Hurricane Sandy, the Aftermath

I've been thinking a lot about this.  When Hurricane Sandy was approaching and we didn't know where she was going to hit, there was a lot of nervous joking.  A lot of references to "Deathicane Sandy" and "Hurricane Sandybags" (referring to the sandbags we hauled home and stacked out back).  You know the kind of joking--borne of "oh, hell, we don't have flood insurance" and "what if the power goes out for weeks?" fears. 

Call it "whistling past the graveyard."

We did not take the brunt of Sandy's rage.  We were spared.  New Jersey?  New York?  Not so lucky.  In fact, they got whomped in a devastating way.  Including, I'm sure, the little dog-friendly beach we visited last June with Charlie.  His first (and thus far only) time at the ocean. 

I feel terribly for the folks who were hit so very hard.  And I feel like I need to explain the Sandy jokes.  They weren't borne of callousness or a desire to get a giggle at the expense of others.  No, it was just nervousness and a need to try to lighten things up and allay our fears in the face of something scary.

If it ever came across as anything but that, please accept my deepest apologies. 

Train Now Leaving on Track Five!

My first escape from Ogden, Utah came in the form of a car accident. Or the proceeds of a car accident, anyway. When the insurance adjuster handed me that big (ish), bad (ish) check, I made the (insane) decision to grab my then boyfriend (now husband), our too many cats, and pack it all up for California.

That’s Cal-ee-four-ny-ay!

Not really understanding that there were other truck rental choices out there, we went with that orange and white disaster we all know and despise, U-Haul.

Because we were moving, in effect, two households, we snagged a 26 foot monstrosity of a truck that handled like—well, like a 26 foot truck. Tacked onto the tail-end was a 17 foot auto transport for my newly put-back-together and freshly painted 1973 Mustang.

My joy.

According to U-Haul, a move from Ogden, Utah to Los Angeles, California should take, load to unload, five days. In some universes, that may actually be possible. Not so much in ours. In fact, by the time we hit the road, we were three days into that five day rental. No, we didn’t have an apartment lined up or any sort of employment planned. Ah, yes, those heady days before parenthood. I get all reflux-y just thinking about it today.

Aside from a back-and-fill disaster in a really bad part of Vegas, our U-Haul experience was surprisingly trouble-free . . . until that famous killer of moving trucks, Cajon Pass. It was there our truck decided that gears are for wimps. In fact, it decided it had only two gears—reverse, and a rather sad first gear that topped out at a whining 15 mph. Yes, even downhill on Cajon, 15 mph was our maximum speed.

Have you ever driven rush hour freeway in SoCal at 15 mph? We didn’t dare establish eye contact with our fellow highway-mates for fear of being shot. No, I’m not joking. Californians take their freeway speed very seriously.

Not wanting to be stuck on the side of a busy interstate, we decided to take the first likely exit to come our way. It only took us about an HOUR to get there (at 15 mph): Rancho Cucamonga.

Rancho Cucamonga, did I say?

Yes. Yes I did. And until that very moment, I had spent my life believing that Rancho Cucamonga was a creation of Looney Toons. You remember, don’t you? “All aboard! Train now leaving on track five for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cuc... amonga!" Almost immediately, I realized that the make-believe Rancho Cucamonga was bisected by the equally mythic Route 66. I had that momentary, “Oh, hell, I’ve wound up in another David Lynch movie” feeling as Tommy hung that right turn and put us smack in the middle of . . . not a lot.

No, not a lot. In fact, it took us half an hour (at 15 miles per) to find a gas station. Apparently, Rancho Cucamonga doesn’t believe in gas stations. They also, we discovered, don’t believe in pay phones with return numbers. I guess that’s to discourage the bangers and drug dealers. Unfortunately, it also discourages U-Haul’s customer service folks, who refuse to deal with anyone who can’t provide a return number. We wound up having to call someone back in Ogden to act as go-between for us. No, the gas station basta—uh—clerk (ahem) wouldn’t let us use his phone, either. But we managed to bypass the hassles and wheedle a third-person promise from U-Haul that someone would be “right there.”

Four hours? Yeah, that sounds about right. Four hours stewing on the grass, dying for a bathroom (yes, that same phone-denying "clerk" wouldn't let us use the restrooms, either). And when the magical tow truck from U-Haul DID show up, it was . . . itsy? We had a 26 foot truck with a 17 foot auto transport, and they sent a converted Ford Bronco to tow it? Hello?

Hello?

More wrangling, more hassling third-person, and we’re told, once again, that they’ll be “right there.” Mmm. We weren’t nearly so impatient this time around—we knew what to expect, wait-wise. We walked over to a Jiffy Lube and used THEIR restrooms. About an hour into our new wait, as it became dark, there was a shout from the gas station and a teenage boy ran out at top speed, right toward . . . my CAR. My freshly painted, gorgeous Mustang up on her auto transport trailer. The kid leaped up on the trailer, planted a hand in the middle of the hood, and vaulted over. Forgetting that I was in Southern California, I launched myself from the grass and gave chase, shouting, “Hey, you #$@!, that’s my @#@! CAR! You %$@# up my car I'll take it out of your @#$!"

Stupid is as stupid is, right?

The kid was caught (trapped between us and the basta--clerk from the gas station), the car un-dinged, and no one got shot. Sadly, none of the ugly possibilities had gone through my mind as I dashed after our young shoplifter. That’s the crazy thing about traumatic brain injuries—sometimes they do a real number on impulse control and the like. Heck, sometimes it's so bad you toss all your stuff in a U-Haul and take off with no real plan.

Now, I know this all sounds terrifically UN-lucky, but that’s not the case at all! See, the new, big, wowser tow truck came and the driver/mechanic (who, upon learning were were homeless, slipped us a business card for the apartment complex he lived in) determined that the truck was utterly unbailable. That being the case, they dragged the whole mess to their tow yard (in Rialto, another fictional place), then helped us unload the car and place the contents (for free) in one of their locking storage sheds.

They then informed us that, because of the mechanical failure, they would hold onto our stuff for as long as it took us to find a place, and then drag the broken-down disaster to our new place at our convenience for unloading. Oh, and they’d pay for our hotel room, too. That took us from “oh, hell, we only have until tomorrow morning to find a place, unload the truck, and get it back before the 10 am deadline” to taking a few days to find a place with no time limit and no additional charges. So the breakdown wasn’t bad luck at all! In fact, it bailed our sorry behinds!

Funny thing is, after a few days of apartment hunting, we wound up calling the number on the tow-truck driver's card, and two days later we were moving in . . . U-Haul delivered as promised, and picked up as promised when we’d finished unloading. Were we in Los Angeles, our original destination, our dream? Nope. In fact, we never made it anywhere near. We were in Fontana (often called Fontucky, and for good reason), a good 45 miles east of L.A.

But we DID manage to get our kicks on Route 66 every time we headed to L.A., the beaches, Hollywood, or really anyplace worth going. And th-th-th-that's what it's ALL about, folks!

Adventures in Lynch-land

In our early days, Tommy and I spent a lot of time beating up on rocks and digging holes. They call it “rockhounding,” and so long as you’re not leaving eyesore holes or trespassing, it’s an honest, respectable way to break a sweat.

Our first trip to Topaz, Utah was an educational one. Twenty-eight years old, and no one had ever told me about Topaz. No history teacher, no college professor. Sure, I knew that Japanese-Americans had been wrong-headedly rounded up and held in “internment camps,” but I didn’t know I had one in my back yard. It’s a desolate place, and, at the time, all that was left was a water tank, some tar paper, and a lot of old, rusted barbed wire. I understand the locals have created a museum detailing Topaz’s miserable history. I guess that’s something.

For this adventure, we loaded up my Mustang (my bad-ass Mustang, in fact) and headed toward Delta, Utah. See, Delta is where the gas station nearest Topaz resides. We wanted to fill up the tank before heading off into the big, bad desert.

We reached our campsite after dark (of course). We didn’t really know what we were looking for or where we were supposed to be for our rockhounding adventure, but it was late at night, so we decided to pitch our tent, get some dinner into us, sleep a bit, then worry about where the pretty rocks were hiding come morning.

This was terrifically educational on so many fronts. One thing we learned? There is NO firewood in the desert! Seriously! Unless you want to uproot sagebrush (which we didn’t), there’s not a danged thing to burn. Luckily, some rockhounding pros happened by and gave of their firewood stash.

Another thing we learned? Ants go to ground in the dark.
Why would that be important? Well, picture this: it’s dark. You’re tired. You look around (in the DARK) for a likely spot for a tent. You decide on a nice little hillock under the dubious shade of a twisted juniper (actually THE twisted juniper—there weren’t any others around). You pitch your tent, unroll those bags, and climb in for a nice night’s sleep. When you wake up? Well, you notice the exterior of the tent is making strange skittering noises. So thick that it’s almost a buzz.

Did you know that big, red ants wake up in the morning? And they tend toward unhappy when they find tents pitched directly atop their home? Yeah. Like I said, educational.

After de-anting the tent and moving our campsite to a less ant-y spot for breakfast, we decided to go geode hunting. A few miles on the Topaz road, then 7 miles on the old Pony Express trail, and there it (allegedly) is—a treasure trove of geodes.

Uh-huh.

While the Topaz road, a cracked length of red dust and hardpan, rode smooth as silk, the Pony Express trail’s looks were deceiving; what appeared to be a wide, level, well-graded road was actually so heavily washboarded that driving at any speed over 7 mph set up a vibration in the car so violent it shook off the side mirrors. Now, if you’ve ever driven a big ol’ muscle car, you know that 7 mph is nothing more than a microsecond’s tick between stop and GO. The car idled at 15 mph. That left me jumping back and forth between braking and downshifting in hopes of keeping the car from overheating AND the brakes from burning up. We made it, but it wasn’t even a little bit of fun.

How were the geodes? Well, the dig began with the ugly realization that, through no fault of anyone’s, we had no WATER in the 100 degree heat. I had, back at camp, called out to Tommy, “Get the water!” That’s ALMOST what he heard me say, with one crucial difference.

He heard, “I’ll get the water!”

Oops.

We spent four hours or so digging holes in the blazing sun with no water. While we found some very pretty rocks with fascinating crystal inclusions, we came up utterly geodeless. We finally looked at each other and silently admitted defeat. We tossed the assorted tool-type things into the trunk and off we went.

At seven miles per hour.

By the time we hit the Topaz road, I was so dry I could no longer make spit. Unfortunately, we were down to less than a quarter tank of gas. Backtracking to camp for water would leave us without enough fuel to make it into Delta. There was that decision made for us, huh?

At this point came the black helicopters, but I think I’ll save that story for another day.

By the time we made the highway (a strong term, as the road ended a mile or two to the west), we were on fumes. I stopped the car, and Tommy hopped out and grabbed the gas can from the trunk. One gallon of gas in a car that got 15 miles to the gallon. Sixteen miles to Delta.

Hmm.

Tommy hopped back in and off we went, hopeful that the one gallon plus fumes would be adequate. After a couple of minutes, trouble came looking for us. Tommy squinted in the miserable heat and asked, “What’s with the road up there?”

The road ahead, you see, was--well, it was undulating.

I stopped the car dead in the middle of the nominal highway, and Tommy got out to investigate. By the time he got back to the car, I already knew. And I was horrified.

Gophers? Something like that. Hundreds upon hundreds of gopher-like creatures darting back and forth across the road. Why? Who knows why gophers do things? All I knew was that the road was covered in gophers and we needed to be on the other side.

Tommy, bless him, tried very hard to come up with a passage that didn’t involve squooshing gophers. He suggested turning around and finding a back road around the gophers. Had I not been half dead from dehydration and the car not nearly out of gas, this would have been my choice. However, when faced with dying in the desert or some dead gophers, I had to go with the latter. Tommy suggested he walk in front of the car, shooing the gophers out of the way. That might have worked to save a few gophers, but would have involved driving at 2-3 miles per hour. At 3 mph, that Mustang would have gone exactly 67 feet before running out of gas, plus the gophers shooed from the front tires would merely wind up under the rear. On a real highway, I might have opted to pull over and hitch into town for more gas. But this wasn’t a real highway, and we hadn’t seen another vehicle on a road since leaving Delta the day before. Understand that, by this time, I had stopped sweating. Walking the remaining ten miles into town just wasn’t an option.

With a sick resolve, we nodded to each other, cranked up the tunes, and plowed through the gophers. Tommy’s jaw was set, eyes down. And me? I laughed. Not a “ha-ha, funny” laugh, but an, “Ohhhh, noooo, this is too horrible to be real” sort of stunned bray. And it was horrible. Horrible enough that, even today, my stomach lurches just a little when I think about it too hard.

We rolled into the one gas station we could see on the fumes of fumes. We pulled up to the pumps, and Tommy headed in for refreshments while I pumped gas. The two teenage boys who made some serious moves on me were adorable. Not so adorable was their response when I told them how old I was. Yeah, that’s right, boys. Old Lady Kris still remembers, and she still knows where you live.

Pulling under a large elm at the edge of the station's dirt lot, Tommy and I climbed on the hood of the Mustang and sucked down Gatorades like—well, like dehydrated people. After about ten minutes of lazing and sipping, we climbed down, intent upon visiting the local hardware store for second pickaxe.

Or not.

Even before I spied the tire, I knew it was flat because of the way the car was sitting. Rear driver’s side. Nail. Marvelous.

We popped open the trunk and pulled out the spare and jack. It didn’t take long to realize that whatever moron (me) had put on those fancy chromed lug nuts had over-tightened them. They weren’t budging. We tried, both separately and in tandem. We did all those things you aren’t supposed to do (like standing on the star wrench and bouncing), but no go. Tommy looked up, and, like magic, there was a TIRE STORE right across the field behind us. How convenient, huh? Almost as if by design!

Who says there aren't miracles? Yeah, that's sarcasm.

Tommy walked over to see if someone could give us a hand (a FREE hand—remember, we’re poor). I hit the bathroom, bought another few drinks, and cat-napped just a bit while waiting. I awoke to the sound of footsteps on gravel.

And nearly screamed. I’d fallen asleep in Delta, Utah, but had awoken in a David Lynch movie.

Tommy had returned with a dwarf. A wild, Gimli sort of dwarf, with beautifully tangled black hair and bright, blazing blue eyes. A deep tan, a chambray work shirt, and a nametag that proclaimed him, “SHORTY!” Oh, and a gun in his belt. Mustn’t forget the gun.

The powerful sense of unreality that washed over me was nearly overwhelming. I blinked at Tommy, he shrugged, and we got down to business. What else was there to do?

Shorty was buff. He was tough. He could have kicked both our asses without breaking a sweat. And he whipped those lug nuts off in—yes, in short order. Couldn’t help myself. Mea culpa.

After dispensing with the lug nuts, he began changing the tire. We told him that wasn’t necessary, but he insisted, saying it was what he did for a living. We were grateful . . . for a moment.

And then Shorty started talking. He started rambling about his days as a heroin runner, his run-ins with the law over certain relationships he’d had. He ranted about Los Angeles, and how beautiful it had been before the “blacks” (NOT the word he used) took over.

Wowser.

We were cowards, I admit it. We looked over his head at each other (not hard to do), looked back down at the gun tucked into his belt, and made that choice to keep our mouths shut rather than risk inciting rage in a racist, muscle bound, well-heeled dwarf.

After Shorty had changed the tire, he offered to patch it for ten bucks at the tire shop. We agreed, and followed along. In the shop, Shorty took up his rambling where he’d left off; the wonderful prostitutes in Vegas, his incestuous relationship with his older sister, and, finally, his years in the Navy. And that was it, my mouth was open before I even knew what was happening. I muttered incredulously, “The Navy? The NAVY? What, were you ballast?”

It’s amazing how dangerous someone that small can look. He asked what I’d said, I backpedaled and mumbled a question about back roads from Delta to Topaz. Shorty shook his head, said there were none that would be passable in my car. He then turned, quite obviously sized me up (you know the old up and down—makes you feel like you need to bathe?), and demanded of Tommy, “So, she yours?”

I quite literally choked.

Tommy feigned ignorance. Shorty, not to be distracted, persisted. “Is she yours? Are you married?” Tommy shook his head, said no, we weren’t married. Shorty smiled like a man looking to make a deal. You know, the sort of deal that involves trading time with your girlfriend for a ten dollar tire patch? Tommy, looking absolutely trapped, cleared his throat in a most manly fashion and mumbled,

“Um, I’ve, um. We’re attached.”

I left.

Tommy caught up back at the Mustang. I couldn’t explain why I was so pissed off; I wasn’t sure myself. But I was. I was angry in that grand, splattering way that soaks anyone unlucky enough to come near. Tommy tossed the patched tire into the trunk, and off we went. It took us a few miles to realize that we were both craning around to look back, making sure Shorty wasn’t zooming up behind us. Yes, that really was a concern. This was, after all, a David Lynch movie—why wouldn’t the dwarf follow us and kill us in our sleep? Probably with poison darts or hallucinogens in our baked potatoes.

We made it nine miles toward camp when we saw the gophers in the distance. Seemingly unfazed by the ugly demise of their comrades, they were still zipping back and forth across the road with manic abandon. I pulled over. I looked at Tommy. He looked at me. And we began to laugh. Wrenching, raucous, uproarious laughter. We laughed until tears were flowing down our snorting faces. Then I put the car in gear and, sniffling, we mowed over the gophers to get back to our blessedly ant-free camp, where we ate, drank, and slept the sleep of the sleepy . . . with one eye open, ever-watchful for creeping dwarves in the night.

Looks Like We're Camping Here

Hubby and I have a long history of sleeping in tents together. I think all of our camping experiences have been interesting, but some might not be categorized as "fun" by normal people. In fact, some could be termed horrific by those more attuned to what is and isn’t healthy and pleasurable.

The boring folks, in other words.

Back in ’94, when we were still fairly new, we took a little, bitty, baby camping trip. Our first--just a few nights, some rockhounding, a “getting to know you” sort of trip. We were fully prepared to head out early, scope out a campsite, then spend the rest of the afternoon whomping on whatever outcropping of stone caught our beady little eyes. Of course, being us, it didn’t quite work out that way. Really, when does it?

It’s not that we didn’t pack in a timely fashion. Heck, we had that little Corolla Wagon packed to the gills early on. No, the problem came when we tried to leave. Or rather, when we tried to close the hatch-back so we could leave.

It wouldn’t close. It stayed stubbornly aloft, one brow raised. Sneering. Really. No amount of cajoling, urging, begging, WD-40ing, threatening, or obscenity-flinging worked. We blew hours on that bastard, actually UNpacked the car in hopes of finding the problem and fixing it. No go. After way too much time, Tommy and I stepped back and nodded grimly at each other. And then we did it—we grabbed that bugger tight and yanked our hardest, dragging it closed. It cracked, it crunched, it snapped and groaned. And then it closed.

Sort of.

What it really did was BREAK, but I’m not going to let a little thing like semantics get in my way. Twenty minutes later, hatch bound shut with much orange twine, we were on the road.

Starting out so late was just the beginning of a trend with us. We are wicked bad for not finding a spot to camp until after dark. Yes, it’s stupid. And?

We cruised through Vernon (not to be mistaken for VERNAL), Utah well after dark, and were approaching Eureka when our cryptic map let us know that we wanted to “turn right at the second set of railroad tracks after the dirt road next to the power poles.” Being smarter than we look, we managed to hang that turn on the first try. Weee!

Speaking of that cryptic map, it also spoke of dirt roads that turn “bottomless” when waterlogged. Really, “bottomless” was the word. Goodness. Who thought THAT up?

We turned onto the dirt road parallel to the railroad tracks and headed toward the pretty lights in the distance (those pretty lights would be THE CHEMICAL WEAPONS INCINERATOR, but we didn’t know that). The road was a bit bumpy, with a little puddle here and there, but certainly passable. At first. After a few minutes, the puddles began to come at us faster and wider and deeper, and Tommy began his fancy slalom driving, keeping up the speed to keep us from bogging down. Perhaps a mile shy of our destination, we came over a rise to see an ocean of muck in our path. Side to side and at least forty feet long with no time to stop. Thinking fast, I shouted, “Shoot for the grass!”

Tommy looked at me, perplexed, and said, “Do WHAT?” Remember, the car was still careening toward our soupy doom.

I practically screamed, “THE GRASS! SHOOT FOR THE GRASS!”

Tommy shrugged, gripped the steering wheel tightly, and shot directly for . . . the very middle of the morass?

Wha-fuh?

The car splashed, squidged, slid a bit, floated for a moment, and then sank. Straight down, waves lapping at the rocker panels. The tires whirred ineffectually in the goo, spraying icy grey water all about.

I moaned. I gestured helplessly. My lips moved, but no words would come. I closed my eyes, breathed deeply through my nose a few times, then turned to glare at Tommy, my expression dangerous, I’m sure. I tilted my head, brought my hands up before me, palms up, and near-whispered . . .

“What the hell was that?”

Tommy stiffened, hackles rising as he made to defend himself.

“You said shoot for the grass!” He pointed to the very center of the sea, where three or four sad, small blades of grass were poking up through the mud.

I goggled. I gestured expansively at the grass all around us, the meadow to either side of the sinkhole. I cried, “GRASS, Tom, GRASS! It’s ALL AROUND US!”

Tommy blinked. He looked around. Then a slow, sheepish smile spread across his face. “Oh, yeah. That makes a LOT more sense . . . so, what do we do now?”

I shook my head. “Looks like we’re camping here.” That became something of a camping mantra of ours in years to come. Yes, we did find ourselves stuck here and there pretty frequently.

Remember that map? The one warning of “bottomless” roads? I remembered it, too, as I pushed my door open, creating a wave of mud and chilly water. I stepped into the pond and found my shoe instantly grabbed. It was a heck of a tug-of-war, but we managed to free our feet with footwear intact and unload our gear. Getting the car free was out of the question. We hoped that the cold night air (and it was getting very cold) would thicken things up a bit by morning.

Lemme tell you something about setting up camp around Skull Valley in late springtime—it’s tough. The cheat grass is high and dry, and the nighttime winds are relentless. Not wanting to be one of those folks who torch 40,000 acres in their pursuit of the perfect weenie roast, I spent almost an hour just prepping a fire spot—fifteen foot radius of no torchable vegetation, a hole in which to put the fire, sides built up with rocks and dirt, then a screen placed over the fire itself. Anal? Sure. Beats dead or responsible for mass destruction, right? Best thing is, this sort of fire building leaves no sign when you’re done—fill in the hole, replant the plugs you took up, and a week later the spot’s invisible.

Oh, before you think Tommy was just lazing around while I cleared a fire-safe spot, know that he was busy dragging equipment from the gently bobbing car, pitching the tent, and setting up the gear. Tommy never shirks even an ounce of camping work. The man is a camping machine.

Dinner followed tent construction. Hamburger patties dropped into the dirt by accident (pretty sure it was an accident, anyway). Being broke and miles from town, we scraped them off best we could and ate them anyway. Grit aside, they were quite tasty.

Exhausted, we put out the fire (that involves water, stirring, more water, more stirring, yet more water, even more stirring, then a full burial with dirt, rocks, and sand), and climbed into the tent for some well-deserved (or at least greatly needed) sleep.

Sleep came, too—pretty quickly for me. I usually struggle for an hour or more before finding my way.

And then it came.

A blaring, deafening WHOOOOOOONK, the blinding glare of headlights, and the unmistakable roar of approaching death. No kidding, that’s got to be what death sounds like. Nothing else could push that much adrenaline into my blood in that short a time. No time to get out of the tent, no time to think, really, beyond the bleary, stunned “Oh, hell, the hicks have come to kill us!” We’d just watched Deliverance on video a couple of weeks earlier, and it was, apparently, still in my head. I scrabbled around in the tent pockets and found my handy, dandy bang-bang stick. Just a 38, not enough to stop a rampaging truck bent upon flattening us in our tent, but perhaps enough to put a hole in the radiator or take out a headlight or two. It’s not much, but when you’re about to die, you go for whatever little bit of something you can that will leave a sign of your once existence. The roar, the spectacular glare, the ear-splitting horn peaked . . . and then Dopplered. I don’t know any other way to describe it, but you know what I mean. It was obviously passing us. Quickly. We staggered from the tent to see the TRAIN rounding a bend a little ways away.

Yeah, train. Remember those tracks? Yeah. Sure glad I didn’t shoot a hole in the tent, huh? Or the train? I hope that engineer got himself a darn good laugh. Once we got all the piss washed out of the tent, we thought it was pretty danged funny, too.