The · future · looks · bright · ahead

Our little camping trip started off innocently enough. I wanted to do something nice for Aaron for his birthday, and we're broke, so I thought, camping! Camping will be cheap! And we'll go someplace he's always wanted to fly fish! Some gas and a $5/night campsight fee! Simple! What could POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!

Oh, foolish mortal! We hoped to leave on our 3-hour drive to the Savage River by 12 on Friday, we left the house at 1. We left the area (post food-run) at 2. By 6 traffic had slowed us enough that we were not yet there. And our limping up mountains under 40 mph should have clued us in to the trials to come, but, alas, it did not.

20 miles after the last civilized area of Cumberland, MD, has been passed, the car dramatically loses power. We pull over and rest. A half hour later we're no better, the sun is setting behind the mountains, so we decide, because we're in the middle of nowhere, to limp on. Hazards-a-blinking, we cough our way down the road, 35mph max when it's flat, 20 or less on a hill, complete with a brand-new hissing sound to boot. An oasis of civilization (and I'm using that term ever so loosely) called Westernport, a scant 5 miles from camp, suddenly appears over the next hill. Westernport, it turns out, contains one MacDonald's, one Subway, one Dollar General, one guy who's willing to help Aaron push my dead vehicle out of an intersection, and no lodging whatsoever. We land at a gas station market type place (not a garage, mind you) and Aaron goes in and runs into the first of many characters we'll encounter over the next 20 hours. He asks an older man in the market, are you a mechanic? 'I can do some stuff' is the reply. And this is how we meet Walter.

Early 50s, missing all his lower teeth between his canines, with the kind of tan that comes from working home construction, Walter comes up to me - "give it some throttle", and leans over the muffler. "Ayep, yer cat'lac conv'rter's plugged up. Y'ain't gon' get mor'n 10, 15 milesn'hour out of it, pro'lly die on yer a bunch a times but you'll get'ta whar yer goin. Now, I ain't gon' lie ter ya, I been drink'n, so I can't work on't t'night, but ma twin sister's vis'tin from Minnersoter an' we're hav'n breakfast in the mornin' t'morrer so just gimme a call an'time after 8am, I'll come out wit' m' tools, take that cat'lac convert'r off, take a rod n' knock all that stuff outta there, that's what I done wit mine, & y'll go on down the road like nothin happ'nd."

We never did see Walter again (presumably he didn't remember us in the morning), but he'd given us enough hope to get through the night without losing it. Ever slept in your car? In the driver's seat? You sleep just long enough for whatever's pressing into you to really start to hurt, then you re-position yourself and repeat ad infinitum. Our Saturday morning poll of the locals at the MacDonald's indicates that there used to be a mechanic in town, but he moved. We make several phone calls to repair shops listed in an ancient phone book at the MacDonalds (Ron's Repair, Reeves', the local Exxon) hoping to get lucky, but luck left us when Walter and his ladyfriend Tina drove off into the gathering dark the night before. Aaron decides to ask again at the Quik E Mart next to MacDonald's, and they call Harold's Garage, who says he can't fix it but he'll let us use his sockets. The winding road to Harold's gets further into the hinterlands, and our collective mood swings erratically between a slightly hysterical "HAHA life's a CRAZY adventure isn't it?!" and a seething "Ready to Rip Out Your Partner's Jugular." We pull into Harolds, and banjoes begin to play in the background. You've seen this place before, my friends - Harold's is one part garage (the door) and 9 parts salvage yard, strewn with ancient wrecks bearing forklift punctures or twin windshield holes, and a sign indicating the penalty for being caught in the yard after dark. The penalty for being there during broad daylight is your sanity, at least for us. Aaron returns to the car spitting nails, because Harold (and ironically enough the famed Mr. Reeves of Reeves' Repair Shop from the yellow pages) has told him that not only is no one working the Saturday of labor day weekend, but even if they were it wouldn't matter, because you can't get to our catalytic converter without putting the car on a lift, and no one around has one of those. At this point our "life's one big adventure" attitude has been gagged and tied to the roof, and we begin the limp back to Cumberland, hazards blinking, teeth grinding. On our way we pass the defunct shells of Ron's Repair, Reeves', and the Exxon. While I drive Aaron calls information to get numbers for garages in Cumberland (easily 25 miles, an hour at our current pace, away). Overhearing the worst (sorry sir, no one is going to be working on Saturday, and this town's real poor for that sort of work anyway, no one does that sort of thing here really) I'm fully livid and demanding he give me the phone and I'll talk to them. "Do these people speak "emergency", what the hell do they do when their cars break down, buy new ones!?" I still have no answer for that, there are 20,000 people living in Cumberland, after all.

We pull off the road to get gas, and Aaron goes into Dale's Market to ask for advice. Luck returns from its jaunt to who knows where, and Aaron comes back to the car. "They said 1/4 mile back on the right - Josh's auto repair, they called him and he's there and will take a look."

Josh is our saviour. He's a handsome, lean young man with blue eyes, a wife, a baby, and a brand new garage in his backyard, complete with a brand new lift. It's so new there aren't even oil spots on the ground. Josh works for a dealership and built this place to make extra money. His dad, who pulls up on his Harley a few minutes after Josh starts removing the catalytic converter, tells us it's only been done for about a month or so. He used to live in Takoma Park, Josh's dad did. Back in '64.

Walter was right: the converter is clogged solid. The remedy for this is a sight to behold: Josh's dad holds it on end while Josh takes 5-pound sledge and hammers a 4' long metal spike down through the center of it. It takes a good 5 minutes before he's through, but it will take longer for him to drill out a seized bolt to put the thing back on the car. Total charge: $40, and he advises that it won't pass emissions next time it needs to, but other than that it'll run just fine for probably another 10 years, oh, and he hooked up the car to his computer system and everything else checks out fine.

We left exhausted but relieved, continued on to camp, and I ate approximately 700 burnt marshmallows sitting by the campfire that night. Aaron caught some fish, we appreciated sleeping on the hard ground because at least it wasn't the car, and I learned I'll never take my bed for granted again. We drove home today in about half the time it took to get there, and only held our breath for the first half of the trip. I've never been happier to be home.