Getting an E-Type

Apperently I didn't finish this.
Dated: October 3rd, 2006

The Great Journey
“Want to come with me to get my Samurai?” my friend Joe asked. “Sure, why not.” I replied. From that point our great journey had begun. So what was this journey of ours you may ask? Well, originally the plan was to drive out to Hereford, south of Amarillo, in Texas, and pick up Joe's Suzuki Samurai and turn around a come back to Longview, but our plan changed along the way. At at Taco Bell just over the border from Oklahoma, I decided to take a two thousand mile detour to California and back while Joe fixed his car. Through sleet and snow I came sleepless always pressing on. My reason for going back home to California was to pick up my British Racing Green 1965 Jaguar E-Type that had been parked at a friends house for half a year. Thankfully, my friends were around. They graciously help me load my car onto the trailer I had brought and sent me on my way home. The journey back lead me through the pine-tree-covered southern Rockies, down into the White Sands Missile Range and on into Roswell, New Mexico. From there I made it to Hereford where Joe had his Samurai. When I arrived back on the dusty ground of Hereford, the Samurai was not running as planed, so we formulated a solution and brought both Joe's Samurai and my Jaguar back to Longview.
-idea formulating, spontaneous
Spring break was coming up and a group of us had just gotten back from working at Automotive Society with a few pledges, including pledge Joe, a friend of mine. We were conversing about our automobiles when Joe mention he would like to go get his Samurai over spring break. Now at this time I was planning to go get my Jaguar in California, but every time I made plans, they fell through. I either didn't have a truck to borrow, or a trailer to borrow. So spring break for me was going to be a time for me to work on my other cars and just relax in general. Joe on the other hand wanted to take three or four days to return home and come back with his Samurai. So finally the Thursday before the spring break rolled around and I had no plans of my own when Joe came up and asked if I wanted to come to Hereford and get his Samuari. “Well I cant think of why not,” I replied, So we made some simple plans to leave for Hereford the next day, after class and back in two or three days or so. I wasn't super thrilled to go on this road trip, but I had an itch to get out of town for a few days and Joe needed a companion for the trip. With our plans set, we headed off to do whatever work needed to be done to finish off the weekend.
The next day was what I called a bleach bright day. It was a perfect day, the sun was overly radiant and classes were out for spring break. It was one of those days that even if you were hit by a car, it would still be a good day. Joe had borrowed a friend of ours massive Doge Ram 2500 long bed truck and a twenty foot trailer from someone he knew. I gathered up a change of clothes, some CDs I had burned for the trip, my set of tie-downs and my sleeping bag and pillow, and threw them in the back of the truck. The trailer got hooked up to the truck and I waited in our little convoy for Joe to get his dirty laundry. When the moment came, we turned the key and started our trip.
Our first day was what we had expected, slow and dull. We sat in air conditioned bliss and listened to the CDs I had brought while we moved along at good pace. Joe drove the first, as I tried to relax and sleep. We went through numerous little towns taking everything from four lane highways to little country roads. Every now and then we would run into traffic in the downtown of some little rural city that surrounded by farmland on all sides. We plotted a course north and around Dallas to avoid the city driving. The plan was to made it to Witchta Falls by dinner and to arrive in Hereford early in the morning. Unfortunately, on the drive north, we missed a turn and found ourselves crossing into Oklahoma. At that point we checked our maps and figured out where we had made our mistake. So we turned around and headed back into Texas and then west towards Hereford. It had been some time since we had last stopped and the seats and pillows seemed to have lost all comfort, so we stopped at a Taco Bell.
The sun was setting as we pulled into Taco Bell. The town was an industrial town with a rather large river running through the center of downtown. The banks of the river were made of concrete and was surrounded by many abandoned red-bricked business buildings. Joe and I got out and walked into Taco Bell. We ordered our food and sat down and talked a bit. During our conversation, I mentioned that I should go to California since I finally have a truck and trailer together. Joe urged me on so I finally decided that since I will be almost halfway to California when I get to Hereford, I should just go. So, there at Taco Bell I made up my mind to just go.
Darkness had fallen and the moon was rising high into the night when we left Taco Bell. Joe drove through the night and after driving through the darkness for what seemed eternity we arrived at Joe's house far out on a farm road north of the city, with no neighbors for miles. I planned to leave the next morning for California so almost as suddenly as we had arrived we went strait to bed. I woke up the next morning to a bright ray of sunlight coming through a window in the room i was sleeping. The house had a charming musty country home smell to it. For the first time I saw the country side in the light. The was nothing but fields as far as the eye could see in all directions. The horizon was so clear, strait and defined in all directions it almost seemed unreal. Next to Joe's house was a barn with farm equipment. Joe had parked the truck in front of it, so I got out there and turned the truck around in the space between the only two building in sight. I left a few hours before lunch and headed north. My plan was to head to interstate 40 and take it through Albuquerque, on through Flagstaff and strait into California. This was my plan, but it was not the path I as going to take.
I turned onto Interstate 40 and traveled west into the direction of the wind. Hundreds of miles of prairie grass swayed in the wind. In this stretch between Hereford and Albuquerque I got the wost gas mileage of the entire trip. The rolling prairie soon turned into rocky hills and I found myself in Albuquerque. Albuquerque then went by and about twenty miles out, it started to snow. I stopped at a Popeye's restaurant and sat and watched the snow peacefully flutter down and cover the desolate countryside. This proved to be bad in two way, the first being that I had one set of clothes that were shorts and a t-shirt, the second being that the truck was two wheel drive with bald tires and I was pulling a trailer.
A light dusting of snow covered the freeway entrance as I turned onto the freeway. A chill ran down my spine as the heater kicked in, but what gave me the chill was that I hate driving with a trailer in the rain and i knew that snow would be even worse. I aimed the truck to drive in the tracks left by other vehicles but every one in a while I would hit a water puddle and things would get a little harry. I kicked it down to about thirty miles an hour as the snow turned to slush. I kept going the direction I was going hoping that the snow fall had been spontaneous and would clear up at any moment. Unfortunately for me that wasn't the case. Snow fell heavier around me as I passed cars that had pulled over or spun out of control. Soon It turned into a blizzard and strong winds were blowing the truck all around, while heavy snow fall blurred my vision. My heart was racing and there wasn't a second I wasn't on the edge of my seat. I started praying that I would get through this blizzard alright. The sun went down and all that I could see was snow in my headlights. My skin was starting to get sticky and my hair sweaty from the tension of driving. It didn't even cross my mind to stop for food, bathrooms or drinks.
I started to get into Flagstaff, from what I could tell from the signs. I now had been the only vehicle on the road for sometime and I had been traveling at about fifteen miles per hour for about the last three hours. The freeway had turned into what looked like a ski slope run. The road had ten to twelve inches of snow covering it. The guard rails and bridges were now lost under the snow. I switched from driving in one lane and decided to take up the whole road. Panic turned into excitement as I drove through downtown flagstaff, that had been buried under a heavy blanket of snow with no sings of life. It was peacefully quiet as I plowed my way down the freeway, passing warehouses with snow drifts totally covering the loading docks. I found a junction to the interstate that headed south and drove over what papered to be a overpass that had been blanketed with snow. The city gradually turned into pine forest as I climbed in elevation. I followed a semi truck up and over a pass and soon the elevation dropped and a rest stop came up, so I stopped for the night.
The next morning I woke up freezing, but I was finally out of the snow. For ten hours I drove at speeds below twenty five. My stop for the night lasted two hours when I awoke at dawn. The road sloped down and out of the mountains as I approached Phoenix. The rest of the trip from Phoenix was familiar ground. I arrived at the McNair's residence in the late morning and slept until just after dinner. The McNairs had been friends of mine throughout high school and are like a second family to me. I stumbled out into the living area where I was greeted and sat and chatted for the rest of the night. The Jaguar was just parked down the hill near the shed so I placed the truck next to it. The next day I spent with my friends and topped of the day by eating at Macaroni Grill. Earlier in the day we loaded the Jaguar onto the trailer and tied it all down and parked the truck so I could get out easily the next morning. I got to bed early and headed out the next day.
On the Road again and so soon. The returning trip wasn't as exciting as the trip out to California. I planed a route that avoided Flagstaff and passed through Phoenix and went north at Las Cruses. I headed north up through the souther Rockies and out into the White Sands Missile Range. I stopped for the night in Roswell at a Super Walmart. I pulled into the Walmart parking lot at about three in the morning and wandered around Walmart for an hour. After I was satisfied in the amount of wandering I did in the store. I went out to the truck and slept until about ten in the morning. From there Hereford was about a five hour drive. The landscape around Roswell was very eerie, almost a haunting presence. The land was very desolate and covered with black barbed wire fences with strange dirt roads leading off into the horizon.
I arrived in Hereford and checked up with Joe on the progress of his Samurai. Joe told me he spent all week and couldn't get it running so he could drive it back. We sat for a while and stared off into the endless fields. Finally we came up with an most magnificent idea. The Doge Ram we had borrowed was a long bed and our measurements showed that Joe's Suzuki would fit perfectly in the bed. We were filled with with that overwhelming joy that you can only get when you find a way to do the impossible. We unhooked my trailer
-heading back to herford
-Samurai wont run and solution to problem
-trip back and conclusion – yellow light and a blue moon, backroads, lots of stop and go