the part where the serial killer comes over the edge of the bridge, guts me, and drives my car into the river" I thought.
I feel for ya man, I'm the QUEEN of misdirection and mishap.
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