The Never Ending Drive Home
A mule deer and 20 hours in Glendive
Once we finished off our lunches the logistical fun began.
Ward, Reed and I would drive up to Billings so that I could pick up my truck. I would drive back down to Red Lodge to retrieve Tye and Brad, Reed and Ward would begin driving back to Wisconsin. Perfect.
I had a pretty fair idea where Underriners was located and, after a short while found the service department. I had a feeling I was in trouble when I saw the trusty Santa Fe still on the lift, my tire still attached and no sign of a mechanic anywhere.
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My fears were confirmed when I found the service manager's flunkie (whose name will not be used here) who told me Friday was now looking iffy.
What the fuck?
OK, take a breath and compose. We already knew that Tye was going to get a motel room at the Holiday Inn (at a sweet government rate no less). Fine. Ward would drive us over, we'd take a shower and figure out what came next. In the meantime, Ward would fetch Tye and Brad back in Red Lodge and take them to the motel.
I quickly went through the Santa Fe, grabbing stuff I thought was necessary for the next few hours: a change of clothes, my ipod, phone charger, tent (I thought I could dry it off in the motel room) and some drinks and snacks. Mentally flipping flunkie the bird, I crawled back into the Versa for the short drive to the brand spankin' new Holiday Inn.
The plan would have worked if either Reed or I were actually Tye and able to check in. Not a big deal as Reed said we were going to the motel casino and were going to have a great time, dammit.
Reed kindly bought the first round and then began his quest to pay for the trip by hitting the video poker machine. In the meantime, I sat at the bar and passed the time conversing with the bar tendress, Melissa, and watching "The Game" on the television.
After a few more beers, courtesy of Reed and his $50 poker winnings the others showed up and we went to Tye's room to take a much-needed shower.
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Reed suggested that I give the garage one last chance to get the Santa Fe repaired by the end of business day tomorrow by offering up a bribe. I tried and failed---there was nothing I could offer that would ensure the truck's readiness within 24 hours.
Decision time, lots of options: I could get a room in Billings and spend the weekend there watching TV, maybe hanging with Hikerjer, with no guarantee the truck would be done on Monday. I could rent a car and go back to the mountains for the weekend with no guaranteed the truck would be done on Monday. I could go back with Reed and Ward tonight, then fly back the next weekend, pick up truck and drive back.
It was a no-brainer that I go back with the Madisonians though I felt bad for having them travel 3 or 4 hours out of their way.
Once we were all showered it was time to hit the road. With any luck I'd be back home around noon on Friday, Ward and Reed before dinner.
At 5 PM we said our good bye's and crammed ourselves into t he Versa. We were home bound.
For two hours we sped east on I-90, the mighty little Versa holding it's own up the long hills of eastern Montana. By the time we got to Miles City it was 7:30 and time for some dinner.
We stopped at the Boadwalke restaurant and devoured our nightly special's (Ribeye) with gusto. Feeling sufficiently full we again boarded the mighty little Versa and continued our way east in the twilight, Reed taking the wheel, I at shotgun pulling deer watching duty, and Ward in the back who would try to get some sleep.
I felt bad about not being able to take on some of the driving burden, as I was not on the rental agreement, but realized I'd be stuck making the same drive back in a week and got over it. Cruising down the Interstate at over 80 mph, Reed and I were having good conversation between munching on some delicious wasabi nuts when in mid-sentence he uttered, "Oh shit!" A big ol’ mule deer had decided at that moment to run across the interstate from the median. He wasn’t going to make it.
Thud. Hood pops up, airbag deploys. Smoke, the smell of ammonia, Reed clinging to the wheel with both hands, I in the middle of taking a drink of my juice.
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I could feel us drifting a little to the left, toward the median, but we were still upright and braking quickly. During the chaos I said "Good job, Jones. Thattaboy". In fact, Reed was doing a great job keeping control of the vehicle---even while driving blind--- I never once felt like we were in danger of rolling over or driving off the highway. Ward, who was probably in the early stages of sleep, sat up and simply asked "Deer” while we were still moving.
It took us about 8 seconds to come to a stop but we weren’t out of the woods yet. The thick smoke and stench of the air bag deployment made breathing difficult and finding the door handle in an unfamiliar vehicle even more so. Thoughts of fire racing through my head I was in near panic mode when I finally found the door handle and escaped as quickly as I could.
That was dumb. Even though there were very few cars on the road at the time, about 9:15 PM, the Versa had come to a stop barely outside the fast lane. Without even looking for traffic I exited the vehicle in the fast lane. At least there wasn’t a truck coming at that particular time.
Reed had enough presence of mind to turn on the hazard lights before getting out but looked shaken, Ward was OK, I was OK, and the Versa was a mangled mess. At least it was a rental.
So there we were, stuck somewhere between Miles City and Glendive.
Reed pulled out his trusty Blackberry and, surprisingly was able to contact the local 911 center, wherever that was since we weren’t sure where we were. Help was on its way, anyway. Ward, meanwhile, backtracked a couple hundred feet and found the idiotic deer, deader than a doornail, wrapped around a guardrail in the right break down lane. I guess he made it across after all. I continued to drink my juice having only spilled a few drops during the episode.
Several good people of Montana stopped and asked if we were OK and promised to phone in our exact location when they had cell service. We learned that we were somewhere between the Bad Route Road rest area and Glendive.
After about 20 minutes the first of three squads arrived at the scene. Seeing we were OK, the two sheriff deputies lit off some flares and provided us with some protection from oncoming vehicles. The state trooper, a real nice guy who was a converted satellite TV installer, took our information and decided we were good guys not worthy of being put in the county jail. A wrecker was being dispatched from Glendive, about 25 miles east of our position so all we had to do was wait.
To pass the time we were treated to an in depth explanation/demonstration of the trooper’s computer system. Nifty stuff. I asked him to tell us a story or two. He obliged. Had we not been stuck in the middle of nowhere, without a drivable vehicle it would have been a great visit.
After a half hour the wrecker arrived from Glendive, with our new bestest pal, Thelton, at the wheel. T-Dog had the trashed Versa up on the flatbed in no time and soon we were on our way to beautiful Glendive, Montana.
Thelton had a little bit of good news for us when he reported that there was an Avis franchise in town. Sweet. We can hole up in a motel room for the night, get a new car in the morning, add me as a driver and get home in the wee hours of Saturday morning. It was looking like Reed would still be able to make his 30th class reunion Saturday night after all.
We got off at the first Glendive exit and to the motel that Thelton said they usually take stranded motorists. No Vacancy.
To the next exit I guess. “No Vacancy”, “No Vacancy” “No Vacancy”. Shit, shit and shit.
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Our last hope was the Glendive Super 8 which didn’t have a neon “no vacancy” sign lit up, probably because Super 8’s are too cheap and spend money on more important things like their awesome continental breakfast menu. Or not.
The Super 8 clerk, a young man with really bad teeth and a few missing, told us he had three rooms left…but he couldn’t let us have one because they were all held by credit cards.
Biker week, duh. All rooms booked.
So now we had a major problem with few options. I had my tent, likely still wet from the morning, but no sleeping bag so stealth camping wasn't an option for me. Ward and Reed's gear was still in the Versa back at the Joy’s Towing lot. They wouldn’t be camping either.
Tired and nearing desperation, Reed asked me for $20 to help sweeten the bribe he was about to offer the clerk. I watched with keen interest as Reed flashed the $40 and asked the clerk if he had anywhere dark and quiet where we might be able to lay down for a few hours.
Clerk: What time can you guys be out of here in the morning?
Reed: Dude, anytime you want
Clerk: I have a room I’m not supposed to rent but if you guys can be out of here by 6:30 before my boss gets in you can stay in there.
Reed: Done.
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I think we were all wondering what we were getting into. Was the room stained with blood and wall riddled with bullet holes from a gruesome murder? Did rats live there? Was it haunted?
In the end, it didn’t matter. We were tired and would have slept on the pool deck---if they had a pool, which they didn’t since Super 8’s are too cheap to have pools.
In reality, the room wasn’t all THAT bad. There was a queen sized bed, lights and a bathroom with all plumbing functional. We also had extra TV’s, tables, lamps, and boxes upon boxes of generic cereal just waiting to be consumed at Super 8’s famously bad continental breakfast.
Since Reed and I parted with $20 each, we would share the bed and Ward would take the small sliver of floor space between the foot of the bed and junk. Sleep did not come easy but we got through the night OK.
We were up and moving by 6 AM, “checked out” and decided on our next move had to be to cross the parking lot and get something to eat at CC’s Family Café. The breakfast was good, the waitress spunky and, most importantly, the booths were comfortable. We were going to be there for a while.
Upon finishing breakfast we sat around for a while Reed worked the Blackberry, talking with Avis, his insurance company and god only knows who else. He was able to determine that Avis was a fucked up company by virtue of them not having any cars for us in Glendive. They would, however, locate a vehicle and truck it down to us. OK. They’d probably get one from Billings or Bismarck so we’d be sitting here for at least another 3 or 4 hours.
About this time a prototypical Montana gentleman, John, slid into the booth behind us and struck up a conversation after hearing about our problem. He offered to take us up to Willison, ND, since it was “only” 80 miles away and said they had to have a rental up there for us. Tempting though it was we declined his generous offer knowing that a fine company like Avis wouldn’t leave us stranded.
I decided to grab my glass of water and chat with John for a while in his booth as I almost always find it enjoyable to chat with locals. John entertained me with stories about hit deer and off-roading in southeast Montana. The stories got even better when Gene, a transplanted Canadian, and “Hollywood” joined us. Funny and educational guys, they taught me all I needed to know about “gumbo” and “scorio” (apparently names for the types of mud certain roads in the area become after it rains) and what kind of tires I needed to get through either. Cow-catchers too. Gotta have a good cow-catcher. Duh.
Though interesting the chat may have been, we decided that we should probably move our base of operations somewhere else. We’d already squatted at CC’s for most of the morning and the lunch rush was probably ready to begin at any time so we moved across the street to the comfortable lobby of the Yellowstone River Inn.
After almost two hours of reading and watching TV and Reed trying to parlay his video poker winnings into a small fortune at the YRT casino, we decided to grab something to eat. Our waitress, Jacklyn, who a half hour earlier looked like she was getting pissed at us for loitering, recommended the “Ranch Burger”. What the hell, I wasn’t about to piss her off even more and ordered one with fires and lemonade. That was a darn tasty burger.
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We took our time eating and decided to move camp to the small bench outside the lobby. There wasn’t a lot to do but wait for the phone call telling us when our car was going to arrive. Avis finally did call around 2 PM and said our car should be there by 3:30. At least now we had a time and some hope. I decided to call Canadian Dude to see if he'd made it back and caught him just as he was walking in the house. Of course, when I told him about our little adventure he didn't believe it, but why should he be any different? WE couldn't believe it either.
Knowing that the car was going to be dropped off at CC’s we went back across the street and sat outside for a while, counting down the minutes until we could get out of Glendive.
While we sat, our buddy John came back, gave us a funny look and a hello then went inside.
It seemed that all the fine folks in the greater Glendive metropolitan area were converging on CC's that afternoon. While they were all enjoying their meal we would be sitting outside the building on the sidewalk, in the wind next to the grease bin.
3:30 came and went without a car so Reed gave Avis another call. They said that it was definitely on the way and that if they didn't arrive by 5:30 to call them again. Dammit---2 more hours of waiting would truly suck.
Finally, at 4:20, without fanfare or warning we saw what looked like a car on a flatbed. Could this be a mirage, or was this really our replacement car?
Closer and closer the flatbed came. Could it be true? Could this really be our ride home?
Yes it was.
Then I noticed the stenciling on the pick-up's door: "Glasgow, MT"
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I wasn't exactly sure where Glasgow was other than maybe an hour or two west of Wolf Point on US 2. Some quick mental calculations were all it took for me to become ill.
If this car came from Glasgow, it took Avis at least 4 more hours than it should have. Nope, it probably didn't come from Glasgow because the trailer came off the interstate instead of from in town via highway 200 via Wolf Point and Circle.
When the driver got out of the pick up I asked to see his paperwork. it was then that I got sick.
As it turned out, the car came from Williston, ND---the same Williston that my new buddy John had offered to drive us to about 8 hours earlier. the same Williston that would have taken no more than 1:15 to drive to. The same Williston that, had we gone with John, we could have left by 10 AM instead of the 5 PM we were looking at now.
Seven hours of doing nothing. If we had those 7 hours back we'd be in Minnesota by now and I'd be home around midnight.
Fucking Avis.
Reed, who was usually good for an appropriate one-liner in times of despair had only one thing to say when he looked at our replacement: "No wonder GM is in the crapper".
Our new set of wheels, a Pontiac 6000 that did indeed look like shit both inside and out. The instrumentation looked cheap, the back seat stained with something and the steering pulled to the left. None of that mattered as long as it had another 1,000 of so miles left in it to get me to Manitowoc.
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We quickly loaded what he had into the vehicle and drove back to Joy's to get the rest of our things from the Versa. Thelton was there so I had to get a few pictures and thank him again for his help the night before. We loaded up on snacks and beverages and were soon speeding down I-90 once again.
The rest of the trip back home was a blur with nary a deer to be seen. Just before first light we arrived in Green Bay as I was waking up. 45 minutes later I was home.
We said our good bye's quickly as we were all dead-tired. I didn't envy the fact that they still had 3 hours to go to get back to Madison, but at least they'd make it in time for Reed to get back up to Appleton for his high school reunion that night.
My advenure was not quite over, however, as the house was locked tight and I didn't have my house keys with me. They were in the house. No problem, I'll just get the spare from the garage. Nope. The garage side door was locked tight.
The story has a happy ending, however, as I was able to break into the laundry room. Finally, about 45 hours after getting off the trail, I was home.
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