Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Valensorow's Maiden Voyage, as remembered by Slamby pt. 2 : Trouble Ahead!

The next amazing spot worth mentioning (the only two places in Nevada that are worth mentioning are Reno and Las Vegas, unfortunately I was forbidden from entering Sin City this trip, but soon they will let their guard down and I will be triumphant) was the Nevada/Utah border. I have heard about this concept of “dry state” but I failed to truly comprehend what this means. It actually means they have no booze and make other surrounding areas follow their rules too. IS THIS THE LAND OF THE FREE?!? HAVE YOU NO HONOR?!? HOW IS ONE TO ENTERTAIN THE WENCHES WITHOUT ALE?!? I was so frustrated I buried myself deep in a corner hoping this nightmare would end soon. Well, that works only so well until you realize that the salt flats on I-80 are accompanied by destructive winds that almost blew our boat off course many times. The Clan manned the vessel as best they could, and on that day Neptus must have been watching, for we made it out alive…and into the extreme mess of on ramps and merging maniacs known as Salt Lake City. Now that was a good time, watching Wuldor panic and scream as he navigates through the midday onslaught of Mormons. The area surrounding the actual city was beautiful, we passed through where they hosted the Winter Olympics and Noah spotted various remaining structures. If they weren’t so strict on their boozehandling laws, I might be able to understand why someone would live there; the rolling mountains and lush green fields were breathtaking.

Some time went by travelling until we approached Wyoming, and as soon as we realized we crossed the border there were liquor stores coupled with fireworks outlets. Sounds like an amazing evening, I already lost my body, I can’t really blow up any other body parts too easily. And after we passed the first town/trucker pit stop, we realized that not a whole lot of people live there. Practically nobody it seemed like, as the towns began to be few and far in between. We were cruising along with Tommy Noble guiding us through the Rocky Mountains, by now it had reached about 8pm the next day, leaving us with a total travelling to that point of 23 hours. It would certainly have been quicker if the people in charge didn’t force the interstate into one lane for miles on end. Miles on end isn’t dreadful except when you are stuck behind a big rig going 30mph on a 75mph zone. That happened quite frequently.

So the sun begins to set as we are on the road as the dials in the car begin psychotically dancing. The speedometer and such all eventually failed to work as we realized our car was rolling up hill with less and less momentum. Wonderful, the van does well most of the trip except for when we are in the middle of the Rockies with no sign of civilization anywhere. We pull over, hail a nearby construction worker who drives her truck over and gives us a jump. Noah, the Clansman with the most knowledge of these situations, was hoping a quick jump would resolve an issue of drained battery which would reduce our extraneous expenditures greatly. As is life, things went sour. Betty White started up, but quickly died. With few other possibilities, he determined it was an alternator malfunction, so Wuldor called road side assistance with much newly-found energy and “Mr. Big Dick” to get Betty White safe. Wuldor was told that the plan he just opened was not valid yet even though the agent told him otherwise only days before, and as he sorted out some issues that seemed to pile up, Tommy Noble realized he landed Betty White fairly close to the outside lane of traffic. The fleeting light made it difficult to see our boat, so they began flashing lights at the vessel to alert tired truckers that we were NOT trying to die that night. Randomly, I notice Wuldor began running up the hill, clearly forgetting that we are in the middle of the mountains thousands of feet above sea level, and physics classes on Youtube have taught me that air is very thin that high up. He was apparently trying to find a landmark for the cab and towing people to find us, and eventually the tow truck driver was able to determine where we were…72 miles west of the town we were trying to get to, Laramie. Luckily, this tow guy was awesome, all Wuldor did was mention what he could look at around him (there was very few things around to actually notice, the determining factor was a random fence and the fact we were headed uphill, he knew where we were by roughly a quarter mile). He refused to take us all, he had five seats and we are six plus a deer, and he did not want to risk us being in the back, but the first cab driver we called was more than willing to come get us. Phew, crisis averted, let’s go find a bar!

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