Tuesday, April 03, 2007

The Great American West Trip - Day Zero

So technically, I am not writing this on day zero, but I suppose very early on day one is as close as I am going to get. So we (my friend Tiffany and I) finally got on the road this morning and are making good progress down to our first stop of Eugene, OR. But today is not the focus of day zero, that will be tomorrow’s entry.
So day zero occurred on Friday, December 8th 2006. My trip was scheduled to start today Saturday, December 09, 2006 so why would I possibly be writing about the day before the trip some of you might ask. In case you didn’t know, this trip was SUPPOSED to be completed in my 1992 Nissan Maxima. Well on Thursday this aforementioned vehicle began making some odd engine noises, so to be safe before my trip, I decided to take it to the shop for an engine diagnostic. Now we can return to Friday to 8:54am when I received a call from AAA NW Auto Care that changed the direction of my entire life. They were kind enough to inform me that my entire fuel system was corroded, from the fuel lines, to the injectors, to the spark plugs. All this could be easily repaired for a cool $1700. Now being the cheapo that I am, I state that I don’t care to have a perfect car, just tell me what I need to do to get this thing on the road and running smoothly. After hearing that I did not need the deluxe treatment, they kindly lowered my repair costs to a much discounted $1500. Now after having put a new engine in the car ($2000) four years ago, and a new transmission ($2000) two years ago, I realized that it was time to learn my lesson about investing in this particular automobile. So I told the mechanic, that the Maxima had reached its maximum life expectancy and that I would pick it up by the end of the day.
So for the remainder of my last day of work, I am pretty bummed out because it seems like my great road trip plans are going to fall apart at the seams. So after deciding that I am going to give my car to Goodwill, I try and tackle the problem of getting myself and my stuff to at least Virginia and ultimately Ann Arbor, MI. Now you must understand that I brought a car FULL of stuff to Portland, because I was of the mindset ‘if it can fit, why wouldn’t I bring it.’ So now I have a tremendous amount of stuff with no place to put it and no car to move back with. Rather than trying to solve my problems over the next couple of days, I decide to go on my road trip anyways, I simply had to find a car to use. So I break the news to Tiffany (my original partial road trip partner) that my car is dead and that our vehicle for the trip is completely dead, and that I still plan to go on the trip with a rented car. This time, instead of driving around the country, I figured I would drive down the Cali coast and then come back up through Utah and Yosemite and right back to lovely Portland. So I tell Tiffany my new plan and being the wonderfully spontaneous person that she is, she is all for it, and on top of that we can use her car.
So I bought a one way plane ticket to DC (for 120 dollars!!!) and moved all my stuff out of my house, and prepared for the new adventure awaiting us the next day. So here we are driving to San Fran as if nothing’s changed. Til’ the next entry.

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