Hello from Denver! My father and I rolled into the Mile High City saturday night after a marathon three days of bad coffee, vast reaches of desolate plains and two flat tires. More on the latter later. Suffice to say, in my eyes the trip was wasn’t too bad. That could be because my dad did 80% of all the driving! He is a driving machine. Since this leg of the trip was a mad dash for the Denver border, we did not have the chance experience too much of the country between NJ and CO, with a few notable exceptions.
Our introduction to Youngstown, OH, came about on the heels of either some bad luck or poor planning. As loathe as I am to admit it, I goofed big time with the tires for the trailer in which I am hauling my personal effects. I knew the original tires on the trailer were no good – this was verified about 2 hours into PA when a kindly trucker notified us in construction traffic that one of the tires had developed a large bubble. Having planned for this eventuality, we pulled over and swapped both tires for the brand new set I had purchased. Of course, it was only the next morning, after a blow out at the end of PA and many phone calls to fine trailer centers throughout Youngstown, that I was to realize the weight-rating of the new tires was woefully insufficient. A new new set (with spare) of 5.70×8 tires rated to 950 lbs. later and we were back on the road. You will be happy to know that we have experienced nary a problem with tires since!
In fact, excluding the tire mishap, the trip has been rather uneventful and unmarked by further mechanical difficulties. Two other moments stand out in my mind, though, which I would like to share. The first was during the morning of our final day, Saturday, somewhere in MO, at a down-home joint called Maggie’s Cafe. While the coffee was (to my standards) on the watery side and the coffee roll almost intolerably sweet, the atmosphere was worth a thousand cups of dank organic Sumatra. It was one of those times when I look up to find myself in surroundings wholly different than those in which I normally exist. My ears recognized the English being spoken, and the plates of egg and ham being dished out but the character of the room and its occupants was foreign – everything from the midwestern cafeteria decor to the plaid, denim and mesh-back baseball hats. I can’t say my reaction was adverse. To the contrary, I was enthralled by this slice of life so far removed from my own and savored that brief but timeless stop in a nameless town way out west.
The second vignette transpired about a hundred miles outside of St. Louis on Friday night, after we had stopped for the evening. While my father retired to the motel room, I donned my work clothes and set out into the night for my first attempt to scavenge vegetable oil on the road. For the unitiated, I converted my diesel mercedes wagon to run on used vegetable oil that I collect from restaurants. After a year of successful operation, the time had finally come to devise a better method of filtering oil, especially considering the special constraints of cross-country travel. After much research and some harried trials in NJ, I was finally able to use the new filter rig that night behind the Raintree Restaurant, amidst rows of tractor trailors and washes of neon. I must say that being covered in waste vegetable oil never felt so good as when that baby started pumping!
As for Denver, the past few days here with my brother and father have been good, if not somewhat trying at times. I’m itching to get back on the road and will do so at the crack of dawn tomorrow. Today saw some fine tuning of my car and some botched attempts at scavenging some more oil. The first try was laden with filter-clogging animal fats, the second hindered by oil too thick due to dropping temperatures here in CO. I’m sure to find more oil in the sunnier, warmer lands to the south, along with beautiful country, old friends and open road. Tommorrow I finally set out alone on the next leg of my travels west and the anticipation mounts. Tally-ho!
Filed under: The Road
