Our hotel oasis had a restaurant where we dallied over breakfast. It was sunny and we were optimistic. We shouldn't have dallied. We started talking to another racer. This guy was racing a trophy truck and had been for years. He was totally appalled when he heard of our plan. "No way you'll finish this race unless you prerun your whole section at least three times," he informed us. "You're running out of time, man, you should have gotten here earlier." How luxurious it must be to have a sponsor who can pay you not only to come race, but to get there weeks ahead of time so you can run you're section over and over again. Our vacation was his job.
He totally psyched Seth out and I still hate him for it. I hoped he had a terrible day. We had a long drive ahead of us to get to where we were dropping Seth off. That only made it worse. Seth sat there worrying the whole time, replaying what the Terrible Racer had said and rethinking everything. He was quiet. The road continued to be narrow and winding. We went through small towns where extra lanes appeared; back out into nothing where we could see el Pacifico stretching out. I imagined parking the truck and running down for a quick dip while we were waiting for Seth. We rolled into another Checkpoint. "Espaniol?" "No, Ingles?" When they asked where we were going we used our race map to show them, and figured out that the race map, or any kind of official race logo anywhere, is actually quite helpful. They waved us through and we didn't even have to get out.
Fields of red flowers turned to scrubby hillsides, which truned into giant scree fields with cacti dotting the landscape. I was amused by the spindly cacti with yellow flowers on top. They reminded me of Dr. Suess Christmas Cacti. Then giant boulders piled on top of each other. Jimi said it looked like the gods had had an earth throwing contest. (We were back in the desert, there would be no refreshing dip in the ocean for the pit crew today.) We passed the place where we would pick Seth up and eventually reached the drop off. It was packed.
We got Seth out and ready and he took off. I could tell he was extra nervous. This was the first day he knew he'd be on the same route as the trophy trucks. On top of that, everyone we had talked to made us feel more and more like the rookies we were. The overwhelming attitude of every racer we'd met had been that since we'd never done it we couldn't succeed. It was taking its toll and Seth was starting to buy into it.
We were only seven miles from our next hotel, the Mission Catavina, and we thought about dropping off the trailer and bringing the bike hauler to pick Seth up. It would be much better for gas mileage, but we decided against it. We shouldn't have. We drove back to the pickup spot, which was not actually along the course, as all the others had been. When Seth was rerouting his pre-running plans (because of the Quad racer's information that we couldn't bring the trailer to Coco's Corner), he had found a small access road that he could take out of the course to get back to the road and us. This is what the Terrible Racer from the morning had been most shocked by. He'd already driven that section several times and there were no roads. He had guaranteed it.
So there was a pulloff where the access road met the main road, and a house at the junction. As was becoming the norm, we pulled off and settled in for our wait. Tommy decided to take Jimi's bike out the access road to see what he could see, and how far it was to the race course. (This seemed like a reasonable idea, the Terrible Racer hadn't managed to notice a road, so what if it wasn't as obvious on the other side? Or worse, what if it didn't go all the way to the course like the map showed?) Jimi set up a lawn chair in the trailer and sat down. I hung a flannel shirt in the window of the truck to block the sun and opened the other windows to keep air moving. I stretched across the back seat and read Jayber Crow, by Wendell Berry. It only made me homesick so I stopped, and tried to fall asleep.
Bzzz, smack.
Bzzzzzz, smack. I turned over.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I ripped the shirt from the window, wrapped it around my head and rolled into the seat.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz silence. I felt the fly crawling up my arm, tickling my arm hairs with each step. I tried to bear it for the sake of silence but eventually I broke. I got out and walked back to the trailer. It was hot. I got Jimi a coke and refilled my water bottle from the tank we had in the trailer. I made us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and realized that Tommy had been gone for a long time.
HOW COULD I LET HIM RIDE INTO THE DESERT BY HIMSELF?!?!??!?!??!??!
What was I thinking?!??!!
Had he even brought water or food??
We had no way of communicating with him!
Worry ROARED back with a vengeance.
I eyed the little house next to the pulloff. Their yard was gated but the road was not. Still, it was unclear to me whether this was a private road, or a true access road. My Schroder blood makes my heart stop at the thought of trespassing, and even sitting in "their" pulloff all afternoon had been making me nervous. I'm telling you this because in hindsite, I see that I could have easily walked up the road in search of Tommy, or better yet unhitched the trailer and taken the truck up. At the time it wasn't an option - it would have made my heart stop. So I convinced myself that I was being a worry-wart, which of course was true, (I mean, of course I should have trusted that Tommy, of all people, would have brought water and food into the desert with him) and that it would be just as stupid for me to head out into the desert alone as it was to send Tommy - which may have been true as well but really was just an excuse.
I sat on the lookout with Jimi for a while and found he had befriended two dogs who presumably lived in the house whose pulloff we were sitting in. He had named them Paco and Taco. I got us both cokes. The cooler was buried in the truck bed so that we could get to it from inside the truck by reaching through the back window. With Jimi's sprained ankle he couldn't get to it easily. Jimi was trying to teach Taco some tricks using peanut butter crackers. I didn't think we should be wasting food.
I'm just telling you all these details to pass the time. We have all afternoon, just sitting here on the side of the road in the Mexican desert, swatting flies, getting cokes and talking about trees that hang you "out of nowheres" and trying to sleep.
Ha - here's another little story I forgot to tell you:
As we were driving that morning we'd been winding through the mountain pass. Well, first I feel the need to clarify about these mountain passes. When I think of mountain passes I think of granite, pine trees, views of lakes and farms, crashing young creeks and giant cliffs. I see Vermont, I see the Tetons, I see Colorado. This is not any of those. These mountain passes were jagged orange rocks with maybe some gray-green brush here and there. The only water to be seen was the ocean, in the beginning. Then no water. Just an orange, dry, jagged moonscape with a road blasted through it. Anyway, back to the mini-story, in the middle of one winding turn Seth slammed on the brakes and I saw a construction crew, about 10-20 young guys, on the side of the road. They were motioning for us to stop. I rolled down my window and a dusty young face peered back at me. "Agua?" I immediately handed him the bottle of water I had saved from the hotel. (We had a whole 40 gallon tank of fresh Vermont tap water in the trailer, thanks to Jimi.) He was very grateful and we started going again. I watched these guys. They were all wearing hooded sweatshirts with the hoods over their heads. Presumably this was to block the sun, but I just couldn't imagine how hot they must have been. "The JEGS hats!" Jimi cried, "give them the JEGS hats!"
Seth stopped again, Jimi rolled down the window and waved one of the hats. Then he started throwing them out the window and they came running! Seth started going again, and as I looked behind us they were waving their new hats and jumping up and down, waving, with huge smiles on their faces.
Bzzzzz. A fly was walking up my warm again. I had fallen asleep. I realized it was unbearably hot in the truck. I opened the door and Taco was sitting there. Jimi must have run out of crackers. The sun was getting close to the top of the mountain. I watched it sink, waiting for relief and wondering where Seth and Tommy were. I started reading Jayber Crow again, I was at the point where he's walking through torrential rain and flood to get back home, back to his people. It was relieving to think about so much water existing in the world.
The sun finally did sink below the top of the mountain. I laid in the truck waiting for any slight breeze that might come my way. The smells of Mexican cooking started to fill the air: first natural gas, then the delicious smell of homemade tortillas cooking. When that was over I heard a TV blaring, and then a generator kicked on. Just before it was actually dark I heard the sound of a motorcycle engine. I jumped out of the truck and ran to greet Tommy as he pulled up. Seth was not with him. Tommy had found the race track and was waiting for Seth at the junction. He had seen a few buggies and other motorcycles drive by, but not Seth yet. He had come back for food, and to make sure the headlight worked. Both tasks fulfilled he headed back out. I was grateful he'd be there: a lighthouse pulling Seth back to us.
I made sandwiches for Jimi and I and got him a coke. It was amazing that the ice in the cooler had lasted through that blasted afternoon.
When it did get dark a man came out of the house whose pulloff we were in and closed the gate to their yard. The TV stayed on for another half hour or so, and then all the lights went out. The generator turned off. I got out and searched the sky for the big dipper. Semis roared past us on the one road down the peninsula. I checked my clock: it was 6:30.
Finally I heard motorcycles again, and this time I saw two headlights. My heart leapt and I rushed to turn the truck on so the trailer lights would be visible. Seth then Tommy pulled their bikes into the trailer. We hopped in and I pulled out, apparently the designated night time driver. We started on our way to the hotel. Semis rushed past us in the other direction as Seth recounted his adventure. He had been nervous at first but once he got out on the course he chided himself. He felt comfortable on the bike and the terrain was fun. He had decided to stop talking to other racers all together and I was glad to hear it. He had had two flat tires, forcing him to pile rocks up to get his back wheel of the ground while he was changing them. This made me think of our honeymoon and I smiled. He accidentally brushed against a cactus which tore his jersey and left two giant needles sticking into his arm. He had stopped to eat the sandwiches I had packed him, but then started to get worried that he'd miss the access road in the dark. He was never so happy as when he saw a headlight coming towards him, he knew it had to be Tommy out looking for him. (Who else would be driving backwards on the racecourse?) They rode back to the access road together and then back to the truck.
Semis barreled past us and each time the whole truck and trailer was buffeted by the wind. The road was so narrow that when this happened I came dangerously close to the trailer tires not being on the road. A semi passed us. Wind. A pothole, I swerved left to avoid it and we heard a loud bang.
Flat tire in the trailer, Jimi reported from his view in the side mirror.
I slowed down and crept along until we reached a pulloff. It was a bad pulloff, rather steeper than I would have liked. There was broken glass and bags of trash all over the place, but we weren't driving over cacti or bushes, so it was a pulloff. We looked at the trailer in horror and realized there were two flat tires on the same side, not just one. We only had one spare for the trailer.
Semis roared past.
We took both wheels off and examined them. On the inside of each wheel was a giant dent, which had caused the seal of the tire to be broken, which caused the air to leak and hence, our flat tires. Jimi started banging the steel back into shape with a breaker bar while explaining that the only thing that could have caused the dents was that I dropped the wheel off the road when that last semi passed. Seth started reading the paper work for our "Mexican Auto Insurance." After a while Jimi actually had the wheel looking semi normal, if a little banged up. We examined the tires and found that - miraculously - they weren't too damaged by the distance we drove on them while they were flat. We put one back on the wheel and started filling it with air. It was holding! A seal was forming! Then the hose broke off of Seth's air tank. We hadn't brought the whole compressor, just a tank we'd filled with compressed air. Without the hose it was useless, and the tire wasn't full yet. We got out the bike pump and started trying to fill the tire manually. Pump by pump, Tommy and I took turns while Seth tried to bang out the other wheel. Jimi didn't think the pump was working. Seth sent me back to re-examine the insurance paperwork and use the satellite phone to call. "It's working!" I heard Tommy shout. I looked back and he and Seth were furiously pumping air into the tire. It was working, we were going to make it! We fixed the other one the same way, and put the spare back in the trailer for safe keeping.
We piled back in the truck and got on the road again. It was about 9:30. My dreams of anything other than another peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner were swiftly disappearing. This time I made Jimi drive. I sat in the back with Tommy. We were only ten miles from the hotel.
The miles whittled down quickly. We rounded a corner and found a police car in the road, blocking it. A few cars were pulled off to the side. Jimi slowed and rolled down the window. The policeman didn't speak English and we didn't know what had happened, but he waved us over into a pulloff that was conveniently at the exact right spot. Eventually we figured out that one of the roaring semis had run off the road and they were clearing it. Being such a small road there was no way to get around it until it was clear. We were two miles from the hotel.
We sat there for a while in silence, hoping it wouldn't be long. After an hour I got the camp stove out. Jimi had brought some cans of Chef Boyardi Ravioli and meatballs. I cooked them up and gave them to Seth and Jimi. Even though I'm pretty sure that stuff isn't real meat, I didn't figure Tommy wanted any, and there really wasn't enough to fill more than two people. I had a Pop Tart, which I'd been saving for an especially desperate occasion. Jimi got a lawn chair out and sat by the trailer, watching a line of semis form on the road, unable to pass. Seth sat with him for a while, and Tommy and I sat in the car discussing the events that led up to the double trailer flats, and agreeing that I hadn't hung the tires off the road. Then we discussed whether, if we hadn't gotten any flat tires, or indeed even if we'd only gotten one flat tire, we might have been in the wreck ourselves.
Tommy went for a walk and Seth decided to try to sleep. I sat in the truck, awake, listening to the hum of diesel engines. Tommy came back at one point for the bicycle tire pump, and I realized that he was helping someone fix a flat tire. Even though they couldn't understand anything the other person was saying, Tommy managed to communicate with this guy, find out what his problem was and fix it. Even I could tell that the man was grateful. Tommy is a great guy. When he got back he put his headlamp on and read on the other side of the trailer.
Around 2:30 I awoke to the sound of engines starting. Even the semis had turned their engines off, but now they were starting again. Apparently the road was going to open back up! Jimi got into the drivers seat and we forced our way into line.
A hop, skip and a jump and we were at the hotel. The parking lot was PACKED and we realized in horror that while our side of the accident was equipped with a convenient pullof, the other side was equipped with a convenient hotel. There was no way our room was saved for us. Seth and I went in and woke a very surprised night attendant who was equally horrified when he figured out what had happened. He told us to wait and he went to wake the owner.
The owner provided us with Suite 101, the only room left available. It had a special key and apparently only the owner was allowed to determine whether people could use it. I was elated. The only problem was that, being a suite meant it had a bedroom and a living room. The bedroom only had one bed. Which meant that while Seth and I got a bed to stretch out on for half of the night, Tommy and Jimi had to bring in sleeping bags. The floor was tile and I felt terrible for Tommy.
Our third day of pre-running is finally over.
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