Stuck

Contest entry: Have you ever traveled and got stuck there on Christmas? Write a story about it.

Photo by Tanner Marquis on Unsplash I changed the color

You would think with some 70+ Christmases behind me, I would have been stuck somewhere. But I can’t recall a one. Close a couple times, but never stuck. The picture above is as close as I could come to my 64 VW near a beach. I was just discharged from the Navy and was on my way back to Michigan State on my way to being an engineer. I traded my 65 Triumph TR4 for a gray and white version of the picture. I had a few weeks until I had to be at school, so I thought I’d visit some of the more interesting engineering marvels of America.

Leaving Oakland, I passed over the Golden Gate Bridge on my way to Grand Coulee Dam. On the way, I stopped at Humbolt Bay. There was my first ‘almost-stuck’. The bus had no trouble on the sand, until it did. Apparently, there was a shelf of rock under the sand. It didn’t want me to go any further. Try as I might, the bus could not get over this little rock ledge. I would just dig the hole deeper and deeper. And once in the hole, I could not go forward or backward. It was a fairly deserted beach. No scramble to come to my aid. This was back before cell phones. Triple A was not going to come to my rescue.

No wood, of course. Nothing to put under the wheel to give it purchase. I could jack it up, but then what? It was only one wheel which wanted to do anything. Eventually, some surfers wandered by. We rocked it out of the hole, and over the shelf. Without surfers, what would the world be like?

All was well until Deer Lodge, Montana. In preparation for my trip, I had taken out the middle bench seat and put in a double mattress on a platform. I had camping gear and most what I needed for a comfortable trip across the northern states. Did I mention this was November? It was a decent sleeping until it got into negative numbers. Nothing I could do to keep warm, and I still had the better part of Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin before I got to Michigan. And then I had Canada or Illinois and Indiana to cross. None of which promised balmy weather.

I made a hard right and headed for warmth. Due south until El Paso, then a hard left and due East. I made it to San Antonio, but then so did a ‘tropical’ storm. It wasn’t significant enough to have a name, but I gave it several. I don’t know if you’ve ever driven a bus, but the steering wheel is not in front of you. You are over it. Well, my unnamed storm was blowing south to north. I was eastbound. That meant I got to steer into the wind and hope I stayed on the road. I gave her a hard right rudder and hoped for the best. Not many places to pull over. I had to ride it out. Did I mention the bus has a split windshield which you can open to let air in? Well, it also lets water in when it the wind is strong enough. This wind was strong enough.

Not stuck, but plenty scared. Whoever designed the Huey P. Long Bridge outside of New Orleans did not have a VW bus in mind. The visuals are enough to pucker most orifices. Fortunately, that thrill ride is over in a few minutes. The horizontal rain seemed to last forever. No problems until I got to Mississippi. The VW has a shock absorber on its steering gear. Something to do with the asymmetrical arrangement of the steering arms. Well, I lost mine. Over about 45 mph and shaking begins. Not gentle, rhythmical oscillations, but violent, jerk the steering wheel out of your hands, wrenching. Nobody drives 45 in Mississippi. I was on a two-lane road holding up traffic. Not a comfortable feeling being in Mississippi in a VW bus with California plates in 1970 and having several people mad at you.

All was fine until I lost the wheel bearing on the right rear south of Memphis. Come to find out this was my fault. Before I left Oakland, I pulled the wheels to check the brakes. I should have figured something was different when it took me putting a piece of pipe for leverage on the wrench to free the crenellated nut holding the wheel on the axel. When it came time to put the wheel back on, I made it tight, not fused. VW wants it fused.

I made it to East Lansing, but only stayed a year. The sun seems to disappear from October to June in Michigan. This is tough on a California boy. I will give the VW credit; it will start in cold weather and is pretty good on snow. What it won’t do is provide any heat for the driver. It is not like most liquid-cooled engines which circulate warm water. An air-cooled engine circulates warm (tepid) air, which loses all heat making the trip from the rear of the bus to the front of the bus. All the bus does is keep the wind out, mostly. The air temperature is about the same inside and out.

When contemplating another semester, I got an invitation from a girl I knew from Santa Barbara. She was living in Phoenix and thought I might like Arizona. What’s not to like. The sun shines and there is no snow. This may be the closest I got to being stuck. I made it to Battle Creek when I lost oil pressure. Not a good thing. Expecting the worse, I was looking for a place to stay in Battle Creek. The gods were smiling. Well, one of them was. It was just a rubber bushing on the oil cooler with no apparent damage to the engine. I pulled off as soon as the tiny little light came on. I was near a VW dealership. Maybe more than one god was smiling.

A couple hundred dollars and I was on my way. You must pull the engine in a VW to work on it. Easy to do, but expensive. The trip to Phoenix was uneventful. While there, the brakes would seize. Nothing like being in an intersection and not able to move. And damned difficult to push with the brakes locked. Again, with the clearances, tolerances, and specs. On a trip to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, I lost first gear just as I left the entry gate. Not the worst thing to start in second, but not the best thing for the clutch. Never did find out why, but with enough tinkering, I found it again. They didn’t know what was wrong, either. The gas station let me work on it overnight. Is spending the night in a gas station service bay considered stuck?

The bus stayed with me for a few more years. Going back to school and buying a new car should be considered mutually exclusive. You get to do one of the other. I picked school. After graduation, and a good job, I said goodbye to the bus. I bought a brand new CVCC Honda Civic. It wasn’t that good of a job. After a few trouble-free years with the Civic, I bought an Isuzu Impulse. Except for replacing a few electronic dashboards, it was trouble free. My almost stuck came courtesy of airlines.

I was coming back from Santiago, Chile, on my way to Houston when United Airlines decided they didn’t want to fly anymore. Not easy getting baggage from a closed airline, I had checked it from La Serena . I was tempted to leave the bag, but greed got the better of me. Greed and anger. Are you ever stuck in an airport? Plenty of flights out, especially if you want to leave your baggage behind. That was my worst experience with air travel. Not even sure I had another flight cancelled or delayed. Made it to Europe and China, no problem. And a couple flights to South America. Except for the armed soldiers in the airports, no problems, just concerns.

Nothing of any merit to report. I dropped a fan belt about 50 miles outside of Los Vegas. It was a long time ago when hitchhiking was possible. Got a ride, got the belt, got another ride and I was on my way. This was the TR4, there was plenty of room to work on it, even on the side of the road. Oh, I almost forgot my experiences with the TR. I was on my way to my grandmother’s house for Christmas. It was about a week before Christmas. I was leaving San Francisco for Provo, Utah on I80. There’s a stretch of road from Elko to Wendover where there is nothing to stop the wind blowing. And blow it will when it’s cold, and there’s snow, and a nasty little thing called black ice.

It’s ice you can’t see, but it’s there. It looks like dry concrete/asphalt. No apparent need for chains, though they may not have done much good. On this stretch of the road, the designers, in their infinite wisdom, put a pronounced crown on the road. Great for runoff, if they ever have any in Northern Nevada, but hell on cars and black ice. I suppose the collection of cars off the side of the road and far into the snow and sagebrush should have told me something. I watched a Cadillac ahead of me drift off the road and head for the hills. I soon did the same. He was heavier and may have been driving faster. He went further. Had I been a nice guy, I probably should’ve helped, but I had my own problems.

Not close to stuck even though it was Christmas time. The Perelli’s liked the snow. Nothing liked black ice. I was soon out and on my way, driving much slower. If you’ve read this far, my apologies. No Christmas stuckage here. More than 70 years, 77 to be exact, and no horrific Christmas stories. No horrific stories at all. What’s a writer to do when life is not filled with pain and strife? Make things up? Maybe that’s what I should do. Or have I done so already?