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The "deliverance of Quebec" - 2005/10/25 00:54
Sunday, August 21, 2005
The trip back wasn't the most exciting part of the journy, though it was a little funny. The trip there was a little more action and failure packed.
But...
Just after I talked to you Matt and Luke came flying into the gravel lot and whiped a nice hand break turn in the dying civic. We loaded up the car on the back of the 1941 single axle home built jalopy of a trailer (I should say the others loaded up the car while I talked to the Trunk Monkey guys and polished off the chamagne). We hiked up to the hotel to find out the banquet cost $35 or so per person, and we wern't willing to shell that much out for a celebratory meal when Taco Bell would have done just fine. We stopped at some place in Bethel and grabbed a few burgers, went back the hotel to shower, and hit the road. The trip out was over a day, and we had to make it back sooner than that for everyones scheduals. I took the first shift driving, while Matt and Luke passed out in back, and Adam, our fearless crew chief navigated the back roads of ME, NH, and VT for us. When driving on a West bound road, and you come on a North/South road north is logically right, but Adam said it was left, and at that point Matt woke up and agreed with him. I bit my tounge and just followed their plans. About ten miles later down VT 114, or 141, I can't remember anymore; we all decide yes, we are going the wrong way. So I turn around, now feeling confident that I have all directions set out in my mind; set out on the right course. We cross the border into Quebec at 1 a.m. or so, and talk with the border gaurd for 10 minutes or so. EVERY INTERNATIONAL BORDER IS A HASSLE WHEN TOWING A RALLY CAR. No customs agent believes that we drove 800 miles one way, to spend thousands of dollars breaking a car in the woods, to not win anything besides cheap champagne. So now we're driving through Quebec, during the God awful hours of morn, folowing French directions, when no one in the truck speaks French. We were finding our way alright until we come up again on an International Border somewhere in Vermont again. We stop, look at the map, and I decide in my infinite knowledge that I can just cut across some lesser roads to get us back on track. The next 45 minutes we are driving around on roads that make Maine Forrest Rally roads look tame, towing a car on a jalopy of a trailer. I hit a big pothole in the middle of the road and I feel the trailer jerk to one side. Not caring at this point for anything but to get out of the "deliverance of Quebec" I press on. We finally get our directions strait and we're back on track. Nothing to interesting happend until Toronto, when we stopped for some Timmy Hortons. As I left the donut shop I notice one side of the trailer is a bit lower than the other, and then see that the lief spring snapped just before the rear shakle on the drivers side. We had already driven on it for 6 or 7 hours, so we decided that if it was going to fail, it already would have, so we again pressed on. We got to Sarnia, and we decide to stop for a potty break before having to deal with traffic on the Blue Water Bridge. Since Adam was driving Adam decided where to stop. He pulls into a a small drive thru at some fast food joint where the rig isn't going to make it through without tearing either the builing apart, or the rest of the trailer to shreds. Matt guided him back out of it while Luke and I were using the "office". We all pile back in, and get onto the bridge, and spend the next hour waiting to get through customs back to the States. Now that we're all a little hungry we decide to stop for dinner at what has to officially be the dirtiest and worst run Wendys in the known universe. Shortly after that we rolled into Greand Rapids, unloaded all the gear, and packed it all into Matts storage place. I dropped the guys off and started off North. Just as I roll into Petoskey I get pulled over by the Sheriff because he didn't see the plate on the trailer. He ends up checking on them, and although they're perminant plates he writes me a ticket for them being expiered. I made it 2500 miles, went through 5 states and 2 provences, and croseed an international border 4 times, and never, NEVER did the plates come up as expired until then. I spent about 2 days trying to track down a shop to do the springs on the trailer, and no one could do it for under $300.00 and in less than a couple weeks. It had some '40s era car springs that hadn't been made in years, and there really isn't a good supply of that kind of stuff around here, so they'd have to order them from far away in the magical land of narnia or something. I finally found a shop that could do them in "1 day" which was a relative term for him, and for only $170.00. It took him 2 weeks to do it. I was about to break into his shop and use his presses to do it myself. If your truck/trailer/car breaks a spring at Sno*Drift, don't go to midway springs. He's the only one in 5 counties that can fab them up, but he opperates at the speed of smell.
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