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Retrospect: May 2006
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And so we continued to play among the stacks of full dimension lumber, this builder's dream land. The bright, hot weather and our concentration were interrupted by a number of events including a few brief pelting rains, a quick dust storm, a neighbor wanting a stump base for target practice and yet another neighbor wanting to use the phone to report a fire. It was then that Skeeter discovered that they no longer had either phone service or electricity. Under the circumstances, the drone of heavy prop-driven planes became more meaningful. These guppy-bellied planes had been drawn to the ever increasing smoke which I had noticed earlier. Before they flew away, they would circle and finally drop bright red/orange chemicals onto what was now an unmistakable forest fire. After a parching ten year drought, this event was nothing to ignore. Earl fired up the big fork-lift and quickly put our lumber on the trailer before noting that they needed to check on a relative's house right in the fire's path.
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We pulled the heavy trailer out onto the road and realized that we had no choice but follow the two lane highway right through the heart of the fire frenzy. It was a circus of insanity with emergency vehicles screaming past every minute or two and festive gawkers pulling off to the side of the road every few hundred yards. The town we had to pass through was being evacuated, pronto. A wide and heavy load on an unfamiliar trailer being pulled by a truck we were not 100% confident with, in the midst of complete mayhem - we were a little 'on edge', to say the least. Which one of these idiots would be the next to slam on the brakes to pull into a good viewing spot or pull out in front of us with our recent brake job still not tried to the fullest measure? Sure enough, the truck in front of us pulled off abruptly, causing Mark to swing out around him in avoidance. Just when both of us were on the verge of a stroke, an emergency vehicle siren screamed deafeningly to life behind us. Ratchet up the blood pressure another 50 or 60 points. Apparently, the truck in front of us had noticed the silent cop car behind us; the reason for his sudden pull off. Mark, as unhinged as I at this point, had not been looking in his rear view mirrors around the wide load for silent predators. Rather than pass us by as we found the first spot to pull over without capsizing the load into the deep ditches, the officer pulled in behind us. Realization hit us with a hammer blow. Great, Mark, you just cut off a cop, an undoubtedly angry one at that ... we are screwed, Buddy. The officer jumped out of his car and, with spittle flying, launched into the most impressive exercise using the 'f' word in every possible grammatical situation possible. He had covered nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs and more by the time he reached the cab. Mark, now much wiser with age, looked downwards and chose to utter a simple "I am VERY, VERY sorry", despite some arguable points such as the lack of siren use. I don't doubt from the man's beet-red face, language and gesturing that he could have leapt into a violent physical attack and thoroughly enjoyed it. I truly cannot recall seeing anyone, anyone, Barney Fife-ish hyper or not, acting quite that insanely angry. I subconsciously gave him a 10.9 performance score on a scale of 10.
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Whether it was Mark's complete lack of confrontation or seeing my own eyes-closed, ashen pallor is hard to say but he turned on his heels with another barrage of fluent 'f' words and laid a screaming strip of rubber past us without further official formalities. My, that was certainly the right way to encourage us to keep a calm and level head during an emergency. For the next ten miles, we weren't sure if we were going to have the big one or just plain throw up.
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It was a relief to finally see the big main highway again ... clear sailing on four lanes. Hallelujah - homeward bound without any stress now! Beyond the smoke, the sun was intently beaming again, the air and the pavement rippling with heat waves. Free from that nightmare at last!
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About ten minutes later, a small noise and a repetitive light thump crept in. Oh please ... no. We pulled over. Thankfully, it wasn't a flat ... yet. A large piece of one trailer tire tread had left us. No jack on the trailer, none on this truck. The nightmares and despair converged upon us again. Oh, why us and why now? We decided to limp the whole rig slowly to the next stop in hopes of assistance.
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That next stop turned out to be another zoo. The reservation was hosting a 4WD mud fest complete with rock bands. People and traffic everywhere. We limped the rig into a quiet area and looked around for any flotsam which we could drive the wheel of the first axle up on to in lieu of a jack. Parking lots are amazingly clean when you need to find a certain sized piece of junk and we were getting all the more discouraged now. While I went off in search of likely jack donors, Mark was befriended by a very, VERY inebriated Navajo. This tall and portly native rancher would intersperse genuinely well-intended offers of help with brief removals from the scene for public urination events. His brother-in-law, a young 'gangsta' wannabe, was not so gracious and relieved himself directly on our truck's tire. Rod Serling's theme song grew louder with the quickly lengthening shadows of the late afternoon. Another beautiful orange and gold sunset in the making ... but we could hardly give a damn at that point.
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After making the rounds of the security people and the maintenance people several times, I was finally pointed to a gentleman helping an old fart from Flagler Beach change his RV tire. The kindly Samaritan pointed out yet another jack in the back of his truck and off I went, treasure in hand. Mark was happy to have his current company diluted by my return and had that tire off and spare installed faster than an Indy pit crew. We returned the jack with intense gratitude and bade a respectful farewell to Mark's new long-lost best pal.
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Once again, we missed traveling back down the canyon in daylight. Was it now foolhardy to expect anything but? I made yet another heavy mental note about the joys of leaving the canyon.
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Current news:
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A heat wave last night of zero after two days of 15 degrees BELOW zero! Not that the well and pump will free up any time soon.
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