Another one of Mikey's bland and boring roadtrips.

Imagine this little baby
stuffed to the gills with
household items.


Then having as much more
in weight and volume
lashed to it topside!




I'm up in North Edwards, (Kern County) about 15 miles out of Mohave.


A friend of mine named Tom, needed a hand moving the rest of his stuff up here from Port Hueneme. Including his 25 foot sailboat. A McGregor cutter which he named; "Three sheets in the wind."


Tom has three other properties besides the Hueneme one. The one in N. Edwards was a three bedroom, ranch style house on a half of an acre. It was built as part of off base housing during the early 1960's for the families of test pilots at Edwards A.F.B. during that period.


It still looked pretty good, but was in need of some cosmetic work. Paint, molding, caulking, a new carpet, and some trash, and scrap hauling out of the back yard. As the previous renters had been doing something like a "mid-night auto parts" business from the location. That is, until a few months back. When the renter was arrested, and the rental checks quit coming.


There was also a single wide trailer in good shape, on an acre in Tecopa. This just basically needed a new water pump for the well, and a good cleaning to be back on the market. But Tecopa is pretty damn isolated, and has a population of... not many. A hundred or so.


Then; There is the double-wide trailer in Pahrumph, Nevada. This one doesn't need much in the way of repairs to get back on the market. At least Tom has finally realized that being an absentee landlord, several hours of driving removed from the bulk of his properties is just an invitation to be screwed.
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We had stuffed this "trailer sailer" to the friggin' gills like a giant fiberglass Thanksgiving turkey. With all of his families belongings. Then we had lashed another ton, to ton and a half, of house-hold essentials top-side Then handed the keys of his condo over to the new renters at one in the morning, (six hours later than promised) and split.


The renter's seventeen years at UPS and a strong credit rating has made Tom comfortable, for the most part, with this aspect of the move.


After gassing up, and using the bathroom, we left Oxnard at 1:30 in the morning to avoid traffic. Approx. 10 miles into our journey, about half a mile before Wells Rd. in Ventura on Hwy. 126, we blew out the left tire on the boat trailer.


I suspect that it was due to three factors;


1. The fact that we had exceeded maximum weight load for the tires by two and a
half times. (OK. Probably three times.)


2. Five years in the Channel Islands Boat Yard had resulted in some serious tire
rot.(Who knew?)


3. The loose nut behind the wheel.


So anyway; We are just over the shoulder's white line. The star lug wrench is "somewhere" in the packed van/wagon. Or inside the stuffed turkey sailboat. Tom thinks. (but isn't sure.)


And there is no way to find out, as Tom didn't pack a flash light.


High balling semis are blowing past us at 70 plus. Inches away from our fragile hold upon continued existence on this planet.


Carley, Toms 10 year old daughter is crying. His wife Quianna, is sobbing. I turn and start walking east on the shoulder of 126. Remembering that there are call boxes about every two miles on that stretch of it.


Tom, thinks that I am bailing. Just walking away from the whole dog and pony show that's in full swing. (This fear is based on no experiences with me, but evidently Tom has been; "left by the wayside" by somebody before.) He starts hollering at me..."No! Don't leave... Come back!


I turn and tell him; "I'm going to find a call box. I'll get the Hwy Patrol to come by."


Tom thinks this is just a verbal ploy by me, to move beyond his sight, and pleas for assistance.


I couldn't convince him otherwise, so I quit trying, turned and kept walking. I heard a couple of more; "Nooo! Nooo's! drifting on the wind, then nothing.


Around the first bend, about an eighth of a mile from our own personal little malfunction junction, I come upon Hwy 126 call box #42. I get the dispatcher, and ask her to send a Hwy. patrol.


She doesn't really want to, and we do about 10 minutes of verbal jousting. Such as;


"Does anyone have an auto club membership?


I tell her; "No." And leave it at that.


No sense informing her that nobody among us was within light years of being that prepared for this smokin' chokin' six wheeled (two on the trailer) adventure into the unknown that we had undertaken. Or that we didn't even have the half ass understandable excuse of being drunk, and therefore incapable of knowing better.


Then she wanted to call a tow truck.


I told her that we had a spare. We had three scissor jacks. All we needed was the use of a Hwy. Patrolman's flashlight and star lug wrench .


Her response was to suggest, (without really saying so), that there was probably more likely hood of the responding officer allowing me to have sex with his wife while he watched, than there was of him letting me fondle his four D sized battery flashlight.


I also got the feeling that she (the dispatcher) would have given me five to one odds on my never even getting a peek at his star lug wrench.


So I upped the ante by suggesting (without really saying so) (two can play that game) to this female "dispatch-enator" that there was a 10 year old girl who was screaming, and her mother who was sobbing every time that a semi truck blew past their little van wagon, like Jerry Reed in; "Smokey and the Bandit." With only about nine to twelve inches to spare between her daddys bloody mangled, pulp-non-fiction death Because her daddy was trying to gnaw the rusted in place lug nuts off with his teeth.


I also pointed out that even though she had correctly identified us as collectively being, not only idiots, but low-rent and powerless to boot, there was really no way for her to adequately ascertain how rich, powerful and loved the person was, that pretty soon was gonna crash into us, and also perish in the soon to be, flaming hot ending to our road trip.


After giving this approx. 3 seconds of careful consideration, she capitulated. Saying; "An officer is on the way."


About 10 minutes later, I materialize out of the darkness next to the driver's window. Tom doesn't see me, until I rap on the window. As he had sunk into an eyes closed despair.


Probably wondering if it was gonna be a White-Freight-liner, or Peter-Built that was gonna send him to that great scrap yard in the sky.


I inform him that the cavalry is on the way.


Two minutes later, the Hwy Patrol Officer arrives.


Now bro, you know that one of my missions in life is to single-handedly bring back the look of; "Casual disarray." I was in fine form that night my friend. My hair was flying this way and that. I was torn between smiling, and scaring the be-jeesus out of the guy with my gap-toothed grin, or not smiling, and having him think that; "I'm moody/trouble/different etc.


I finally chose friendly/smile and he called for back-up!


To be fair, the back up wasn't because he was frightened of me, or Tom, but because while he was watching us, and shining his flashlight on our lack of trailer-jacking expertise; That required ALL THREE JACKS (because, if you remember, we were two and a half times, or better, over the weight limit)he wanted another patrolman to make sure that he wasn't crushed to death along with us, if somebody drifted into the 24 inch stay alive zone


Which I swear to God was all that two Calif. Hwy. Patrol Officers could get these fucking 18 wheel high-ballers to cede to us.


We finally get the blown out, shredded, rotted remnant of a tire that a Pakistani refugee couldn't have turned into one decent sandal for a midget, only to discover that the lug-nut holes of the spare rim...don't...line...up.


Are you beginning to detect a theme here bro? Do we need another reading of the tea leaves?


You starting to see the Rod Serling, Twilight Zone, lost episode implications swirling around this road trip?


So... We drop the trailer. We go back to Oxnard. But we can't stay at his condo on Yardarm, in Hueneme, 'cause the people that rented it from him have moved in!


So, we go to Spud-nuts. Located at the Channel Islands Fisherman's Wharf. Spud-nuts is an all-night donut and coffee emporium based upon the unlikely, yet true premise that potato flour makes for a tastier donut.


It takes me twenty minutes to "sell" them on the idea of; Well lit, safe, coffee, donuts, bathrooms, etc.


I swear to God Vic, we get there 35 minutes after the fucking place gets arm-robbed!Probably for the first time in its history.


I grab a paper and coffee and sit down. I figure that I will die of old age before this joint has another moment like that.


Tom, his wife, and daughter are locked inside their van/wagon, searching the shadows for the "bad man." Too frightened to eat donuts, or sleep.


We get a tire/rim at 8 in the morning. We "get 'er done" with thirty to fifty trucks and cars a minute blowing by both of us with an average of 18 inches to spare between high velocity steel, and our mortal coil having a convergence. With no Hwy. patrol this time. We drive like two miles to Santa Paula. Get another replacement tire for the rotted one on the other side.


We turn on the hazzard lights. We do twenty-five to thirty five mph, all the way to North Edwards. The friggin' Mormons pulled handcarts from Illinois to Salt Lake City faster that we got to North Edwards.


But other than that it was fun!
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So I am going to lend a hand up here for the next week or two. Then it's off to Southern Florida. Back to the Glades, the gators, and the Gulf Coast gastrointestinal delights.


I'll keep you posted.