"California is a Brand New Game"

“Mmm, California, beautiful.”  (If you’re confused, you’ve not seen Dumb and Dumber.J Netflix!) 

The last time I attempted to write my blog was in May.  Seeing as how it is now August, I obviously failed there.  Heh.  But, thanks to some snide comments from my lovely Uncle passed off by my mom, I have returned to the computer to try and update on our story.  :: We join our heroes in progress at their hotel, walking over to the café to get a free continental breakfast. ::

Christopher and I woke early, with ease, after a night of sleeping in a decent bed.  We made our way over to the hotel’s café to get our continental breakfast.  We were all too aware of the cost of things in California and were determined to use our “freebies” as a way to save money.  After all, spending money happens in a blink, especially when it comes to grabbing food here and there.

After eating, we separated the car from the trailer and truck filled with our possessions.  There was no need or desire to drive the truck around, so we left it sitting out in front of the hotel.  (We made a point to check that it was still locked and unharmed every time we left and returned to the hotel.)  We set out in the Lexus to Los Angeles from our hotel in Ontario.  We had at least a month of relevant research on possible places to live, and we knew a lot of the places we wanted to try and see.  There were two management companies that seemed to have apartments in our price range, so we started there.  The GPS continued to show its worth.  I’m not sure how difficult it would have been to find places just based on a printed map from Google, but I imagine it would not have been fun.

Without dragging you along with a story of every apartment we looked at, let me just skip ahead to the evenings we returned to the hotel:

Evening 1: We still believed it was going to happen.  We were going to find a place to live.  That first day of apartment searching, we saw a few possibilities, and a few “no way!”s. All and all, I it was an eye-opening experience.  It was crazy to see how small apartments in our price range were here, versus the size we could get in Texas.  Guess it’s true, “Everything is bigger in Texas.”  We learned more about Los Angeles, and made surprisingly good time to and from the hotel.

Evening 2: We were disheartened.  We had doubts, pain, and frustration clouding our minds.  That was by far the longest searching day.  We saw some crazy-awful places.  The price they wanted for those, we’ll just say, was ridiculous.  There were some interesting locations, like a place right outside the giant, and blue, Church of Scientology.  We were told it would be a very safe area because of the amount of security they had.  We decided against it, however. Sorry to those of you who were hoping to visit and convert. ;) 

Evening 3: We found it. It was the last place we looked.  Not at all like what some people experience with buying a house or their wedding dress.  You know the story, “It was the first thing I saw. I looked at other places/dresses, but that was it!” 

Our apartment was a different story.  We were thinking about moving into a place on Berendo but asked the management company to show us an opening in the Oxford apartments. We had driven by the building several times, and we decided we liked the look of it.  We told the leasing agent, Myra, that we wanted to see one of the open apartments, even if it wasn’t the one on the first floor that she had told us about originally.  She agreed (though I think they were trying to get rid of the apartment in the other building).  We saw the door of the not-move-in ready apartment on the first floor.  She didn’t want to show the inside because she was unsure of its condition.  The first studio she showed us in the Oxford building was on the fourth floor.  It was somewhat remodeled, and it was a nicer size than the Berendo.  The final apartment we were shown was directly below that apartment: #305.  As soon as we walked in, we liked it better.  Christopher headed off to the bathroom, while I went the opposite direction toward the kitchen.  Yep, this was it.  I mean, I was so happy with the stainless steel appliances, ample cabinet space, and slate tile floor.  Christopher came out of the wardrobe area that led to the bathroom, we passed each other in the living area, smiling, and switched inspection places.  I liked the bathroom and was happy to see the amount of closet space.  Indeed, this was it.

We told Myra immediately that we would take it.  After the previous day’s apartment searching disaster, we were relieved to find this spot.  We filled out the applications and learned of the next steps.  Because neither one of us had a job waiting for us in California, we were required to get a co-signer.  Christopher’s parents were kind enough to help us.  That day, there was a lot of back and forth of faxing paperwork, talking about the requirements, etc.   We headed back to the hotel, happy with our decision (since we were nearing the end of our time at the hotel), but nervous, hoping that everything would go through and we would be approved.

Our next day at the hotel, we were able to relax a little bit.  After all, worrying about the status of our application the entire day wouldn’t have helped things. 

*From “All the Gold in California” by Larry Gatlin

"On The Road Again"

That morning seemed to have a new light. It was a new day. After all, we had slept (albeit only a few hours, but still) in a hotel, we weren’t starving, and we had our babies with us. Things weren’t all that bad. Or maybe it was just that I was determined not to let a bunch of negative incidents cloud what this entire trip was really about: Christopher and I making a HUGE move together. There was a lot we were dealing with, but I think we were doing pretty well, all things considered.

In reality and with only a bit of sugar-coating, we had stayed in a not-so-nice place, but to us, it was a welcome break from Big Bertha. Though I was out of it the night before, I did still notice tears (err, by that I do mean ‘rips’ not the salt-water manifestations of days of disappointment) in the carpet, an ironing board with some substance on it I decided not to investigate, and that the plastic shower stall had numerous cracks and breaks. But, I still showered in it; it didn’t leak—much. It was nice to have the opportunity to lie down for a bit instead of sitting, too. The pillows weren’t all that bad, either. We tried not to think about everything else much at all.

We were in a hotel off the highway just a little, surrounded by tons of truckers, which, by purely size standards, I guess we were one of them. (This place certainly didn’t have any ridiculous restrictions on where a truck could park… they were everywhere!) That was something—it was funny to drive by an 18 wheeler and be on the same level. We could look in their eyes (when they didn’t have them down for texting or something), and it was funny to watch them react to Jack or Mau Yin with their faces pressed against the window in curiosity like a dog wanting to let his ears flap in the wind. When I would drive around in Indy, my beetle, I barely reached the top of the huge trucks’ tires. So, riding around in Bertha was an experience, if nothing else.

Honestly, though, it was an experience I was ready to ‘file and come back to later’ when I could see the humor. We were on our way to El Paso to see what would be done about our problems, and I really hoped for a different truck. I was tired of having my entire being vibrate and shake constantly. We had a few more hours before we reached El Paso, and one thing was on my mind: We have to get Whataburger before we leave Texas. As we drove into El Paso, my eyes were pealed for signs with that familiar “W.” Then I remembered our handy GPS had a “points of interest” option.
If the last Texas Whataburger wasn’t a point of interest, I didn’t know what was!

Sure enough, the GPS did not disappoint. We found the Whataburger. It was surrounded by several ethnic restaurants and little shops. We parked behind it near a large dumpster. We left Jack and Mau Yin sleeping under the seats and went to get our food. We ordered our food “to go” and the lady taking our order gave us our total… in Spanish. I took Spanish in high school, only two years, but I got the general idea; she laughed after a second of Christopher looking really confused looking at his wallet and then repeated the total in English. (I don’t think he took Spanish—ever. If she had said it in sign language, though, he probably would have gotten it.) After waiting for a while, I noticed a worker trying to deliver food and not finding the table. I got her attention, found out what was in the order, and let her know it was ours, but we ordered it “to go.” She passed it from the tray to a couple of bags, and we were ready to get out of there. (Whataburger seems to be even more popular in El Paso!) We got our food and headed back to Bertha. Our little monkeys were standing on the bench seat staring out at us. Wish I had taken a picture; it was seriously the cutest thing ever.

We got in and had our meal. It was a beautiful day—blue skies, white clouds, breezy wind. We ate looking out at our surroundings. I wasn’t terribly interested in having the food portion of my meal. The food tasted a little different being that far out in West Texas, but, one thing did taste similar… the chocolate shake. Mmmm. It was good. I took a picture on my phone to remember the moment: my last Texas Whataburger. ::sigh::

When Christopher was finished eating, he turned the key and Big Bertha rumbled to life. We drove a few more miles down the road, following the GPS’ directions to PePe’s truck shop. He managed to maneuver the truck into the parking lot filled with other, familiar yellow trucks. We waited a few minutes in the cab of the truck discussing our next step. We even called the SOS line again to make sure that the shop was, indeed, expecting us that early afternoon. We were assured that they were definitely aware that we were coming. At that point, we jumped the couple of feet down to the ground from the cab and waited to be recognized as the something different in “one of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong.” Eventually, an employee sauntered over to us. Christopher explained who we were, what was happening, et cetera.

A few more shop employees came over and they all began the process of figuring out what was going on with this truck. Jack and Mau were under the seat, not liking all the attention or probably the smell that accompanied our new location and new found friends. Christopher and I put their cage together and I struggled to mom-handle them into the cage one at a time while Christopher returned to talking “shop talk.” After we removed the cats from the cab, one of the Penske employees started the engine, and within a few minutes knew the problem. And it wasn’t an easy one to fix. They moved the truck to a better place for them to work on it.

Side Note: Christopher is not here right now to remind me exactly what the problem was. It was a few weeks ago now, so, I certainly don’t remember. For most of you, anyway, you probably wouldn’t know what it meant anyway. (I didn’t!) All I know is, they figured it out in a matter of seconds after turning the truck on, and the emergency dude who delayed us hours outside of Austin obviously had no idea. Frustration.

As I was waiting near where the truck was with the cats, the wind really picked up. Jack and Mau Yin were shaking, and so was I. Christopher had wandered off with one of the guys who diagnosed Bertha’s problem. I was in the shade, by myself, in a flow-y dress (really comfortable for driving long distances, not so comfortable for sitting/standing in the wind surrounded by several male employees, looking like they are trying to ogle your goodies), holding my purse stuffed with any valuables we had in the cab, and trying to pet my terrified cats through the cage. After a bit of this, I called Christopher. He didn’t answer. I called again. He picked up, and I asked where he was. He said he was coming back over. When he reached me, I asked him to help me carry the cats across the parking lot to where the sun was shining. We crossed about 6 huge bays and set the cage down behind where they had moved the truck and car carrier with the Lexus. We were told the truck would not be able to be fixed while we waited, and we’d have the switch to a different truck. Then we waited.

And waited.

Still some more waiting.

An hour or so later, we were told the truck we were switching to was almost ready. 30 minutes after that, maybe, the truck was going to be pulled near the old truck so we could move all of our belongings from one to the other. Crap. Moving everything into the truck once sucks, twice, as you could imagine, sucks double. To make matters worse, out of all the employees, only ONE helped us move our things, ONE out of probably 15 or 20. I found out after that when we stood talking while they filled the gas tank, that he was 70 years old. 70! He didn’t look it, but I was still shocked that he was the only one that helped us. If someone, ANYONE, else had offered their help, it would have cut the time it took in half, probably. Christopher did most of the heavy lifting (no surprise), and I felt awful that he had to do it all over again.

Eventually, though, we were in a smaller truck (thank goodness!) with everything switched over. The delay had been longer than it should have been, but we were determined to make it to Tempe, Arizona to see Erik and be out of the truck once more. Many hours later, that goal was reached.

After driving across Texas, passing New Mexico seemed to happen in a blink. The smaller truck didn’t rattle everything nearly as much as Bertha had, but there was no bench seat for Jack and Mau to hide under. Guess they made it work, though. Driving was easier for Christopher, we could hear each other speak without yelling over the noise, and we could maintain a constant speed—even going up hills!!!

Just before midnight, we pulled up to Erik’s house. We unloaded our cats from the truck, passed his cats hissing in the hall, and got our things settled. We fed the cats and locked them in the room. We weren’t going to be there long enough to try to get our cats to be friends. I expected to be exhausted, and I’m pretty sure I was, but seeing Erik gave me a newfound energy. We got a tour of his great house, including a hot tub room, and his awesome backyard with a pool. Then we sat around his living room talking. I got to hear a lot about what he and his fiancée, Katie, had been up to since we talked last. (They are getting married in June, so this was a visit I was determined to make since I can’t fly out to New York for the wedding.) We laughed and joked and listened to our kids/cats yell at each other through the door barricade. Before we knew it, it was pushing 3 o’clock. We said our “goodnights” and headed to bed.

The next morning, we set off, the three of us, to find somewhere to eat. We decided on IHOP. I suppose people make the decision to go there pretty easily, but this was actually a big step for me. It was my first trip back to the restaurant in over two years… my last visit was with my dad and brother before my dad’s last trip to chemo. I couldn’t return in Houston, but I was able to do it with my husband and an old friend in Arizona. New journeys… I’m happy to say it was a great trip. We got some food and had more great conversation. A few hours later, we were back to the truck and heading on our way.

The last leg of the trip took a little longer than expected. California has this nifty little law that when you have a trailer or are towing anything, the max speed you can attain is 55. Neat, huh? Longer story somewhat shorter: we reached our hotel, parked the truck and trailer in the front, and went to check in to our room. More delays when the room we had reserved (that allowed pets) wasn’t available, but we did eventually get in a room. We reserved a King, but we got two Queens. No worries—the room looked great as far as we were concerned!

So, at this point, we made it. We were in our destination state with a truck filled with our belongings, one car between the two of us, and nowhere to live. Challenge.
Next time on California Dreamin’: Ash and Chris FINALLY in California, they start their search for an apartment that they can inhabit safely for six months to a year, learn a thing or two about “the 10,” fight traffic in California, and discover a whole new level of “bad” driver while struggling with standards and expectations…

Tune in again next time. Promise the “travel log only” blogging is over!

…General bat time… same bat blog.

*”On the Road Again” by the Texas-great, Willie Nelson

“It’s a Privilege To Pee”

For you non-Musical Theatre fans, there is a musical called Urinetown. It’s a silly story about a town that charges people to use the restroom. I saw it once. It’s hilarious. I mean, what a crazy idea that using the bathroom is a privilege you have to pay for. It’s a satirical comedy about the legal system, municipal politics, and a bunch of other things. I didn’t realize it was actually based on a small Texas town.

WELCOME TO SONORA, TEXAS.

Now, I love Texas as much as, if not more than, anyone else who was born and raised there or got there as fast as they could. But, there are those small towns, the ones that seem to be fake, a crazy place that people base movies like Wrong Turn or say, I dunno, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on. It doesn’t seem real. Seems like some Hollywood playwright had a bad dream, woke up in a sweat, and knew he had a scary movie gold mine in his head. This guy must have written Sonora, Texas into existence.

At first glance, it looks normal enough. That’s how they get you to pull over. They put gas station signs on the freeway, and hey, you need gas. So, you pull off onto a small road. The gas stations closest to the freeway are closed. Even their automated machines require someone to be inside… weird, but you see the lights of another gas station just up the road. That’s how they get you: false hope.

At about 1 am, Christopher pulled over to try to get some diesel gas for the truck. I mean, we were only getting about 3 mpg at that point. Two gas stations were closed. We pulled into another that also appeared closed to use the automated machines. From the road behind us, a cop car pulled into the gas station lot and circled us. They did not stop or ask us if we needed help. (Serve and protect, my foot.) When we realized that the machines required a teller’s approval, Christopher ran next door to the Best Western to see if I could use the restroom (I mean, we had stopped, so why not?). They would not allow either of us to use the restroom. The cop car had silently left the lot without an offer of assistance. Christopher continued a little further into the small, creepy town to find a gas station. We saw one with a diesel sign and pulled in to the lot. We ran to the store attached to pay and so I could use the bathroom. There was a lady inside cleaning who completely ignored us. We noticed their hours and saw that they had just closed.

There was one other gas station that still had their lights on down the street. We drove less than a mile to the hot spot, apparently. The gas station’s lot was full of cars fueling up and parked in front of the store. We noticed that there was no diesel pump. Great, the only gas station open in this town didn’t have the gas that Bertha (a truck we DID NOT WANT, I reiterate) needed! Well, I still had to pee, and they obviously had a bathroom. There was one 18-wheeler parked on the edge of the lot.
We were about its size, so there was nowhere to park. We pulled past the entrance in front of another closed business (it was 1 o’clock in the morning, after all). There was no traffic except at the gas station. Some police officers were sitting in the gas station store chomping on some snacks. I smiled and ran past them to the bathroom. 3 young girls were already occupying the stalls, so I waited. Soon, I finished, washed up, and ran back outside.

When I walked out, I noticed the same police vehicle that had circled us at the first gas station parked behind Bertha with its lights on. At first, I thought, “Oh, good, they are going to help us find an open diesel gas station.” Boy was I giving Southern hospitality too much credit. Christopher stood behind Bertha digging in his wallet. I figured out this wasn’t a good thing happening.

There isn’t much to say about the “officer.” Officer Poop-Face was giving us a ticket, a ticket for “stopping, sitting, or parking on a roadway.” I mentioned there were no signs and we didn’t know we couldn’t park there since we weren’t blocking anything. He snapped that there didn’t need to be signs, you just can’t park on a road. He was being a—um, well—jerk we’ll say. So, I asked, “Well, since you’re here, maybe you can tell us where a gas station that has diesel is located!” Christopher asked, “You saw us pull into the other gas station, right?” He nodded. I asked, “Did you follow us here?” He barked, “No, I did not.” Christopher tried to reason with him; he was calm. I was not. I felt like it was all my fault because I had to pee and we couldn’t fit the truck into the parking lot. I asked if he would at least write me the ticket instead of Christopher. No luck.

I made my way to the curb and SAT on the roadway. I was stunned. I simply couldn’t believe that this was happening. After everything that had already happened to us. Deputy Dip-poop was just a small man with small parts trying to make himself feel powerful and a little bigger, but for some reason, it didn’t make me feel better. Christopher told me later that he told Christopher to make me get in the truck, and Christopher said, “That is my wife. She’s upset. You can show a little respect.” HA! I love it. Small town, small man-parts cop said, “Now you’re getting on my nerves.” Anyway, he gave us the ticket though it has WARNING checked. The court says he meant to check CITATION (we’ve talked to them already), but he didn’t. I want to fight it, I really do. We’ll at least want to file a complaint against Deputy Dung-Pants, but is it worth it? The fee, I think, is like $67. It’s not a ton, but we don’t have money to spare. We explained that we were moving across the country so Christopher could start school, but guess that guy didn’t care. School? What’s that?

Onward. We finally got out of that Hell-Hole they call a town and moved forward. We found a gas station a little further along I-10, automated, of course, and filled up. I was exhausted from everything that had happened plus now eyes puffy from crying. I just wanted to make it to the hotel. We did. Eventually. We strolled into the lobby at about 5:30 in the morning. Check out time was at 11 am, just a few hours later. We knew we wouldn’t get a lot of sleep. I mean, I was taking a shower because, “Ewe.” The lady behind the front desk was a little helpful. We actually woke her up when we got there. She was lying on the couch in the lobby and jumped up when we walked in the door. She gave us a late check out. Late meaning noon, but hey, I’ll take it. And I did. We probably feel asleep around 6 or 6:30.

I woke up before my alarm in the morning. I suppose I didn’t sleep well because I was terrified of oversleeping. I knew we had to get on the road and still had a faulty truck with a check engine light on to deal with that morning. We left the hotel, stopped and got more gas, and called the Penpoop SOS line again. This time, I had Christopher do it. I felt like I wasn’t taken very seriously over the phone. He spoke with them and let them know what we decided. Instead of waiting for one of their “technicians” to come out to us again, we would drive the truck to the El Paso shop. We were told they would look at it there, establish if it was fixable, and we would go on from there. If it was not, we would switch trucks. Someone would help us move our belongings, of course.

Okay, so let’s do this.

Next time, on California Dreamin’: Christopher and Ashley make it to El Paso and discover the fate of Big Bertha, with one last trip to Whataburger, they leave Texas, New Mexico enters and leaves their lives, and delay or no delay, they make it to Arizona to stay with Ashley’s good friend.

Join us again soon! …Same bat time (round-about), same bat blog…

*”It’s a Privilege to Pee” from URINETOWN written by: Hollmann and Kotis

Note: Blogspot is still not picking up my Italics, and I really don't want to go through the whole post to find where I meant to italicize, so hopefully you can pick up on my inflection. Thanks! :o)

“On The Sunny Side of the Street”

Okay, so we’re on our way. This is it! This is really happening! All annoying occurrences aside, this is pretty exciting. We’ve never done anything like this before; it will be just the two of us and our kids/cats. If only positive thoughts determined more than a state of mind.


We were inside the horrible, large truck with the surprisingly small cab, circling around the cul-de-sac. (Perhaps we should give the truck a name. After all, it was large enough to have its own gravitational pull with the strength of Uranus. Err, maybe Neptune. How about Big Bertha. Yeah, okay.) We were inside Big Bertha trying to retain our excitement and allow the events of the previous day and the stressful morning wash off of us. Jack Burton and Mau Yin were in their cage between us on the bench seat. They were rubbing their faces hard against the cage and meowing repeatedly.


Side Note: If you’ve never heard me tell stories of traveling with our kids, you are missing out on cat-sized drama, grossness, and more grossness. Jack, our fat man, is more of a drama queen than his sister, Mau Yin. He gets very upset when traveling. In the past, it would start off innocent enough. He would meow over and over again. Then his volume would raise and the timbre in his voice would lower. Pretty soon, he’d start panting. Then, the grossness starts: Regurgitation. You know how if you’re around someone who gets sick you have to coax your stomach into not following? You might ask, “Is it still bad watching an animal do it?” Your answer: Yep, it’s still very uncomfortable watching a cat do it. Even worse, I think, is when he would get sick the other way. ::sigh:: But I digress.


This trip, I was terrified how the kids would take it. After all, 24 hours of driving is pushing it for a person, let alone an animal that has no idea why you’re putting them through that kind of torture. I had asked my cousin who is a vet for sedative recommendations. I had experienced giving them liquid medicine before (and might still have the scars to prove it), so I made sure to mention no liquids. My dream scenario would be a shot. No luck. She mentioned an over-the-counter pill for people that could be cut up for a cat depending on size. I thought, okay, I can probably pill them. Ha. Ha-ha. HahahaHAHahaHHahahaha. That’s what I get for thinking. We tried. I tried alone. I asked Christopher to help trying. I held their mouth closed, waited for them to swallow and everything. One of them pretended to swallow it, but must have cheeked it instead. (Must have been watching One Flew Over the Coo Coo’s Nest or Girl, Interrupted or something.) The other swallowed it and then waited just long enough to get away from me and threw it up. Well, what could I do? I was doing this for their own good! Fine, they, and we, would have to deal.


Surprisingly enough, I have no gross details about the 24 hour trip. I was so surprised. The truck was SO loud. It was shaking and vibrating and uncomfortable. I thought, since Jack gets sick in cars, there is NO WAY he won’t sick it up in this bouncing, loud, sound sphere. Kids do the darndest things. After only 15 minutes or so, I set them free, unable to watch them be upset and abuse themselves because they were trapped in the cage. They walked around, sniffing at everything in the cab of Big Bertha. They found their happy place under the bench seat. We had their litter box accessible, they were free and could get to us if needed or wanted, so I guess they were happy. Catastrophe diverted.


A few hours later, we made it into Austin. First stop, to see Todd, Christopher’s dad, up North at his office. This gave all of us a little break from the vibrating cab. It gave Big Bertha a break from, well, doing its job. It seemed to be having a rough time. Had we left on time from Houston, this stop up North in Austin would have made sense. When we reached Todd’s office and Christopher was talking to him, though, we found out that he was going out to Anne’s place of work (Christopher’s mom) down South about 30 minutes later. … Too bad we didn’t know, or we could have gone directly to Anne’s and saved a few stalled moments.


Time Check: We are now at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Traffic is picking-up, and we’ve got to get Bertha onto the devil of a road, I-35.


Christopher climbs back up to the driver’s side, and turns the engine over. Surprise! We have a lovely check engine light pop on that wasn’t there initially. It’s a pretty color and all, but it’s not something that goes with our plans. We already had a shaking problem with Bertha, but it got worse. The problems were intensified when we tried to get to the highway around some construction, up a hill. “Big mistake,” rumbled Bertha. Our speed dropped, and Christopher could hardly get it to go 30-45. We pulled over, Christopher resets the light, and we push through. We make it to I-35 and set off down to Anne’s work. I-35 is a glorified parking lot, but what could we do? We inched forward the rest of the way.


Left turns can be scary, but in Bertha, even right turns could make you hold your breath. I’m not sure how Christopher did it, but he got us onto the small road next to the Faith Child Development Center. The Center is a pretty neat place to visit because there are always a lot of cute kids around doing kid things. One little boy waved at me a few times and then showed me a crayon he was holding before chunking it to the ground, breaking it. Cute, right? I think he was showing off his strength. I was impressed. We met a few of Anne’s employees and then made our way to her office. We had a nice visit, talking about anticipations and how they support us with these big changes. Before we knew it, almost an hour had passed by, and Todd found his way to us. Whoops. What time is it? Guess we better get going. One more hug and goodbye, and we were on our way.


Unfortunately, by the time we left the Center, it was prime time rush-hour time! Goody. No worries, though. We did, after all, purchase a brand spanking new GPS device with live traffic updates. As we headed out, the computer generated woman’s voice instructed us to take a right. We pass the street. I do a kind of head turn, looking at our instructed path. No worries, maybe Christopher just didn’t hear it. “Recalculating… Take a right in 500 feet.” Doo-ta-doo. Yeah, no. Another turn of the head as the street crept past our window. I mean, we were in super slow mo because of all the traffic. It’s not like it would have been a slam on the breaks and emergency turn type of situation. So, okay, probably he heard that one. “Recalculating.” At this point, I figure, I’ll emphasize what the CGW (computer generated woman) is saying. “In 400 feet, take a right at Smith street.”


“So, babe, do you want to do that? You know, take a right?”
He looked at me, confused. “But, we’re supposed to go this way.” …
Okay. Hmm. “Babe. Is there some reason you’re not listening to the GPS?”
“Well, ‘cause I think we’re supposed to go this way.”
“But didn’t we buy the GPS for directions? For help? Especially when there’s traffic?”
“Yeah…”
“Is there any reason we shouldn’t believe her? Has she guided us wrong yet?”
“No…”
“So, maybe we can give her the benefit of the doubt?”
“Yeah, okay, I guess.”
“Recalculating.” Okay, if he didn’t turn at that next street, I woulda smacked him!

He turned to me and asked, “So, should I turn?”

::sigh:: Calm. “Yeah, go ahead. What can it hurt?”


We make the turn and find our way around some traffic. Too bad we did not find our way around engine problems. The check engine light comes back on. We pull over again. He resets it again. We continue on a mile or so before it pops on yet again. This time, we pull over to the side of the road.


I rummage through our paperwork and find the paper marked SOS. I call the 1-800 number and wait, and wait, and wait. Eventually, I am put on with a SOS representative for Eksnep (get it?!). I let him know our location, what has been happening with the truck, where we picked it up, where we are going, et cetera. He suggests we pull over and wait. At this point, we find ourselves in a small town outside of Austin. We see a gas station and a post office. It’s not totally Deliverance up in there or anything, but it’s not my ideal stop over. But, we pull over off of the main road, across from the little post office and give him the street intersection. He asks me for the zip code. Wow. Really? I say, “I don’t know, but I guess I can look it up on my phone and let you know.” I mean, I know he’s on a computer. Come on! We are told it will take 30 minutes to an hour to have a service technician come to check on the engine. Immediately after hanging up with the rep from Penske, the technician called to say someone was on the way already. An hour would be tops; he was only coming from Austin.


There we are, on the side of the street, waiting. I decide I’m going to get upset. A few tears into it, Christopher suggested we make some sandwiches. He headed to the back of the truck, unlocked and threw open the massive truck’s door. Since we had the room, we had a cooler with snacks for the drive in the back. A few minutes later, I sucked it up and walked to the back of Bertha. He had a sandwich made for me. We sat together in the cargo area, what would be the equivalent of a pickup truck’s tailgate, and ate our sandwiches with a couple of sodas, our very own pity ‘tailgate’ party. It was a pretty nice day; I was grateful for that. And actually, it was a lot of fun. Kind of like a picnic break. We were making the best of it. Before long, though, it got dark, and we decided to move our waiting into the cab. It was well past 30 minutes, into the hour, when I called the SOS line again.


I let the representative know that I had already attempted to call the service technician’s number, but there was no answer. He said he would call and check the status and get back to me. He did call back, saying he wasn’t sure why there was a delay, but that it shouldn’t be more than another 15 or 30 minutes. Great. We were sitting in the dark cab, watching a assortment of pickup trucks grumble past us. Every slightly large truck made us sit up, hoping that was the tech. After the mentioned time passed, I called again. We were given another promise that they would be there soon.


Not long after that last call, a tiny little SUV drove past us. We didn’t think anything of it, because it was not a service truck. They turned around and drove back toward us, u-turned one more time, and pulled their tiny SUV to the front of Bertha’s towering front bumper. It was difficult to see because it was so dark, but there appeared to be a small person in his truck. Christopher got out to speak with him, letting him know the situation. He asked Christopher to pop the hood.


Yeah, okay, let me explain something. Large trucks like that don’t have a “pop” option. You unhook locks from either side of the large hood and pry it forward, not up. (Which I saw the first time we pulled over and Christopher pulled the hood forward to check the engine.) Christopher explained this to him, and they unhooked it and pulled it forward. Not a good sign, eh?


During all this, he explained to Christopher that he has worked on trucks like this for 10 years. Hmmm… He attempted to look at the engine. It was a bit of a challenge seeing as how it was after 7 o’clock at night and it was near black outside. Christopher said he had a flashlight and retrieved it. It doesn’t take a veteran of 10 years to know that engines on diesel or any other type of engine don’t glow at night; flashlights are necessary. Mr. Expert checked the fluids by sight. He climbed into the cab and revved the engine. Guess there wasn’t all that much he could do seeing as how he didn’t have his tools with him or his work truck. Oh, and that little person I mentioned was his kid. Professional, huh? Through the course of their conversation, he let Christopher know that the technician who was supposed to come out to us couldn’t make it. He was filling in for him. Nice, and a COMPLETE WASTE OF OUR TIME! He reset the light by revving the engine and turning the car off and on and explained it was a fluke. Nothing was wrong; it was just a faulty sensor. Riiiiiight.


I was irritated that was had to wait 2 and ½ hours for a fluke. That irritation last about 5 minutes or so until the light came BACK on 3 or 4 miles down the road. I called the SOS line again and had to go through the prompts from the beginning because they had closed our case. Yay. I got a different rep and explained everything. He tried to lighten my mood by joking with me. Guess it helped a bit, but it didn’t change the fact that he had no solution. I said I didn’t want to wait another 2 and ½ hours to get someone to come out and do nothing. We had a hotel room waiting for us in Van Horn, Texas, a few hours outside of El Paso. He said I could do whatever I wanted. He understood. He’d send someone if I wanted him to. Hm. He then said that there was a large shop for Penske trucks in El Paso and he could send someone to our hotel in Van Horn if I wanted him to. At that point, I lost cell reception… probably a good thing. I needed a break. We were in the middle of nowhere going up and down hills. If you’ll recall, that means we weren’t getting about 35-45 mph. The trip to Van Horn, already delayed from our useless stop in Post Office City, Texas, normally 10 hours, would take us over 15.


Next time, on California Dreamin’: Bertha sabotages Christopher and Ashley one more time by needing diesel fuel and being too large to fit in a parking lot, Bertha’s partner-in-crime, Poop-Head Small Town Cop gives our heroes a ticket for “stopping, sitting, or parking on a roadway” while Ashley sneaks inside the only open gas station to use the restroom, and they reach their first hotel only a few hours before checkout time.


Check back soon! Same bat time, same bat channel.


*”On the Sunny Side of the Street” written by: McHugh and Fields

Bad-ah-bah-bah-baaaaaah, I’m blogin’ it.

Told you I’d start a blog!!!!

So, after some delay, we have arrived in California. With no Internet connection, starting an online blog has proven to be a challenge. Fear not, where there is determination, there will be success. Here I am, sitting at Starbucks writing what we’ll call a “rough draft” until I can get connected to the Internet to post this for others to read. I’ve forgotten the password I used to set up my two-hour limit account with ATT Wi-Fi at Starbucks. (Set it up for apartment searching.) I know it was only several days ago, but so much has happened before, after, and during then. Guess this is more like a journal until others read it, huh?

Let’s start at the beginning… Skip back with me to March 25th, 2010. A sunny and cool day in Houston, Christopher and I were ready to pick up our moving truck from a certain truck rental company. I’m not sure I should use their name since it was such an awful experience. Eh, what the heck. I’ll mention it once and then see if I can change it periodically throughout this blog. So, we arrive bright and early at Amazing Spaces to pick up our Penske rental truck. We were on the ball, we had booked it online plenty in advance, worked out that a diesel truck, though larger than what we would need, would save us money in the long run because of gas mileage, and showed up right on time to pick up our selected truck. We walk in, ready to prepare for this huge journey we were to take, only to have our bubble burst when we had only just filled it! The evil lady (really nice, actually, but for the purposes of our story, I’ll exaggerate for effect) behind the counter let us know that the truck we had reserved, though guaranteed by the truck rental company who-must-not-be-named, was not available.

Hmph.

Okay, so, what step do we take from here? Well, we would be upgraded to a ridiculously large truck usually reserved for high school woodshop students taking large handcrafted bookshelves, chairs, dining room tables, et cetera across the state for no extra charge! You don’t say: an even larger truck that we absolutely DON’T need for no extra charge at all? Really? One with two diesel gas tanks that is expected to get only 8 to 10 miles to the gallon and be tremendously difficult to maneuver?! Be still my heart!

At this point, I’m slightly miffed. We ask if we can be downgraded retaining our original discount for booking online in advance. The answer (after waiting too long for the lovely, err, I mean, troll behind the desk to stumble her way through a computer she obviously only uses to play solitaire) is given: no. We can get the smaller truck, one much more suited to the small amount of belongings we intended to take with us to California, but for a higher price than the large truck. Riiiiiight. Okay, so what choice do we have? I mean, she checked her magic eight ball computer. She even called the dark mistress customer service representative from Pen-suck. Unless we want to cough up more dough than originally intended, we had to go with the larger truck.

I’m leaving out a fun little tidbit for you. As I’m sure all of you have experienced, when you and your significant other are stressed and tired, fighting seems to come so easily. Being calm and rational takes a back seat to throwing the other in front of the blame train, so to speak. After the lady renting us the truck, we’ll call her Ursula, told us that the truck we had reserved was not available, but before she told us that the smaller truck would cost us more, she suggested we go take a look at the 16 foot truck (the smaller, more reasonable truck) and the 26 foot truck (the monster, won’t-this-really-suck-to-get-me truck) to decide which would work best. Christopher and I climbed inside to take a look. The 16 foot truck we thought would work for the drive. The 26 foot truck we thought would work to live in. Sometimes, because Christopher is such a doll, I can’t tell what he’s thinking. It appeared to me he wanted the larger truck. This, for some reason, upset me. He originally booked that size online stating it was the best bang for our buck. (And women are supposed to be the bargain shoppers. Ha!) He changed it after our first conversation about the different sizes and what we were taking with us. We booked the 20 foot truck only because it was diesel. That was too large, too, but I let that slide in the off chance that we might decide to take our couch or dining room table.

So, there we were, standing in the back of a moving truck with the door up, arguing. “You seem to want the biggest truck.” “Stop saying that! I just want to decide!” Yadda, yadda, yadda. At about that time, he gets a phone call and jumps out of the truck. I’m left there, looking out at the beautiful day, thinking we traded having nothing go right for some great weather. If that were the case, I wished for a storm cloud anywhere other than right over my head.

Okay, drama over! We wrapped up the argument, as we’re sometimes able to do, realizing that we were overreacting because we were stressed and tired. We returned to the office and the aforementioned happened. You know, we decided on the 16 foot truck only to be told we couldn’t have it. Funny, you would think this would have been mentioned before…

Three hours later, we were ready to head back to the house to load our giant truck. Yep, three hours. Once we told Ursula that we would go with the 26 foot truck, she had a bit—nay—a lot of trouble ringing it up. She had to call a dark mistress from rental-company-that-must-not-be-named yet again to ask what the problem was. “How do I do this? It won’t let me put in their triple A discount. Oh, you have to do that first? Wait, it erased all their information, do I have to type it in again?”::sigh:: By the time we finally got out of there, I was ready for a nap, not loading of our belongings. Oh, well… Fight through, fight through.

An even longer story shorter than it could be, the rest of that day and the next, we loaded the truck, decided to leave my wonderful ’99 Beetle behind so it wouldn’t break down once we arrived in California, and returned inside the house to finish packing our travel bags and store what we were leaving in my childhood bedroom. We went to sleep late the night of the 25th, got up early the next day, and still didn’t leave when we planned to. A traumatic attempt to load the cats into the ginormous truck and an emotional goodbye with my mom, and we were on our way to California via Austin for one last goodbye with Christopher’s parents.

Next time, on California Dreamin’: Ash and Christopher realize that they rented a truck with a bouncy jump in the cab, the first check engine light comes on in the truck they didn’t want, and Christopher refuses to believe the new GPS unit they purchased is telling the truth about which route to take.

…Same bat time, same bat channel…

*Take on "I'm Lovin' It" Jingle for McDonald's.