Divermarv

To kick off this Colorado trip, I thought I’d swing by my cuz David’s house. And the trip was going sooo smoothly. Until it wasn’t. And that was about thirty minutes from my destination. Spittin’ distance we’d say down in the mountains.

An Appalachian storyteller would start off like… “I was a gittin’ it along 64 west, just a hair of a mile from my exit. Danged if all-a-sudden they’uz nothing but red tail lights. And a whole lot nuthin’.”

To be honest that’s about how I tell it too. We came to a stop. At first they teased me with a scoot here and a scoot there. But wudn’t long til it was a dead stop. We were stop stopped. If you know what I mean. I knew it was gonna be a while when some kids in a car behind me got out and started dribbling basketballs. If I’d seen a frisbee fly by, I’d have popped up my tent and went to sleep.

Two and a half hours maybe a hair more, I’m here to say… we were still plumb stopped. Oh but wait. I hear a loudspeaker. A sheriff’s truck comes ridin’ up the emergency lane. “You can turn around and go to an exit.” Well folks. I was in the far right lane of the interstate, ‘cause I was preparin’ to exit. Sigh. I looked in my rear view mirror and just shook my head. Why? Well here’s a picture of my rig I’m driving for this trip.

Now how was I gonna turn this rig around when the lanes were full up? And then it hit me. No, not a frisbee. You know how when people are driving and they are all me, me, me? All them people in front of me, were like that. They wanted to get in front by getting in back. If that makes sense. But they cleared out three lanes… for about twenty-five feet! I whipped Obie around and fit right into the inside emergency lane, along with everyone else. Note: I know that sounds like I was all me, me, me, and I was. But I did let people in.

So there I was heading east on the 64 westbound side. In that inside emergency lane, with the big, solid concrete divider between me and the folks legit going my direction on the eastbound side.

It was novel. But old hat for me. I’ve escaped from Savannah twice ahead of hurricanes. Back then. When I was young. And a rookie. You know, about eight years ago. So I felt like Rapid Roy that stockcar boy, going backwards down the dirt track.

Don’t worry folks. That smug smile dropped off pretty quickly. Soon I realized the exit was gonna be on the outside lane, all the way over from where I was. Ohhhhh. I was screwed.

Until a miracle occurred. You know how the po-pos sometimes sit in these angled splits in those concrete lane dividers? And everybody curses them and slows down to about twenty mph less than the speed limit? Because they don’t know what the speed limit is. Well there was one of those splits coming up and everybody on the inside lane with me were zipping over and merging into eastbound lane like proper citizens!

You still haven’t heard the miracle. All those folks on the eastbound side. They had cleared the super fast lane to let us in!!! Yeah. That is the miracle. People in cars acting like good decent folks.

Well my good friend Siri took me on a tour of a ton of Kentucky farmland. But I got on 71, and soon was crossing the 265 bridge into Indiana. Never was so happy to get my license plate photographed for a toll in my life.

Visiting David and Tina—they are famous you know, they have a YouTube channel; RV Waggin Tails. Check ‘em out. Yeah visiting them was grand. I was tired, but David had put the charcoal on and when I arrived we had some nice chats. Some nice hugs. Some nice food. No… some great food!

In the evening, actually it was already evening—July is so confusing—David and I had a beer and a cigar and talked about old times. I’ll ask David if it’s okay, and maybe write up some of our stories from when we were kids. Like spying on Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory in a basement of a house. (That’s what they call in the industry a teaser.)

I slept quite well that night and had a great breakfast in the morning. And Tina, she is an angel, made me a lunch to take with me for my drive to Missouri for the next leg of my trip.

David wanted to film a short video of me talking about my rig. I’ll share the video on my blog when he releases it. But you all will get to see pics and descriptions as I go along on this trip.

We waved and hugged and said goodbyes, and I drove off in search of petrol. The rest is another story.

Peace and Love,
Marv