Friday, February 18, 2011

A Photo of Somewhere You've Been - Day 26

This would be the perfect day for me to post pictures from the trip to Paris with my family, but I’ve shown a few of those before and I’m thinking this will make a better story.  
Have you ever been to Beaver City, Utah?  Population 2, 511.  Birthplace of Butch Cassidy.
Well I have.  And I’m sure you have too but chances are you stopped for gas or cup of coffee.  The difference between your stop in Beaver and my stop in Beaver, you made it out.  I, on the other hand, got stuck. For five days.  It.Was.Awful.
A reminder why I prefer cities to small towns, for a large number of reasons that could probably be a blog entry all in it’s own.  But for the sake of time, I’ll save you the details - for now.
I was traveling across country, making my move from New Jersey to California.  I was making great time.  Ahead of schedule or so I thought.  That was until my stop in Beaver City.  I had just spent the last hour or so completely out of cell range.  Had made a couple of calls to my dad the day before due to my “overdrive off” light coming on in the hills of Colorado but other than the light that would come and go, all things appeared to be smooth sailing.  But this stop was really just a stop for a fresh cup of coffee, cold bottle of water and to use the restroom.  I headed back out to my car and in the spirit to continue my day of driving, as I was only a few hours in.  To my surprise as I went to put my car in reverse, remove my foot from the brake, I rolled nowhere.  I put the car in park and tried again.  Nope.  This is where the freak out started to happen.  One more attempt, adding in the gas.  Nope.  
I called my Dad.  We checked a few fluids.  All appeared good but decided to try topping off my oil. (I think it was the oil? Or the steering fluid? This is all a blur now...)  Nope.  A few guys came over, asked if everything was okay.  Dad stayed on the phone.  If I was about to die, he was going to be on the phone so that my last words would be to tell everyone that I loved them.  
Okay, okay...it wasn’t that dramatic.  But they tried a few things and eventually ended up pushing my car out of the parking spot and led me to the mechanic in town as I could still drive forward.  The mechanic had a couple of ideas what it could be but feared it was probably the big guns, my transmission.  Conclusion?  It sure was.  And since I was stuck in this tiny little town only a few miles long, it was going to be about a week for them to get the transmission to replace my current one and install it.  They’d work their fastest but really we’d just be waiting and waiting and waiting for transmission.
That’s exactly what I did.  Wait.  Sit in my hotel room and wait.  I’d walk the town everyday.  Get weird looks for the locals.  To this day I’m sure I was the talk of the town for the week.  Everyone knew everyone, so clearly they noticed the girl with the big black sunglasses, hot pink bag and flip flops who walked around town all day but no one knew.  Subway veggie sandwiches were my dinner of choice.  Lunch was usually yogurt parfait from McDonalds (french fries too, if I was feeling crazy).  Breakfast was hot water brewed through the coffee pot to make instant oatmeal and coffee.  The housekeepers started leaving extra coffee everyday.  I’m sure they felt bad and assumed it was the least they could do for the poor girl stuck living out of a hotel while waiting for her car to be fixed.  
The day that I left was amazing.  I was afraid to even stop for a pee break.  Afraid my car wouldn’t make it and I’d get stuck again.  All I wanted was to make it to the apartment that was waiting for me in LA.  We don’t need to go into the fact that it wasn’t nearly what I was hoping it would be and instead spent a couple nights at a friend’s place on her couch instead (thanks again Justine!)
Anyway, enjoy the crazy fun times of Beaver City, Utah...errr

This bat was my pet at the hotel.  ...or maybe he just scared me. ;)




At least the view around the town was beautiful.

1 comment:

  1. I did not realize that they let you have a pet during your stay there :)

    ReplyDelete