Chapter 4: A Night (and day and night and day…) on the town

January 5-8

The next few days blended together. Our first afternoon in town, we basically just walked around trying to figure things out. That night we went to a basketball game at the college. Hey, what else did we have to do? After that, I spent my mornings and afternoons calling apartments and getting job applications. Hunter got all enrolled in school and stuff. We talked to a couple of people at the institute building, trying to get some connections. Even so, there was a LOT of time to kill, and there’s only so much time we wanted to spend in the Baby Truck. So we spent a couple hours at Walmart… not to buy anything of course (you need money for that), but we did sit on one of their benches…so that was fun.

ow, thanks to Mroth and Froth we didn’t spend every night in the Baby. I count that as one of the many blessings of life really. There was one night in particular that we spent in the Baby Truck though which motivated us more than ever to find a place, any place, to live. I don’t remember what time-filling activity we did that day. Maybe it was walking around the town, or signing up for classes. Either way, our day was over by about 7 or 8 p.m. With that being the case we drove around to the back of the institute building, or home as we’d come to call it, and settled in for the night. To give ourselves a bit of extra room (hardly any, but hey in the Baby you don’t turn down any kind of extra space) and make things a little more bearable, I decided that we should put the cooler and other such things, the basketball and the jug of oil, outside for the night. Leaning our seats back was still out of the question, but at least then our vision was not impeded by a mound of pillows and other objects that we couldn’t cajole into fitting in the back. Now, I know I’ve talked some about our laughter which was generally tinged with craziness. At this point, we were on the verge of full-blown insanity. The laughter came more frequently, but we hardly knew what we were laughing about. For too long, sleep evaded us. We therefore tried to get as tired as possible, so that our bodies would be forced to ignore the discomfort that was laying siege to them. To start off, we decided that a trip to the

nearest gas station was in order (there was no bathroom in the Baby…). Instead of piling our belongings back into the Baby, we decided it would be more…practical? to hide them behind a bush near the institute building. Upon entering the gas station we looked over at a group of kids chillin’ in the bed of their truck. As we left, I whispered to Schunt, “I was just thinking about how dumb it is for kids to be hanging out at a gas station at like 10 p.m., don’t they have anything better to do?” Then I thought of what I myself was doing, and decided I had no room to judge.  In fact, once we got back to the Baby there was no room to do much of anything…  A few hours later after watching corner gas, playing hanging with friends, more maniacal laughter, and other modes of keeping ourselves entertained fatigue was beginning to catch up with us. Though not uninterrupted throughout the night, sleep did come. In the morning, a line from a Maroon 5 song came to my mind “I am in misery”…  

I think it was later that day that we discovered that Burger King had free wi-fi. HALLELUJAH! That became our new hangout. So long Walmart! Still, though BK is not an upscale restaurant (by any stretch…it’s hardly low scale) it was a little bit embarrassing to be seen there… or anywhere in public for that matter. Even with the hotel showers, we were grimy. We both had the unkempt look of the homeless. Unable to reach our clothes (even in the ones in the cab of the truck), we had been wearing the same outfits for days. It felt as if our clothes were beginning to corrode our skin. We needed to find a place to call home… besides a parking lot. Later in the Baby while I was munching on some uncooked ramen noodles, I heard a squeal of joy. Hunter had hit a little gold mine. He’d found his deodorant AND a pack of pop-tarts. It was a sign. Good things were about to start happening. 

Chapter 3: To infinity….and hopefully not beyond (to the grave)

January 3 - 4

The time had come, we were on the road, and we were in a rush. There was a 4:30 p.m. showing of the new Sherlock Holmes movie in a Fort Collins theater which was actually the inspiration for our 3:45 move out deadline. It was pushing 4 when we left (for those of you who don’t know, Fort Collins is like 45 minutes from Cheyenne). We still needed gas, and I wanted to sell some books back to the college. After some frantic, stressed-about-time debating Hunter and I decided that we needed whatever money we could get. To the college we headed. Of course every single light in the whole stinking city had to turn red. I mean for real! It’s like someone was behind the scenes switching all the lights to red saying, “you’ll never shut down the real napster” (name that movie). Anyways though, medium-length story short, after like a million hours we got to the school and received $89 for our troubles. Kaching!

When we finally got to the theater it was a little after 5. We chilled for a while and watched the 6:05 showing. It was a pretty great movie by the way. Way worth it. Also, on a separate-ish note we had free movie tickets from Christmas. There was no frivolous spending involved. Anyways, around 8:30 p.m. we continued on with our 15 hour journey…

As you can imagine, there wasn’t too much excitement during those long, uncomfortable hours. It wasn’t until about 2 in the morning that we came to a realization, and it changed our lives forever………..

Not really, we were just really hungry, because we hadn’t eaten all day (and I don’t mean the new day of the 4th that started at midnight, though we hadn’t eaten that day either). Apparently in New Mexico, most food establishments aren’t open at 2 in the morning. Who would’ve thought right? Out of desperation we pulled into maybe 3 or 4 different towns. There was nothing, not an open sign in sight. Worrying that Hunter might just eat me if we didn’t find something quick, I made one last attempt. There they loomed, bright and beautiful, the golden arches (cue dramatic music). Never has McDonald’s tasted so good. Six burgers, $6, and enough calories to last a week (just what we needed) later, we were satisfied. The start of our new was just a little bit brighter.

Other than a minor margarine mishap – It had melted and was dripping… everywhere! On my scripture case…not pleasant. Down Hunter’s arm…not right. (What movie?) – We (finally) arrived in Thatcher at around noon without incident. We pulled into the college parking lot and turned off the Baby. Hunter and I looked at each other with “now what” expressions on our faces. I assessed our situation. I had just left my stable (though only marginally) life in Cheyenne and had moved to Arizona with my brother…on a whim. All of my “prized possessions” were in the back of my Baby Truck. We didn’t know anyone, and had nowhere to stay… Bring it on.

Chapter 2: Dangers of Packing

Tuesday, January 3

Alright, “let’s get down to the nitty gritty" (what movie guys?). We woke up at 8 a.m. (remember though that we went to bed at 2 a.m.), took showers, and prepared for the long day ahead. It was our goal to be all ready to head out at 3:45. Fighting back discouragement and morning grogginess, we started working on our list of things to do. First on the list, change the oil in the Baby Truck. Ha piece of cake... or so it should've been. A few days before, we had the option to buy an oil basin thingy. Buuut it was too expensive. We improvised. Hunter got some grungy clothes on, and I diligently went outside to watch him work… I mean help. With the quick efficiency of people who know exactly what they’re doing we went to work. I fired up Baby Truck so that the oil would drain more quickly. After a few minutes, I shut him off and Schunt started the oil changing process. After about 10 or 15 minutes, the process is complete. He wipes his hands off, and we go inside to finish packing, and head out. Right on time

……. Ha yeah flippin’ right, only in a perfect world. I had you fooled though didn’t I? Here’s what really happened……

“Ah cra! Tess bring me a better container!” I scrambled out of the Baby Truck grabbing the only logical thing (well, the only thing that was next to me) a plastic Safeway bag. I handed Hunter the bag and watched as he tried to catch the streaming oil in the plastic bag. I looked under under the Truck. “Schunt, you should probably take off your watch.” He looked up at me with a confused expression. “I’m not wearing a watch.” Upon closer inspection it is a ring of oil. We didn’t catch as much of the oil as we would’ve liked, but the plastic bag helped I think. Now on a side note, and in Hunter’s defense, we didn’t have a jack or anything. Therefore, maneuvering underneath my aptly named Baby Truck was difficult for bro. Alright, so we got the oil drained, and apart from Hunter being dirtier than he’d probably intended, things were going not as bad as they could’ve been. We checked the oil before putting in the new stuff. “Are we still supposed to have this much?” Hmmm…. Good question. The answer was “no”. It was a little chilly outside so maybe the oil was just slower to drain then we expected. Schunt crawled back under the Baby, and I followed my instructions to start him back up. Only moments later came the yell. “Turn it off! Turn it off!” Quickly, I did so, but it was too late. I saw something next to the passenger window. It must’ve been “da tar baby”, because there was no way that dark, sticky creature could’ve been my brother. It was. He came around to the driver’s side. “Is it in my hair?” It was. I once again went to inspect the undercarriage of my Baby Truck. Oh goodness. It was bad. Laughter overtook us. How could things have turned out that badly? Why was it so funny? It just really was. A pool of black blood was oozing out from under my Truck. That was unfortunate. After finishing the job, we moved my Baby over a couple of parking spots and assessed the situation. We didn’t have any sawdust…. But there were a lot of leaves and other debris next to the sidewalk. We went to work sopping up our oil catastrophe. After doing what we could, we quickly gathered all of our evidence and ran away from the scene of the crime.

3 hours later…

Our deadline was almost up, but we were making fairly good time. The bed of my Baby Truck was full to bursting. The tailgate closed, but only just. While Hunter threw out the rest all of the trash in the apartment (including all the stuff I had to leave for lack of room), I was trying to organize the cab of the Baby. That was no small feat, let me tell ya. It was already full in the cab, but there were still bags of bedding, some food, and some odds ‘n’ ends that needed a home in the Truck. It was my job to make room. I took the bedding (blankets, pillows, and such) out of the trash bags and stuffed them into their own spaces. Next, I took the bag of food and utensils. It was too big. I divvied it out as well. After finding small places to stuff some silverware in the bed of the truck, I then found myself cramming packs of ramen noodles and boxes of macaroni into every available crack in the cab that I could find. Once even the cracks of cracks were filled, I realized that never before had I wished that my Baby Truck wasn’t quite so baby.

We were finally ready to go. What a glorious occasion… with a few minor setbacks. Such as:  

·         Neither seat could be leaned back, scooted back, or in any way made to be comfortable.

·         We couldn’t see anything out of the rearview mirror… except cra in the back of the truck.

·         The person in the passenger seat had to sit with 3 pillows and a basketball on his/her lap,  

as well as a 5L container of oil, a toaster, and various other items under foot.

·         The passenger and driver seats were separated by a cooler full of stuff that was probably

going to rot anyway (along with a few packs of ramen that wouldn’t fit elsewhere), and a

laptop.

The situation was really quite ridiculous. Movement inside the Truck was nearly impossible, and leaving the vehicle was no small feat either. We were laughing. It was the hysterical, crazed laughter of two people who had no hopes of survival, not really. “I’m so tired.” Hunter barely managed to say between bouts of giggling. After a few jokes such as, “well Tess, we’ve had a good run (of 4 days)” or “Schunt, we should just call of our friends and tell them good-bye...cause we’re not gonna make it”, we pulled away from my ghetto little studio and headed towards the scorching unknown.

                                                …to be continued…

 

Chapter 1: The Early Days

My dad has often called me a drama queen, but I assure you that the stories depicted below are not dramatized and are based on actual events. This blog is not for the weak. Adult supervision is advised.... :p

Saturday, December 31
Our adventure started in the Denver airport at about 9:30 p.m. My flight landed earlier than was expected. I was therefore able to quickly swipe my one checked bag from the carousal. This created a much heavier addition to my two other carry-on bags. Panting, I arrived at Hunter's luggage carousal and waited. When he finally arrived he was making one of his Hunter "fake grimace, but still smiling" face. He showed me his hands. The straps of his bags had not been kind to him. Eventually his two checked bags came around. They were both quite large. The adventure began. First things first, we had to find a taxi. Grunting and pulling we got all of our luggage gathered, and headed out. "How hard could it be to find a taxi?" We thought. "According to mom they should be flocking around the airport like a swarm of..... something that flocks around things." It's ok mom we still love you, that just didn't happen to be the case. We had a brief glimpse of two random taxis before they were swallowed up into the night. Finally an airport guy told us that we'll be hard pressed to find any taxis, seeing as it was 10 p.m. on New Year's Eve. All the drunk, and otherwise partying people, needed the taxis. Which left us, for the time being, stranded at the airport. We only had about 15 miles to go to pick up my Baby Truck from our cousin, Miriam's, house. Our arms were aching. Our backs were strained. Our hope was dwindling. Finally, there we saw it, sparkling in a ray of sun... well a dim ray from a street lamp. It was a personal shuttle. $50 bucks and many interesting facts about Colorado later, we got to my Baby.

We arrived in Cheyenne at about midnight without incident. I had warned Hunter about the um... "sketchiness" of my apartment. I guess that wasn't enough of  a heads up though. It was pretty funny to walk into my building and see his reaction. "What the cra?? These floors are like plywood." Oh Schunt, you're so funny. Plywood would have been a step up from what the floors of my halls were like. After establishing just how ghetto my little studio was, we settled in for the night. There wasn't much to do, and I think that were both thinking something along the lines of "We've got to get out of here!" We weren't quite ready to go to bed, so we decided to play the only game I own, Connect Four (thank Britton). The battles were brutal. First he won... pure luck ( jk Schunt jk ;-) ). Next round it was me... pure skill. The final round though, went to my brother. It was a terrible loss. I guess he had more skill than luck after all. The rest of the night was filled with laughter.. mostly of the crazy variety. Insanity had already started to set in. None too soon, sleep overtook us.

Sunday, January 1

Due to getting in late and making the poor decision to stay up even later, we slept in (darn alarms weren't loud enough) and missed church. Whoops! If only the time for church hadn't already changed from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. Ah well, I guess that's how it goes sometimes. It was rather nice to be able to sleep in until 11. Overall, the day was fairly mellow. We did a little packing, but mostly we just didn't even know where to begin. My friend Alex was in town, so we got to hang out with him for a while. Which was lucky, because that night we had quite a scare. There was the biggest, nastiest, hairiest, probably flesh-eating spider EVER! I heard a shout. It came from my brother. "SPIDER!" I squealed and jumped up. It was hard to tell what was going on in all of the chaos. Hunter and I were both yelling "Kill it! Kill it!" I say again, thank goodness Alex was there. He calmly took control of the situation and squashed the beast. Whew! That was surely a close one. We survived it, but only just barely.

Monday, January 2

 Somehow we stayed up.... well let's just say that it was qutie late (or early rather). Though it shames me to say it, we didn't wake up until about 2... p.m. I know, I know. It's bad. We were really tired though, and slowly losing our will to live. We didn't do much that day anyway. We got some packing done, lazed around, and went to bed. Well, first we played hanging with friends. It's like hangman on our phones (thanks Alex). We can send each other words to solve. Somehow it's quite addicting. We ended up playing that for a couple of hours, before going to bed at around 2 a.m.

                                                             ...to be continued...

The Start of it All

I just finished my third semester at Laramie County Community College (LCCC) in Cheyenne, WY. I expected to be going to a fourth semester this coming Spring. I've come to learn that life doesn't always work out like you planned. About a week before Christmas break my brother, Hunter, called me up and said that we should go to school together. After not so much deliberation, I told him okay. We started getting registered for school at Eastern Arizona College in Thatcher, AZ. It may have been a rash decision, but it's one we have to live with now... So far staying alive has been tough. We've got no money, no food, no where to live, but hey we've got my Baby Truck and the will to survive. It's a little early to tell, but I think that survive we shall.