War Stories (part the first)
Whoever said getting there was half the fun should be dragged out into the street and shot. - Garfield (?)
Leaving late at night with the intent to arrive at a reasonably hour in the morning is a fine plan. Getting stranded along the way is not. In fact, it's generally not a plan at all. Yet, this was just what happened. I took over driving from Holbrook and was cruising right along for a while before, in the dark of pre-dawn morning, the engine started losing power. I downshifted, and that didn't help. The next thing I know, I'm drifting over to the side of the road and gabefinder 's waking up asking me if something's wrong. Her nephew Josh (traveling along with) pulls up behind in his Jeep and we're trying things and looking all over, but the transmission won't seem to engage though the engine itself seems fine. There's something that may be water leaking underneath and a horrid, acrid smell in the air.
It's unusually fortuitous, but a police officer (probably highway patrol, technically) came up behind to check on us. While we were baffled and guessing, he marked the scent as a 'burned out clutch.' He called for a tow truck, checked the closest mile marker, and made sure we were okay. When the truck showed up, the driver agreed it smelled like the clutch. Whee.
So the truck is towed all of about three miles into Show Low, Arizona and the Nissan dealership there to await repair when someone wakes up and comes to work. Using Josh's Jeep to get around, we picked up breakfast and passed on one motel (because they couldn't check us in before the 11 am checkout time - yay software limitations) and ended up at a Day's Inn next to the JB's Restaurant we ate at.
The next few days are a bit of a blur, and not in a good way. One delay stretched Wednesday into Thursday, then Friday. As far as we can tell, there's pretty much nothing to do in Show Low. There's a Walmart (which may be closer to Pinetop) and a movie theater (which doesn't start any shows after 7 on a weeknight), but that's about it. The folks we dealt with were generally friendly, but I was very, very glad to finally leave at about 5pm Friday.
Of course, that put us at the Estrella War site at somewhere about 9, I think, that night after dealing with light snow and horrible visibility in fog. The site was muddy, it was raining, it was dark, we were road-weary. We got checked in, but then bailed in search of a motel for the night. Unfortunately, with a full-on Ren Faire at the same time, we ended up all the way in Chandler at a La Quinta that cost twice as much and only had smoking rooms before we actually found any vacancy, but it was worth it at the time to crash. Nevermind we lost track of Josh for a bit and had to find each other at night in the Phoenix area.
Thus it was Saturday morning before we set up our tents instead of Wednesday morning. Nevermind that additional expense of motel rooms and the vehicle repairs (which I, thankfully, did not foot). All in all, the trip there sucked. Bad. Though with the company in question, we managed to keep our spirits up most of the time. I hit a low point on Friday, but managed to get better.
Details of the war itself can wait. The trip home was blissfully uneventful, and everyone's home in one piece.
Leaving late at night with the intent to arrive at a reasonably hour in the morning is a fine plan. Getting stranded along the way is not. In fact, it's generally not a plan at all. Yet, this was just what happened. I took over driving from Holbrook and was cruising right along for a while before, in the dark of pre-dawn morning, the engine started losing power. I downshifted, and that didn't help. The next thing I know, I'm drifting over to the side of the road and gabefinder 's waking up asking me if something's wrong. Her nephew Josh (traveling along with) pulls up behind in his Jeep and we're trying things and looking all over, but the transmission won't seem to engage though the engine itself seems fine. There's something that may be water leaking underneath and a horrid, acrid smell in the air.
It's unusually fortuitous, but a police officer (probably highway patrol, technically) came up behind to check on us. While we were baffled and guessing, he marked the scent as a 'burned out clutch.' He called for a tow truck, checked the closest mile marker, and made sure we were okay. When the truck showed up, the driver agreed it smelled like the clutch. Whee.
So the truck is towed all of about three miles into Show Low, Arizona and the Nissan dealership there to await repair when someone wakes up and comes to work. Using Josh's Jeep to get around, we picked up breakfast and passed on one motel (because they couldn't check us in before the 11 am checkout time - yay software limitations) and ended up at a Day's Inn next to the JB's Restaurant we ate at.
The next few days are a bit of a blur, and not in a good way. One delay stretched Wednesday into Thursday, then Friday. As far as we can tell, there's pretty much nothing to do in Show Low. There's a Walmart (which may be closer to Pinetop) and a movie theater (which doesn't start any shows after 7 on a weeknight), but that's about it. The folks we dealt with were generally friendly, but I was very, very glad to finally leave at about 5pm Friday.
Of course, that put us at the Estrella War site at somewhere about 9, I think, that night after dealing with light snow and horrible visibility in fog. The site was muddy, it was raining, it was dark, we were road-weary. We got checked in, but then bailed in search of a motel for the night. Unfortunately, with a full-on Ren Faire at the same time, we ended up all the way in Chandler at a La Quinta that cost twice as much and only had smoking rooms before we actually found any vacancy, but it was worth it at the time to crash. Nevermind we lost track of Josh for a bit and had to find each other at night in the Phoenix area.
Thus it was Saturday morning before we set up our tents instead of Wednesday morning. Nevermind that additional expense of motel rooms and the vehicle repairs (which I, thankfully, did not foot). All in all, the trip there sucked. Bad. Though with the company in question, we managed to keep our spirits up most of the time. I hit a low point on Friday, but managed to get better.
Details of the war itself can wait. The trip home was blissfully uneventful, and everyone's home in one piece.
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