Over The Mountain, Stevie Wonder and Clark Griswold: The Great 2018 Mountain Trip (Part III)

This is Part III of a IV part series.  Part I, The Phantom RV is here (Booze, Aquifers, and the Great 2018 Mountain Trip (Part I)).  Part II, The RV: Reloaded, is here (Fat Alec Baldwin, Sketchy Stores, and Car Miracles: The Great 2018 Mountain Trip, Part II).

“I don’t know much about wine, but I know you gotta keep it hot.” – Anchorman 2

In this photo by The Mrs., you can see the smoke from a 60,000 acre fire caught at sundown – the yellow “cloud” is really smoke.  This stupid fire caused us to have to detour around it, since our tires aren’t made of asbestos due to the silly concerns of people with lungs.  Of course, that detour added three hours to our trip . . . but we would make the trip NO MATTER WHAT.

As I said, we made it to the mountains.  We began to ascend the only mountain pass we’d have to take to get into the high mountain valley that was our destination.  The pass twisted and turned, with the speed limit being 25MPH (140km/hr) for most of the ascent.  We had decided to wait to have dinner on the other side of the mountain.

This proved to be a mistake.

We finally made it over the mountain, but it was 10:45pm or so.  We stopped to get some gas cans (the nearest gas station to where we’d be staying was 30 miles away) at Wal-Mart®.  We then went off to IHOP© to get dinner.  IHOP™s are open late, right?

Nope.  They closed at 11pm in this town.  The only thing we could find open was a drive-through window at Wendy’s®.  And if you’ve never driven an SUV with an RV through a drive-through window lane?  Don’t.  After ordering, I found that the turning radius was too tight for the Wildermobile® Mark III and the RV.  The fender for the driver’s side wheel on the RV started (loudly) scraping against the retaining wall.

I backed up.  A bit.  Now the front tire of the Wildermobile® Mark III was headed straight up a curb, which appeared to be the only way to avoid having the wheel on the trailer ripped off.  Stuck on the front.  Stuck on the back.  At least the engine was running.

Well, the Wildermobile® Mark III is a four-wheel drive.  Heck with it.  I gunned the engine and we jumped the curb and then I cut the wheel sharply to the left.

We thudded back to the concrete.

I ended up pulling the trailer out without damaging it, but the driver’s side window on the Wildermobile® Mark III was about 12 feet from the drive-up window.  Breaking (I’m sure) every policy in the Wendy’s® manual, I just walked out and stood at the drive-up window while they rang up my purchase and brought me my food.

After 14 hours on the road, The Mrs. was not pleased.  Getting food was important, but The Mrs. also had to go to the bathroom.

But it gets worse.

I stopped to get gas after we got our food.  The convenience store I picked?  The pumps were open, but the store was locked.  At 11pm.

Now The Mrs. was fuming, since she STILL had to go to the bathroom.

We finally pulled into the Valero® station, and their bathroom was open.  The Mrs. went first.  As the Men’s Room was being cleaned, I told The Boy and Pugsley that it was acceptable to use the Women’s room.  Pugsley danced right on in, but The Boy took some arm twisting to convince.  It just wasn’t right that he’d use the Women’s room.

But The Boy finally did.

And the nice lady cleaning the bathroom noted that had we just been a few minutes later, we would have found both of the bathrooms irrevocably locked for the night.  “Those young kids, they cause so much trouble, no?  Doing so many things they should not be doing.”

Sounds like they need to put up signs here, too.  There’s nothing a Sharpie® can’t solve . . .

Okay, The Boy just made this one up. But I can imagine an actual sign not far from this one, especially if the asbestos in town was especially tasty.

The Mrs. was still unhappy – so unhappy that the Wendy’s™ Single© and fries I’d purchased for The Mrs. to consume sat unconsumed between us.  Probably not a bad thing, since the French fries that came with my burger already tasted like they had been made out grease and cardboard – soggy and not at all flavorful.  I then took a long drink on my Wendy’s® Strawberry Lemonade™.  It was . . . hot.

But the top of the drink was . . . cold?  Huh?

I reached down to the cupholder on the Wildermobile® Mark III and touched it.  It was hot.  Very hot.  14 hours of full power driving had apparently turned the cupholder into a cupheater.  Not something that we’ve seen either before or since.  Perhaps it pulled its energy from The Mrs. white hot rage?

Yes, The Mrs. was mad.  And, it was at me.

A 15 hour trip is a long time, and you throw on top of it the scare with the car starting, the irritation of both bathroom and food, and, The Mrs. had a point, namely, that when I’m pursuing a goal, I get singleminded.  Like Captain Ahab chasing his white whale, or Clark Griswold attempting to put up 100,000 imported Italian twinkle-lights, I tend to get focused on a destination or goal to the exclusion of worrying about those around me.

After consulting with The Mrs., she indicated that this video best represents what it’s like vacationing with me.

We hit our final leg of the journey.  I could sense The Mrs. was still fuming, at least as hot as my Wendy’s© Strawberry Lemonade™.

I tuned the radio station to one of the three FM radio stations you could get.  Some 1960’s-1970’s hits station came on.  Eventually, a Stevie Wonder® song came on.

“Did you know that Stevie Wonder® played the drums?”

I did know that Stevie Wonder® was blind, but had no idea that he played the drums.

For the next twenty minutes or so, The Mrs. dazzled me with a rather encyclopedic listing of detail about Stevie Wonder®.  How he went blind.  What instruments he played.  His first hits.  His awards.

It turns out that The Mrs. had done some recent research on Stevie Wonder® to use as an example for some work that The Mrs. was doing in her undercover crime fighting day job as CEO of Wayne Industries.  The stories The Mrs. had were fascinating.  We then listened to a radio show that berated people without accents for not understanding people with accents.  I am not making this up, and apparently this wasn’t a one-time, but a weekly radio show (according to the end credits, done only by female feminists) where they berated people without accents for not understanding people with accents.  That’s hard-core nagging, and nearly enough to make me rethink my support for the First Amendment (the freedom of speech part).  Thankfully, I couldn’t really understand what the feminists were saying.

We finally made it to the campsite at about 1AM.

By the time that we had finished unpacking the trailer and setting up for the night, the stars were out over our campsite.  We shared a beer at 2AM after the trip.  “You’re lucky,” The Mrs. said, “that Stevie Wonder® saved you.  You know that you get a little too Captain Ahab.  A little too obsessive . . .”

John Wilder:  “Clark Griswold, right.”

“Yeah, a little too Clark Griswold on these trips.”

And The Mrs. is right.  The obsessiveness that keeps me focused on goals and objectives and that allows me to be successful in my day job (polishing lobster shells) sometimes takes its toll even on vacation.

Now time for some hot Wendy’s® Strawberry Lemonade . . . too bad it takes 15 hours to make.

Finally:  Forest Fire and Phones/Internet, Camping and Time Preference, Citizen Journalists