Shall We Stay or Shall We Go On?

After completing 5/8 of a life on the edge of each other’s nerves – we had towed the trailer 11,654 miles and put 20,122 miles on the odometer in the car. In a country that is 3,000 miles wide by 2,000 miles top to bottom that’s pretty good going. We’d drawn a very drunken diagonal line down across the U.S. map from Washington State to Florida and back along the southern border and west coast. A two-year-old with a crayon could have scrawled a tidier route. But in the process we perused 26 of the 48 states on our agenda of looking for the perfect place to live in the continental U.S.A.

We decided this was definitely a plastic ‘gator put out for the tourists in the Everglades when her live brothers and sisters were in hiding.

Some states only merited a quick drive straight through to the next state. I won’t tell you which ones as all us patriotic Americans are proud of and proprietorial about our own states and I am sure we didn’t do them justice by not stopping to poke around. Other states kept us fascinated for days, sometimes weeks. But we were just tourists. Visiting The Everglades, Monument Valley, Mount Rushmore or San Francisco for the first time is a real kick but they are not areas we would consider living due to weather, remoteness or cost of living. And we were just so enthralled with the sight-seeing sights in this diverse and stunning country, we often didn’t bother to do our homework on towns as potential homesteaders.

One our favorite campgrounds: Monument Valley UT

They put the flags out for us!

Jimmy missing the opportunity to give blood in his haste to visit the presidents.

The vertiginous streets of San Francisco shot from the window of a cable car.

Turning the cable car around by hand – one guy pushing, one guy pulling!

San Francisco cable car on the turntable preparing to chug back up from the harbor. Surely the guy isn’t going to push it all the way up the hill!

The next stage of the route would take us east across the top of the country, up into New England and down the east coast with a bit of the inevitable to-ing and fro-ing. Getting in the way of the search was a spacious apartment in sunny and probably-too-expensive California that was calling us.

I was longing to get our furniture out of storage and put my underwear in a drawer instead of having it stuffed in a shoe box and to hang up my clothes instead of playing lucky dip in a jam packed locker. Jewelry was tangled up in a box and fine chains and long necklaces formed a monkey’s fist of silver and gold, beads and crystals. I doubted I would ever wear them again. I wore the same jeans and hoody for days out of sheer inertia.

The same rotation of clean clothes came off the top of the stack day after day rather than create an avalanche of tee shirts to put together a new look. We dressed, hobo unchic, in cotton clothes that were washer/dryer-ready-to-wear. And I’ll let you in on a little secret. Unmentionable articles of underclothing aside, we sometimes scrutinized and sniffed our outerwear for an extra day’s service before consigning it to the laundry bag. My prissy nature came out when faced with dirty laundramat machines that may have seen dog blankets, greasy overalls, muddy trousers and almost certainly much worse.

Books and files were hidden deep within a hell hole under the bed instead of being to hand on a bookshelf. Wrenching my right shoulder to lift the mattress and locker lid and hold it up, I then wrenched my left shoulder to haul out the printer, two sleeping bags and a bag of wrapping paper and ribbon (yes, of course ribbon is essential on an RV) to gaze at a cardboard box of books through a gap just big enough for my head. As I grunted and strained with the weight of the mattress and locker lid on my shoulders himself would ask, “Can I help you with that?”

“NO!” I would bellow in frustration and risked decapitating myself with the trap door of the dungeon. A feeble flashlight that doubled as the oven light barely glowed much less illuminated the book titles so reading choices were often made by feel. Sometimes I thought oh stuff it and lay on the bed listening to my iPod until whatever inkling of motivation to do something creative or productive or even vaguely educational passed.

Should we stop somewhere to live in an apartment and try to regain our sanity or continue to play happy trails?

More Bad Seat Karma

 Scene:           British Airway’s check in desk.

How to Survive a Long Haul Flight Cover (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BA Rep:         Good morning. “Where are you traveling to today?” You’ve got our tickets in front of you. You should know.

Us:                   London.

BA Rep:         “I see you’ve changed your seat.”

Us:                   “Yes.” Seat?

BA Rep:         “You’re in 42K and 53J.”

Us:                   “No!” Huh?

BA Rep:         “You’ve only changed one seat.”

Us:                   “No we didn’t. We changed them both online to 53H and J.”

BA Rep:         “Let me see if 53H is available.” It had better be Buster.

Jimmy and I stared at each other no longer with anger, surprise or even exasperation but with resignation. Five long minutes passed. One of us was facing a nine-hour flight jammed up against the window, trapped in our seat by two strangers. 

BA Rep:         “You’re Lynn?”

Me:                  “No.”

BA Rep:         Puzzled.

Me:                  Puzzled.

BA Rep:         “Oh I see. There’s someone else on board with the same last name sitting in 42K. You’re sitting together in 53H and J.

Me:                  Standing on tiptoe to peer over the high counter and whispering to Jimmy, “It says that right there on our tickets.”

Jimmy:          “I know that. I booked them.”

Me:                  Standing six inches shorter than himself and back down on my heels, “I wish I had realized that sooner.”

Jimmy had been waiting patiently for the BA Rep to realize his mistake. I’d been imagining an attack of claustrophobia in my seat. Panic was the precursor to another trip.

My reward? After a long haul flight and jet lag followed by two straight days of driving through France – a melt-in-your-mouth croissant, sweet crêpes smaller than a saucer and as thin as your hankie and a perfectly brewed café au lait.

Cafe au lait (Photo credit: micamica)

Yes, my friends, we’re in France now looking for somewhere to live, as if 48 United States hadn’t enough to offer.

“I’ll probably die before we find somewhere.”

Don’t worry. that was just a comment on our indecisiveness, not Jimmy’s longevity.

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid – Part 3

Jimmy trying to escape from the sales manager

Explain to me the logic of returning to that same dealer for our next purchase. Could it have been that we’d trashed the engine on the Chevy Tahoe we bought from them using it to tow a heavy travel trailer twice around the United States so would feel some vindication trading it back to them? Were we feeling too good about ourselves and felt the need for a little abuse? Was it bad karma that for a second time when searching for a vehicle that only this dealer in the whole of the State of Washington had the exact make and model that suited Jimmy? Were the Gods sending us back there to punish us for some heinous crime we were unaware of. Perhaps we were too trusting in human nature. Or were we just stupid?

Disregarding the wrecked engine and gearbox which wouldn’t make itself apparent if it was trialled on the level busy roads around the dealership, Jimmy had studied the trade-in and retail value of the Tahoe and knew to within a few dollars its worth. After a satisfactory test drive in a new truck to pull our trailer, Jimmy quizzed the salesman. There was no sign of Teddy if you’re wondering. “What’s the towing capacity of the truck?”

“7,000 pounds.”

“That’s the weight of the truck. What’s the towing capacity?”

“I don’t know.” Jimmy knew the answer. The salesman didn’t. Jimmy gave me one of his looks. Here we go again. All I knew was that I wanted the truck because it had a cool reversing camera.

After an appraising glance over our Tahoe, Jimmy was invited into the showroom to talk money. I can’t tell you anything about the salesman as I was trying to close down my radar to anyone involved in car sales after previous experiences.

I was languishing in our Tahoe when Jimmy, hotly pursued by the salesman, came steaming out of the sales office and yanked open my door. “They’ve offered me $8,000 trade-in!”

“You’re kidding!” I said.

“No. Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” trilled a harassed voice.

“That’s an insult!” Jimmy said.

“Come back in the showroom!” said the voice on the edge of panic.

“C’mon. Let’s go.” I said.

“Don’t go!” pleaded the voice.

“I don’t know why I came here in the first place,” said Jimmy.

“Wait, Jimmy. Don’t go!” The salesman, on the verge of a breakdown, obviously needed a few more lessons in the art of negotiation.

The lure of the perfect vehicle was not going to overcome common sense this time. Or was it? The sales manager, not the
lumberjack from the Tahoe purchase but a younger, more thrusting and aggressive man we’d been introduced to briefly before the test drive came running out of the showroom anxious to salvage the sale. His only similarity to the previous sales manager was his dress sense. His rumpled apparel wasn’t fit for a charity shop. So desperate and unprofessional was he that he actually grabbed Jimmy by the arm to stop him getting away! He wasn’t offering any more money, just using a rather surprising bullying sales technique. Jimmy struggled to extricate himself, got in the car, closed the door and started the engine. Why did we go back there? Why? Why? Why?

Driving away, my pulse and blood pressure began to slide down. The throbbing in my head had started to ease when Jimmy’s phone rang. He checked the number and didn’t answer. “It’s them,” he hissed as I continued with my stress-reducing deep breathing exercises. Five minutes later his phone rang again. Same number. I was chanting mantras now, peeeeace and serenity, calm, calm, caaaalm . . . . .

I’m sure anxiety over car purchases is now firmly fixed in my cell DNA. I may need therapy.

There is, however, a happy ending. A few days later, at a Chevrolet dealer just a few miles away from where we were staying in our RV we encountered a polite, laid-back salesman who offered Jimmy $13,000 trade-in for the Tahoe. Better still, he did a deal with the previous unmentionable dealership and got the truck we wanted, at the price we wanted. The icing on the cake was that the unmentionable dealership diddled themselves out of $1500 on the paperwork transaction which came off the final price!!!

We love our Chevy. Car salesmen? Not so much. Not all of them.

Still shiny from the slippery car dealer

Hard at work towing the travel trailer

TIMBER!

Resting in the desert sun

Welcome to Civilization

Jimmy survived The Green Card Interrogation– no questions asked – at Seattle Airport having been “welcomed” to the United States by Gandalf.  A harrowing drive in a borrowed truck on Interstate 5 – the heavily trafficked north/south corridor of the west coast – in the dark and in pouring rain was Jimmy’s next ordeal. As we’d already been awake for 24 hours, I was feeling giddy. Jimmy, more used to driving an automatic on the left and now required to drive the unfamiliar pickup with manual gearbox on the right, was feeling completely bamboozled. For good measure he added, “My night vision isn’t so good anymore.”

“Oh, that’s reassuring!” A shot of adrenalin jolted me to full alertness on Jimmy’s behalf. Peering as intently as him into a bleak night punctuated with dazzling headlights and blinking brake lights, all reflected in crazy patterns on the slick road surface, I was pumping the floorboards on the passenger side all the way down the Interstate.

When at last we pulled under the apartment parking canopy with a cessation of the thrumming rain on the truck roof, it was with great relief and a measure of amazement that this part of our journey was at an end. We disgorged our suitcases into an apartment we had arranged on a previous visit to Olympia and fell into bed.

The next day, our small two-bed American apartment seemed positively palatial after months of confinement in a trailer. It was fully furnished and equipped – a little treat for our first month until we got our bearings and our belongings in our new country – and we wandered from room to room like novice millionaires inspecting our first mansion.

Deprivation had taught us to appreciate the everyday things we had previously taken for granted so we poked around and played with our new toys – the washer, dryer, microwave, garbage disposal, coffee maker, large screen TV and VCR/DVD and radio/alarm clock (which needed resetting as some bright spark had left it set and it went off at 6 a.m. Cheers, matey).

The monster fridge/freezer (how could we possibly fill it?) was five times the cubic capacity we were used to on our European caravan. The four-ring stove with massive oven, a land line with voicemail, the dishwasher –  it was all exhilarating.

It might be hard for a  normal person (that ship has sailed for me) to imagine how a washer and dryer could provoke such excitement but my undies would no longer share the laundry facilities with dog blankets, greasy overalls and mixed loads of indistinguishable lumps of gray. Each of the ordinary items in the apartment was coveted. The queen sized beds would be blissfully comfortable after our spell on thin hard trailer bunks if only our inner time clocks weren’t eight hours out of sync and we could manage to sleep through the night.

The central heating had a thermostat in every room. For two people with their internal thermostats set at always hot and always cold, to live in a trailer which was essentially one large room had been a constant source of querulous rants. “Turn that heat down!” “I’m freezing!” “Open the door!” “I’ve just warmed up!” “I need some fresh air!” “Well go out and get it!” Jimmy would sit in shorts and a tee-shirt while I shivered under a fleece blanket. The thought of being able to close a door between us and whack the heat up filled me with a tingle of anticipation. Fresh air is meant for outdoors. If himself wants to be an American, he needs to learn that.

These were the first of many adjustments we would make to life in America.