The ghetto, day 1
Posted: 19 August 2004 at 14:09:25
We made it.
But not without having some experiences worth writing about.
We stopped in Boise and had dinner at Smokey Mountain Pizza. It was good.
Then, Thom took the wheel and drove us into the Oregon mountains. “ROCKS” and “TRUCKS,” screamed the orange and yellow diamond-shaped signs. In Utah they have signs that say, “WATCH FOR ROCKS.” I’m not sure what “ROCKS” means. I suspect it’s Oregon’s transportation authority giving us a heads up as we go on to play some kick-ass rock music.
We listened to a lot of music along the way including CDs from No Doubt, Styx, Rush, Queensryche, Yes, The Police, Faith Hill, Tears For Fears, and Supertramp.
We filled up the tank with gas in Mountain Home. Around 12:30, we stopped at a rest area and Thom switched places with me. I drove the rest of the way.
About 3:00, our fuel gauge was crying out in pain. The digital readout in the Durango said we had less than fifty miles to go. As we proceeded, we were finding no exits- especially none with fuel stations.
Finally, we happened upon a little resort town called Lexington. We pulled in to find both gas stations were closed. Normally, (normal being “not in Oregon”) this wouldn’t be a problem because we could just pay at the pump and go. Oregon, however, has weird laws about gas being pumped only by an authorized, certified, bonded station attendant.
At that point, we had about 30 miles to go until we were going to be empty. Pretty scary.
We continued down I-84 until we saw a blue sign along the side of the road saying the next exit had fuel. Yay! We pulled into a sleepy town called Rufus (named after a sleepy dog made famous by his laziness, I’m guessing) and pulled into the Shell station.
The Shell station was closed. Great.
At this point, our digital readout said we had about 12 miles left.
There were two motels along the Rufus main drag and we went to the offices of both of them which had large, bright neon “OPEN” signs lit up in the windows. The doors to both offices were locked. One door had a sign in the window that said to ring the bell and wait patiently. We did. Then we ran out of patience.
We went back to the Shell station and attempted to make the pumps work with a credit card. Amazingly, Matt got his credit card authorized and we proceeded to start pumping some gas. While the computer in the pump authorized his credit card and allowed us to start pumping, the main pump was turned off- so there was no pressure — or, very, very little pressure. By squeezing the hose with our hands and jiggling the pump dispenser, we were able to get 6 cents of unleaded gasoline into the Durango. That might have been enough to offset the cost of turning the Durango off to try.
One of the motels had a few motorboats on trailers sitting in the gravel parking lot. I walked by them looking for gas cans. I figured, if we could get a gallon or two of gas into the Durango, that might get us to a gas station. We could leave $5 for the gas.
I found nothing but a pair of rubber boots.
We discussed sleeping in the car until the Shell station opened. We had considered checking into a motel until we found out nobody actually managed the motels in this town. So, we decided to make a run for it.
We got on I-84 again, turned off the A/C, and I tried to drive as fuel-efficiently as possible.
After about three or four minutes, we saw a blue sign on the right side of the road. As we got closer, we saw it indicated establishments at the next exit that provided fuel. There were five logos on the sign and three of them had “24 HOURS” printed underneath them.
We filled up the tank there in Biggs, Oregon and made it to Longview, Washington. How stupid we would have felt had we waited in Rufus until 6 a.m. to fill up the tank only to find a mecca of stations less than 5 minutes away once we got back on the road.
It’s a ghetto
When Greg found out the venue had secured us rooms in a Super 8, he got real worried. He said it could be a ghetto. We joked about that all the way here.
The Super 8 looks like any other Super 8 from the outside. Inside, it still looks innocuous. When you get into a room, however, you discover just how inadequate it is.
No in-room Internet. Okay, I realize this is still a luxury, but the telephone doesn’t even have a “data” jack. I had to take the faceplate off the box in the wall where the line cord (which was hardwired inside the phone) went into a jack and plug my modem in there. When I tried to make a local call to an ISP exchange, it rang the front desk. I hooked the phone back up and called and asked what I had to do to make a local call. They said I had to make a $10.00 phone deposit.
What is this?! A halfway house?!
No shampoo in the bathroom.
Both the sink and the shower faucets work exactly the opposite of what you’d expect.
But, we’ere here and we’re safe. And, we avoided a close call... with the Twilight Zone.