Apopheniac

GTT - Gone to Texas

In the early 1800s thousands of easterners, particularly from Georgia, left their homes and past lives behind to build a new life in the Mexican territory of Texas. Signs were simply left up on the old home saying "Gone to Texas."

Well, we have now completed our "Return to Texas". After three years in California following twelve years in Georgia, Jean and I have returned to the land where we were raised. Both of us spent parts of our youth in the panhandle of Texas. I lived here from age one to seven, then moved to Dallas. Jean arrived here at the age of six and stayed until she was 21.

The drive from San Jose to Lubbock was a blitz-marathon affair. The first leg began on Monday, Jan. 5 at 7am when I left to deliver Kirk's VW superbeetle to Texas.
I got into Flagstaff, AZ about midnight and checked into the Motel 6. The overnight temperature was four degrees. When I awoke the next morning and drove to Starbucks for the magic elixer of wakefullness, the bug had no power. I couldn't get her over 20 mph. After trying my particular blend of limited auto mechanics, blessings and magical evocation to no avail, I found an import mechanic who said he couldn't get to it today, but he would see what he could do tomorrow. I called AAA and had the car towed to Ken's Import Auto and me towed to a nearby Days Inn.

I spent the day in a carefully orchestrated alternation of sleep, television, fretting and cell calls to Jean, updating her on what I had accomplished with my fretting. Wednesday morning I got a 10am call from Ken who said the car was ready and he would send my ride. The repair was valve and timing adjustment: $148 and I was on my way by 11am. The bug ran like a dream, cruising along at 65mph and brought me into Lubbock about midnight, after a brief pause between Muleshoe and Littlefield for a very courteous Texas Highway Patrolman to issue me a warning that my license-plate light had gone out.

The next morning I drove by to check out our new home and snap some photos which I emailed to Jean. I picked up the 24-ft Ryder truck and car-carrier trailer and by 1pm I was on my way back, humming "California, Here I Come" and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" The drive was fairly uneventful, though after dark, I noticed that the passenger side headlight on the truck only worked on high-beam. It wasn't much of a problem, so I just pressed on. I pulled over twice for brief, roadside naps and by 6pm the next day I was backing the truck into my driveway in SJ. This leg of the trip was accompanied by the audio books of William Manchester's "Winston Churchill, Alone 1930-1940" and the novel "Pompeii".

My return home marked the transition from the pack-a-thon to the load-a-thon. Saturday, Sunday and Monday saw us fill the truck and the towed car to the point where I don't think we could have crammed another shoe-box into either. I even had to lash the two wheel dolly to the car-trailer because there was no room for it anywhere else. I had to lash the last empty 5-gallon water bottle to the bicycles on the rack at the back of the car, under the canoe lashed on top. Monday evening we gave the house a last cleaning and we were singing "On the Road Again" by 10pm. We got to just north of Bakersfield and checked in to a Day's in about 2am.

The next morning was foggy when we got under way about 9. As we headed out of Bakersfield, signs indicated that Highway 58 was closed to Barstow. We drove on up to see and indeed they were turning traffic back because of a major accident in the fog at the summit of the pass. We had to double back to I-5 and drive down to LA then come north on I-15 towards Las Vegas. It was about a 4-hour detour.

About 20 miles south of Barstow the outer left-rear tire on the truck blew out. The tread simply separated and the tire came apart. (You know those large rings of tire tread you see by the side of the interstate with no tire inside of them - well now I know where they come from.) We were in the middle of the desert in a section of interstate under renovation so there wasn't much shoulder to park on. I made a cell call to the Ryder/Budget 800 number. They said help would be there within 90 minutes - it took 20.

When the very pleasant man pulled up in the Parkson Tires truck, he inspected the inner tire on the left rear and said it was sturdy, so we could limp the one mile to the next exit where he could change the tire in a location that wouldn't get him killed changing a tire on a narrow shoulder. It was a pleasure to watch this man work. It took him less than 30 minutes to replace the tire and have us on our way. Total down time was under and hour. We drove on into Flagstaff, arriving about 1am.

Back underway by 9am we had an uneventful drive the rest of the way in, arriving in Lubbock about 11pm after a brief pause between Muleshoe and Littlefield for a different very courteous Texas Highway Patrolman to issue me a warning that my lowbeam headlight on my truck had gone out.

There was a crew of people waiting for us at the house and we were able to get the truck 1/3 unloaded before collapsing on a featherbed spread on the floor about 2am. I was back up at 7:30 and after a Starbucks run we finished the unloading of the truck. I returned it Friday morning. Total rental for truck and trailer was $2,120. This represented a saving of more than $1,000 over a one-way rental from San Jose. There is that much of a premium because so many people are leaving silicon valley and so few are moving there.

Posted by apopheniac at January 17, 2004 05:47 PM