[DeTomaso] Chris Kimball 2013 POCA Fun Rally Journal day 3

[Christopher Kimball]

Tuesday,
April 23, 2013


Despite the
fact the Twin Falls Comfort Inn and Suites didn’t have an actual suite available
(it makes one wonder if they really have more than one suite, and if not, why
the plural in the name?), and therefore Brian and I had to sleep in the same
room (different beds, you understand, but the beds were in the same room…), we
both got a good night’s sleep.  My theory
is our snoring sound waves must be 180 degrees out-of-phase, so Brian’s snore
cancels out my snore leaving only silence. 
It’s a scientific theory I’ll explore some ambiguous day when I have
free time.


Since I was
up typing until 12:30 AM, we didn’t get on the road very early.  We got up around 8:00, which was really 9:00
in the Twin Falls time zone, and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the hotel’s
dining room.  Because we were now in
Idaho and not Oregon, the television was tuned to the Fox News channel instead
of CNN.  Brian and I struck up a
conversation with an older couple who were discouraged by the moral decay in
the United States.  One subject about
which they were particularly bothered was the legalization of gay marriage.  As I listened to their concerns, I couldn’t
help wondering if they were uneasy with the fact that for breakfast, all I had
was a big bowl of Froot Loops…


Once we were
all packed up and ready to go, we stopped at a gas station and made the
horrible mistake of asking a guy getting gas the best way to get to Las
Vegas.  Before I go on, let me back up
and answer the question I’m sure you’re asking yourself, “Why would Chris need
to ask directions?  He has two GPS
systems in his car!”  That’s a valid
question, indeed.  Here’s why I needed
the help:  My two GPS systems couldn’t
agree on which way I should go.  The one
on the left was telling me to go right, while at the same time the one on the
right was telling me to go left.  It was
almost comical, hearing two female voices arguing with each other about
directions!  Usually it’s a man and a
woman who do that.


The man at
the gas station seemed sure we should go over the bridge to get to where we
needed to go.  Since I’m a very trusting
soul, and since Brian made the mistake of trusting me, we headed off in the
entirely wrong direction.  I realized the
problem when both of my GPS voices agreed I was off course.


After
pulling over to the side of the road and consulting our paper Google Map
directions (once again, paper beats scissors and computers) we turned around
and started toward Las Vegas.


The drive
was absolutely stunning.  The temperature
was perfect, the roads were almost empty, and the scenery was beautiful.  There were so many times I wished Brian weren’t
so responsible.  Only once did I decide
to go fast (only 135) out of the dozens of times I had the perfect opportunity
to make Pandora sing.  I complained to
Brian about this at one of our gas stops, but he said something boring about
how I should be happy I hadn’t gotten any tickets.  I managed to console myself by listening, as
I drove, to “Sleigh Ride” by Amy Grant, and picturing myself traveling 80 mph
in a sleigh (“Yoo-hoo!”)


Even though
I polished off the remaining Corn Nuts and Junior mints along the way, we
stopped for lunch anyway in Ely, Nevada. 
We filled up the cars with gas and oil before lunch, and I noticed my
car is using about a quart of oil for every 1000 miles of travel.  Not great, but a whole lot better than it
used to be.  Since Pandora has been
purring so far, I’m not going to complain one bit!


My plan for
lunch was to save money by ordering some sort of sandwich, but drinking one of
the Frappuccinos I brought with me for the trip.  This plan went immediately awry when we
decided to have lunch at the local Arby’s. 
You see, Arby’s is home to the much-imitated-but-never-equaled Jamoca
milkshake.  Actually, it’s just a Jamoca
shake—the word “milk” isn’t mentioned.  I’m
taking a wild guess that’s because milk is a somewhat natural food, and a
Jamoca shake is probably concocted from a vat of chemicals.  The good news is that Brian could probably
drink one with no problem!


The Arby’s
in Ely must be the happenin’ place to be at 2:30 PM, because when we tried to
find a table, they were all occupied. 
Brian suggested we sit outside on the curb by our cars.  We did so, and were peppered with the usual
questions from passers-by, such as, “What are those?” “Is that a Ferrari?” “What
does one of those go for?” “How fast will those go?” and every Pantera owner’s
favorite: “Is that one of those cars from ‘Back to the Future?’”


As I sat
there eating my lunch, the only things I could think about were 1) how in the
world did so many bugs decide to veer into the front of my car? 2) this Jamoca shake
is fantastic, and 3) this gelatinous, yellow goo on my sandwich has very little
to do with cheese.


Before I
left for the trip, I decided to try a new Griot’s Garage product called “Insect
Barrier.”  I’m not sure if it’s available
to the public yet, but it is a spray which ostensibly creates a coating on the
parts of a car prone to bug splatter. 
Once one arrives at one’s destination, so the label claims, all that is
needed to remove all the bug jerky (as it’s affectionately called) is to rinse
the bug-covered areas with water.   So
far it seems to work pretty well. 


At this
point, I know what you’re asking yourself. 
“How is Chris’ Gripgo working?” 
In a word; famously.  In fact, with
one minor exception, the Gripgo hasn’t failed me.  The exception occurred when I tried sticking
my phone to the magic Gripgo sticky substance without realizing the back of my
phone was contaminated with some sort of dirt. 
This caused the Gripgo to temporarily become a Gripletgo and my phone
ended up on the carpet.  Once I
determined the nature of the corrupt surface and cleaned the phone, the Gripgo
again worked great.  Not only did it work
with my phone, but since I decided to use my iPod for music, I turned the
Gripgo sideways and attached both my iPod and my phone to the unit.  My thought was if the phone rang I could
simply move the audio cord from the iPod to the phone, and presto—instant hands-free
conversation.


There ended
up being two problems with this idea. 
First, when Brian tried to call me, I didn’t hear the phone ringing
since I had the stereo turned up quite loud and was belting out all sorts of
classic tunes from the ‘70s.  Secondly, for
some odd reason, even when I did see the phone light up indicating an incoming
call, and switched the cable, the person on the other end couldn’t hear
me.  I got a call from my office that was
a semi-emergency, and since they couldn’t hear me, they just hung up.  I called back several times, and each time
they hung up.  At first I thought maybe
it was mutiny, and I no longer had control of my business, but then realized
Julie and Caroline would never do that to me, and it must be another electronic
malfunction.  I ended up using the phone
in the illegal way—holding it up to my ear. 
Emergency averted.


Speaking of
the office, it turns out my Executive Assistant, Julie, and my President of
Marketing, Caroline, are enjoying these journal entries every morning when they
first get to work.  With that in mind: Hi
Julie and Caroline!


My wife,
Vicki, is also glad to hear what I’m doing while I’m away, but she doesn’t
really doesn’t like attention, so I won’t mention her name.


Our last gas
stop was about 15 miles from Las Vegas. 
Everything had been going well—despite Brian’s
shifting-without-using-the-clutch problem. 
Those of you who know Panteras, however, know it’s almost impossible to
complete any trip involving Panteras without some sort of mechanical malfeasance.  Not wanting to disappoint, Brian stepped up
to take on this task.


Immediately
after filling his tank, his car was dead. 
There was power to the ignition switch and power to the starter, but
nothing was happening.


Brian
immediately sprang into action.  He had
the foresight to bring a small, hydraulic jack on the trip, and he set about
jacking up the car so he could crawl underneath to see what was up (good thing
he was wearing one of his work shirts—all he had because of the wardrobe snafu
I wrote about yesterday).  


I like
Brian.  I don’t want to see Brian maimed.
 I don’t want to have to attend Brian’s
funeral before the year 2053.  That’s why
I insisted he get out from under the car until we had some kind of jack stand
in place.  Unfortunately, neither of us
had a jack stand, and the quickie-mart didn’t sell them.  I decided that my scissor jack would be
better than nothing, and might at least minimize any maiming that might take
place should the hydraulic jack fail.


After adding
an additional chock to the other front wheel (Brian had one already placed on
the driver’s side), and when I say “chock” I mean roll of duct tape, Brian
began poking around to diagnose the problem. 
After finding the starter so hot an entire breakfast could be cooked on
it, he surmised the heat might have temporarily debilitated the mechanism.  He suggested waiting a while to see if once
it cooled it would again work.  


These kind
of problems, where things just start working again after being broken, are
unnerving.  One doesn't know whether to
be thankful that mechanized objects can occasionally have the ability to heal
themselves, or whether to be traumatized because one knows the same problem
will invariably happen again at the most inconvenient time.


I, of
course, had also sprung into action.  I
gave Brian my jack and duct tape. 
Exhausted following that expense of energy, I began cleaning the dust
off Pandora.  Those of you who don’t know
much about working on cars may not know that rubber gloves are an important
mechanic’s accessory.  The problem is,
you need to put them on before you grab greasy objects.  I realized after I had given Brian the jack
that I had failed to utilize any of the dozen or so pairs of rubber gloves I
had brought on the trip for just such an emergency.  “Better late than never,” I thought, as I
donned a pair.  Here’s what happens when
you do what I did.  The grease that is already
on your hands mixes with the sweat created by the gloves, and the entire sticky
black mass of goo circulates throughout the gloves coating your hands (including
under every fingernail) with the petroleum equivalent of permanent ink.


But I
digress.


After 45
minutes or so, Brian was doing something with some wires under the car.  Without him planning on doing so, he somehow
managed to make a connection between two wires that caused the starter to
engage.  Since neither he nor I were expecting
this, and since the entire project resembled some kind of Rube Goldberg
nightmare, our reactions were quite similar. 
The term “freaked out” comes to mind. 
At first, it wasn't funny.  In
retrospect, and since Brian is still with us and all his phalanges are intact, , it is now pretty amusing.


The car
started and we drove to the hotel, where the ultimately-patient Clarke and
Wilma were waiting for us.  We went to
the same restaurant we enjoyed last year, The Farmer Boys.  They not only offer breakfast and burgers,
but also “more.”  That’s the restaurant nomenclature
for assorted, deep-fried, artery-clogging delicacies.  I like to be consistent, so since I had a milkshake
for lunch, I decided to also have one for dinner.  I had some fruit and a piece of fried fish,
too, but those were basically a garnish for the shake.

 

Now it’s
time to get some more shut-eye.  One more
day of driving, and then it’s party time.  
Except for Brian—for him it’s fix-his-car time.