An outrageous series of events
Travel time: 14 hours (driving time: 2
hours)
Distance covered: 97.7
miles
Current location: 49º 36' N
112º 36' W (Lethbridge, Alberta)
Current
time and temperature: 4:07am • 9ºF
I know I said I was going to keep these blog
entries a little shorter. Well, this one just can't be
condensed.
So I woke up early, ready to
resolve the van "export permit" issue with a credit card buy-out. Would you
believe that the finance company doesn't accept credit cards? They've been
planning on it for awhile, but they just haven't implemented it yet. I talked
to a senior manager, and she suggested that I appeal my case in writing but
informed me that it would still be 5 to 10 days until the title deed would be
issued even if management granted us the paperwork to cross the border. We
decided to head for Great Falls where there's at least more going on, a Staples
for printing, faxing, etc... you know...
civilisation.
I loaded the van as quickly
as I could in order to avoid a check-out penalty at the Comfort Inn. (I'd asked
for a late check-out - noon instead of 11 - and was only granted 11:30.) It was
a sloppy job - I couldn't even close the roof rack locks - but it was good
enough. We were just about to leave when my wife walked in front of the van,
hesitated for a moment, and then motioned me over. I found a large red puddle
growing on the ground underneath the bumper. We both hopped in the van (it was
bitterly cold - still below zero), and stared at each other for a moment in
disbelief. Finally, my wife broke the
silence.
"What do you think that
is?"
"Does it matter? Whatever it is, it can't
be good."
I dashed back into the Comfort
Inn, got the name of the nearest garage, and we headed off... a right out of the
parking lot, left at the first street, and two blocks down. The owner and tech
at "Ed's Speedy Lube" were extremely nice, and they immediately started trying
to pin-point the leak so they could plug it, tape it, or otherwise stop it and
send us on our way. Unfortunately, they couldn't find it. When Duke, the tech
(who I learned later is Ed's son), told me that he'd have to take the entire
front of the car off, my heart sank imagining so many hours spent waiting for
them to fix it. I wouldn't even be that lucky. He had a job to rush off to and
wouldn't even be able to look at the van until Monday. Perfect. I decided that
it was time to head for the border in any way that we
could.
... and thus began the search for
a rental van. Now, you have to understand that Shelby is the kind of place
where car rental companies are called things like "Mike's U-Drive" or "Tucker's
Tractor and Truck" and they have a fleet of three or four cars. We tried but
with no luck. After a couple of hours, I called Enterprise in Great Falls (just
over an hour away), and they had a Dodge Grand Caravan available. Although it
was the same as our van, it wouldn't be big enough - the luggage had to go in
the roof rack, and we really had a lot of luggage . I decided that we needed to
hold the minivan in Great Falls and find a standard sedan car for rent in
Shelby. That way, we could pack up the kids in the back, drive to Great Falls,
pick up the minivan, go back to Shelby to transfer everything from the van, and
get underway.
Well as luck would have it,
several hours later, Ed or Shirley (both owners of the shop) managed to find a
van for us from an independent company called Rent-a-Wreck in a place called Cut
Back. It was a 15 passenger Dodge that we could take the seats out of.
Perfect! I made arrangements to be picked up by the company rep, D.G., and took
Wendy and the kids over to Pizza Hut where they could stay for a while. (The
drive from Cut Back would take D.G. about an hour... and then an hour to get
back... and then an hour as I drove from Cut Back to Shelby.) Ed and Sheila,
the owners, were wonderful. Sheila absolutely doted on Heather telling us that
she's expecting her first great-grandchild any day. It was nice... homey and
comfortable... friendly and helpful. Still as 2pm rolled around, I started
wondering if we would even get out of Shelby that
day.
Well salvation showed up in the form
of a 300+ pound guy with a bizarre pony tail and those sporty Oakley glasses
that are never flattering on anyone. We took off, en route to pick up his
partner from the chiropractor's office before heading to Cut Back. I told D.G
about the experiences I'd had recently on the road. He told me that he'd had 25
days off the previous summer, taken off on a road trip, and could completely
relate to what I was telling him. "I couldn't wait to get back to work," he
said.
"Where did you go?" I asked him.
He told me that he'd travelled to a car convention in Billings and a biker rally
somewhere else in the state.
"So you stayed in
Montana, eh?"
"Well, yeah. I have to 'cause of
my parole". Oh, cool. I'd never spent any quality time with a parolee
before.
"If you don't mind me
asking..?"
"Conspiracy. I was convicted of
conspiracy."
Okay, I'm thinking that I'm
in Montana, the home of the Montana Freeman... you know, the guys who want to
blow up the federal government...
"Uh,
what were you conspiring to do?"
"Oh, sell and
distribute meth, coke, and a few other things. They came and searched my place
- didn't find a thing. They talked to everyone who knows me - nothing... but
two guys fingered me, and that's all it takes in a federal trial. Only 20 days
left on my probation, though."
"Well, cool!
You going to go somewhere when you're probation's up and you can leave the
state?"
"I was thinking about Hawaii or
Florida."
"I'd go for Hawaii if I were
you."
"Well I've been to Hawaii but only ever
got close to Florida. I did five years in Missouri." I didn't think doing hard
time actually constituted "seeing" a
state.
"Wow. How long were you
in?"
"10 years and 5 months. Been on probation
for 4 years... minus the 20 days."
I
couldn't help but just sit back and wonder what I'd gotten myself into. He told
me about how his wife had gone through $800,000 while he was in prison, money
he'd socked away during his "career". "The bitch is still tryin' to get more,"
he added. "Well, what are you gonna do. I got another lady now, got a daughter
with her, too, so that's nice and I still try to see my other kids when the
ex..." The story seemed to have no end... and then finally, his partner came out
of the chiropractor's. The partner's name was Mike, and he was probably in his
early 50's.
"How you doin'? I'm Mike. I
hear you had a little car trouble." I recounted the story, and he kept shaking
his head. He started to rant about the federal government and quickly moved on
to Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, the Vietnam war, and the Japanese in World War II
who, apparently it had been decided by President Roosevelt, would be allowed to
invade the west coast without a
fight.
"They'd never have gotten through
Montana," D.G. finally chimed in. "Too many people here with too many guns and
they's all knows how to shoot real good." I decided to keep my opinions to
myself and whole-heartedly agreed that the Cambodian dictator, Pol Pot, was a
murdering bastard, that Hilter should've learned from Napoleon's mistake in
invading Russia in the winter, that we all would be sitting on our porches
shooting terrorists if Bush hadn't invaded Iraq and "taken the war to them", and
that the U.S. federal government has too much power, - an opinion that I
actually agree with.
When we got to Cut
Back (which I've since been referring to as Butt Crack - you really have to see
this place to believe it), we went into the office, such as it was, and did the
paperwork on the van. At one point D.G. looked at me and said, "you know, I
never said that I didn't do it. I just said that I took the fall 'cause those
two guys fingered me." Actually, I HAD noticed
that.
... so the Rent-a-Wreck van
certainly fit the description. Dirty and crude, it looked unreliable and ropey.
I didn't care. It was our ticket out of Shelby/Butt Crack and into Canada.
With all of the export problems with our van, this was the best possible
solution: Ed's Speedy Lube could hang onto our van until they had the time to
fix the transmission leak, I could pack all of our stuff and our family into
this van, and we could head to the border that night ready to deal with the
export license problem over the next week or
two.
By the time I'd returned from
Rent-a-Wreck, asked Ed to call for help unloading our van and loading the new
one (his two grandsons showed up who I paid $10 each to help me... and in fact,
they were terrific), getting the family back and everyone ready to go, it was
7:30pm - we'd spent 8 hours in or around Ed's Speedy Lube. After many thanks to
Ed and Sheila and quite a few stories from Ed (who had been working in Shelby
for 53 years, ever since his discharge from Korea... worked on the railroads
breaking ice to be used for refrigeration before becoming a diesel mechanic when
there were only two lines that ran through Shelby... etc.), we were on our
way.
We hit the border about an hour
later, and it felt good to be in a rental car knowing there wouldn't be any
problem getting the vehicle across. We were at customs for 3 1/2 hours and got
nailed with $957CDN in duty - far less than I'd expected. Apparently when they
saw the value of my music gear and realised how much I'd have to pay, they found
a way to waive all tariffs and just charge me G.S.T. (general sales tax). I
thought that was particularly kind of them and, after our experience with U.S.
customs and immigration the day before, I'm sure you can imagine how thrilled we
all were to actually have a pleasant experience AND not get reamed. It also
didn't hurt that the agent we dealt with looked and sounded a lot like Peter
Jennings. The whole process was almost enjoyable in a strange
way.
... so, at about 11pm, we set off
for Lethbridge... inside the Canadian border, having gotten off lightly with the
import taxes, having stranded our van in Shelby, but on the road again and
excited to be across the border. Of course it was snowing, so I could only
drive about 60.
We checked into a Ramada
Inn a little after 1am after picking up some Molson Canadian from a nearby
liquor store - it was time to toast something. We were actually in Canada! It
was a fairly short-lived celebration, though - we were both too tired and I
wanted to finish this blog entry. It would have to wait until the following
morning, though, as I kept falling asleep at the keyboard. These late nights
and early mornings are really wiping me
out.
Oh... did I mention that I still
haven't shaken my cold? Minor by comparison, I know, but not much fun when it's
sub-zero outside.
Posted: Sat
- December
17, 2005 at 04:50 AM