Skip to main content

Goin' to California | Part 2

In this episode - Goin' to California Prt. 2 . . .


   

"If you ever plan to motor west

Travel my way take the highway that's the best

Get your kicks on Route 66."


If you remember, we left our heroes passing through Flagstaff, Arizona don’t forget Winona, we saw Kingman, Barstow, and San Bernardino . . .


Our California trip included Los Angeles, Hollywood, then we cruised north - up Highway One, past Vandenberg Air force Base, through Big Sur, and across to Yosemite National Park.


Stunning California landscapes with unparalleled photo opportunities. Smooth sailing until - we pulled into Oakhurst, CA. on Route 41. The Pinto’s tiny four-cylinder engine seemed to be losing power.


“We better check the oil. Hmmm, a couple of quarts low.”


“Hate to break the news, I’m thinking Yosemite and San Francisco are out of the question. Our California cruising days are over.”


We studied the map for the most direct route home. 


“How about Las Vegas? This trip has been a gamble from the start so why not return home through Vegas.”

Well, we did. A beautiful clear day, windows down, cruising the Vegas strip our mucous colored Ford Pinto, The Mean Green Booger Machine just stopped running.


“What’s wrong?”


“Damn! I think we threw a rod. It won’t start. We’re screwed. What a piece of junk, now what?”


“That’s it, let’s find a junkyard,” said Nathan.


“I agree let’s find a junkyard and sell this heap for scrap.”


“We can’t, we have too much money wrapped up in this car.”


So, once again - the booger machine was towed - this time to a junkyard. We had found a replacement engine in a wrecked Pinto which the junkyard mechanic agreed to install for $600.00 cash.


“Hah, we sure as hell don’t have $600.00, now what?” exclaimed Nathan.


“I have an idea, let’s see if we can borrow the money from Avco Financial Services. My girlfriend in Macomb works at Avco, maybe she can help.”


“Let me get this straight," said the finance officer, "two young guys from a small town in the Midwest, in Las Vegas for the first time, want to borrow $600.00 cash to buy an engine; from a junkyard; for a Ford Pinto - Righhht?”


“That’s right. Since we began this trip we’ve replaced the exhaust system, three new tires, a new water pump, a fan belt, and a new left shock absorber. We can’t afford to junk this car now."


Needless to say, we had a difficult time getting the loan officer to buy our story. So I begged him, “Please call your Macomb office, speak to my girlfriend, she will verify our story.”


Amazingly enough, they loaned us the money!


We spent a couple of days in Vegas while they swapped out the engine. Our first motel stay throughout the entire trip. Believe me, Vegas in the early 1980s, if you looked hard enough, you could find a very cheap motel. Now, I’m not here to endorse the particular part of town we stayed in, we met some pretty weird, scary lookin’ folks.


Finally, we were “On the Road Again.” By now we were excited to hear that song on the radio. We were finally headed home.


Interstate 15 out of Las Vegas to I-70 through the mountains of Colorado, once we reached the plains of Kansas we were home free - or so we thought. 


“What else could possibly go wrong now?” I laughed.


My listening friends never ask that question aloud. It’s a curse!


Crossing the plains of Kansas the synchronizer gears in the transmission went out.


“You’ve got to be kidding!” Not an exact quote. “We’re not stopping again.”


As long as we kept moving, with the 4-speed transmission in fourth gear we were fine, (Oh, by the way, reverse and first gear - were gone). The new engine had plenty of power but inevitably nature calls and you must stop for gas.


So each time we stopped for fuel, and some food, it was my job to nurse the transmission through the gears, accelerating slowly, to keep the transmission from completely going out.


There is a happy ending. The booger machine limped home.


Nathan’s Dad found a replacement transmission, and Nathan drove that car for another four years. Thankfully, The Mean Green Booger Machine never suffered a rear-end collision.


And we did get some amazing photographs! What a trip.


This is Patrick Ball, thanks for listening. See you in the next episode . . .

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular of All Time

The Gopher Problem and the High Powered Solution

Vacationing in Maine this week, just a short drive down the coast from Freeport, it is hard not to think about the outsized impact one frustrated outdoorsman had on the gear we all use today. Bad equipment can ruin a perfectly good day on the water or the trail, but it takes a special kind of vision to turn cold feet into a century-old empire. This is the story of the company we now know as L.L.Bean, but more importantly, it is a masterclass in integrity, learning from failure, and standing behind your work. In 1912, Leon Leonwood Bean faced a persistent problem: returning from expeditions in the Maine woods with cold, wet feet. Instead of complaining, he got creative. He had a local shoemaker stitch waterproof rubber soles onto the flexible leather uppers of a hunting boot. He called it the Maine Hunting Shoe and mailed a flyer promising perfect satisfaction. Then reality arrived. Ninety of his first 100 pairs failed when the rubber separated from the leather. Not an effective product...
Post a Comment
Read more

Beyond Facts-The Deep Dive

✨ In this episode, Beyond Facts: Reimagining School–in the Age of AI . . .   This week's podcast is a bit different; it's another example of how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can offer tools to creatively enhance your analytical presentation of information. We took this week's blog and copied it into Gemini with the question, “If a story is to work, it must, on some level, create an illusion of escape and also achieve a goal simultaneously. Does this apply to my blog post that follows?” What's created is not just an analysis of the writing, but an AI-generated discussion produced “On the Fly” - Enjoy! Did you know that the word "school" comes from the ancient Greek word scholē , which originally meant "leisure"? Not a rigid schedule or droning lectures filled with "facts," but free time for thinking and conversation. To the Greeks, learning happened best when life slowed down—when you had room to reflect, to ask questions, and to wrestle ...
4 comments
Read more

Stamps and Snow

In this episode, Stamps and Snow . . .   You don’t usually walk into the local Post Office expecting a time warp . . . but here we are. All we wanted were stamps for this year's Christmas cards— yes, the old-fashioned paper ones that require licking, sticking, and hoping the Postal Service is feeling ambitious this week. But holiday errands have a talent for slowing you down, almost like the universe whispering, “Relax. You’re not getting out of this line any faster anyway.” So we waited. And while we waited, we talked (Are you surprised?). Because the Post Office is one of the few places where people still look up from their phones long enough to talk . . . Maybe it's because they're holding packages. It’s the modern town square: part civic duty, part free entertainment, part sociology experiment. The discussion began with holiday specials streaming on Netflix, Paramount+, and other services during this time of year. One gentleman who has lived in Vista since 1958 told us,...
3 comments
Read more

The Rhythm of the Woodpecker

The morning in Vista often begins under a heavy, gray marine layer that rolls in from the coast, pressing a damp, muffled stillness over the neighborhood. At 4:30 a.m., the driveways are still full. The local commuters are either blissfully unconscious or stumbling blindly toward their showers, clinging desperately to their last shred of peace before the nine-to-five grind claims them for the day. I, on the other hand, am voluntarily wide awake in the dark. When your agenda consists of absolutely nothing, it is critical to get an early start. Inside the house, the quiet is profound, broken only by the sharp, mechanical click of the kettle as it reaches a rolling boil. I stand at the counter, watching the dark ground coffee bloom as hot water hits the French press's stainless steel. The smell is sudden and heavy—a deep, roasted-earth aroma that cuts through the morning fog. I push against the plunger’s gritty resistance, pouring a cup that radiates dark, stinging heat against my pal...
Post a Comment
Read more