Friday, November 9, 2007

Ignominy

Inner Dialogue: Wow this is a crazy dream.  I can’t remember the last time I had a dream this surreal. And I am really sleeping. Like good sleep. Actual rest. This is kind of nice. Been a while. Wait a minute, am I consciously analyzing my REM state? Is that even possible? But i’m sleeping so well. Okay now I’m confusing myself and ruining my dream.

A distant female voice, “are you okay?”

Okay who is talking to me? Is someone shaking me? Maybe she is real and I should open my eyes.

“are you okay?” I open my eyes to a dark haired woman I’ve never seen before. Or have I? that’s right, I do know her. She is the nurse that was cleaning out my wound in the E.R.

But why am I on the floor?  

As the reality of what happened sets in so does the embarrassment.  I was lying on the floor of the Lakeview Hospital E.R. after passing out. I apologize for fainting; realize I am still nauseated and sweating profusely from my balding dome, and close my eyes while she continues cleaning my lacerated knuckle. 

“I really am sorry I passed out. I’ve never passed out before and normally I’m pretty cool with blood and needles.”

“‘Don’t worry about it. It’s pretty common.  Normally people come right out of it. However after a few minutes, when you started snoring, I figured it was okay to wake you up.”

That in a nutshell is the ignominious beginning to Expedition Americas.  Two straight weeks of 19-20 hour days of packing, organizing, saying goodbye and repacking, reorganizing and resaying goodbye had finally taken a toll on my body. The thought of a lingering infection later cured by tequila and a sharp knife for a simple cut, on the last day of my health benefits, that I would normally ignore, required only four small stitches.  The fatigue, stress, and lack of eating combined with the anesthesia to put me down. Not just out, but off the table, onto the floor and into the most restful sleep I had in weeks.  I decided to push back my departure a day. Give myself enough time. November 6th would be the day. And it was.

Tuesday morning dawned (I assume since I was asleep until 9am) cold yet sunny.  A few more errands, breakfast with friends, one final stop at Menlove Toyota Scion and I hit the road.  Before I can look forward I have to look back.

One of the benefits of leaving on trip like this is the time spent with friends beforehand.  The weekend of amazing 10th row Neil Young tickets in Boise, ID, only to be teeing off 16 hours and 700 miles later in St. George, UT for 81 holes of golf, and a game 7 vic for the Sox over Cleveland. The many dinners and lunches with friends and co-workers.   The dozens of hours spent prepping the truck for the trip. The sponsors, the friends turning wrenches and offering up their garage.  The Sox winning another Championship! 

Then the stress. Packing for the future, a year on the road.  Living out of car. Minimizing and organizing. Leaving the old life behind. A half-assed effort of tying up loose ends and cleaning up the old life. The kindness of the parents for dealing with an explosion of spare parts, bags, clothes and paperwork consuming their basement and garage.  And lastly the stupidity.  Friday the 2nd I took all my documents into work to make copies to stash on the truck just in case.  The last item was the passport.  Mid-copy job the M4345MFP, the machine that disrupted the industry (that is for all my hp friends) ran out of paper. I loaded some paper in the tray, finished the job and took off for lunch.  Tuesday about 2am I realized my passport was missing.  Took a while and a complete vehicle unpack to remember it was at work.  No stress whatsoever involved with that mistake.

So a day and half late I hit the road, augmented route in hand, bound for Seattle.  Banff and Canada would be saved for another day. I’ve been there 4 times already so I’m okay with that. I’ve never seen the Baja 1000 so I’m still keeping to that portion of my agenda.  I hope.  After Menlove and a stop at DP Custom Fabrication to show him the completed roofrack, I said a final goodbye to a friend and settled in for a long drive into the night.  At Snowville, UT I left the interstate for the two-lane highway, turned up the dmb and all the stress faded away. I met up with Eric Vogt, friend and longtime cruiserhead in Mountain Home, Idaho. Our ‘quick’ chat only took two hours.  It was good to see his new 100 series Cruiser and relieve him of some of his 80 series spare parts. Thanks Eric, the tie rods ends were something I definitely overlooked.  He pointed out that it was two days shy of one year since my frigid Thanksgiving trip to Sitka, AK when he almost slid his 80 down the side of a mountain.  I slept that night in Paradise Valley, OR. As I climbed into the rooftop tent for the first time, the 23 degree air crystallizing my breath, a calm settled in and I slept even better than the 3mins I stole on the floor of the ER.  It was a good night’s sleep and an even better omen for the trip before me. 

So I don’t post for a month and come up with this doozy.  967 words.  Another night with the Farnes family here in Seattle then it’s back on the road and Baja bound.   I’ll post more tomorrow before I head out. 

dmc

 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The truck looked great. All of those sleepless nights have paid off. My only recommendation is to get that swing out reinforced prior to Mexico. Keep up with your blog as there are a lot of us who are living vicariously through you on this adventure!