I think I have mentioned in previous posts that I have a guardian angel that takes very good care of me.  I have a hundred examples of things that should have gone all wrong and something happened to make it come out right.  My Big Trip adventure is the latest example. As you may know I have been following a massive rain storm from NC to NY. And caused major flooding and road closures in Vermont  It is an insidious weather event as it pours like mad for 30-50 minutes, then the sun comes out.   While at the Aliner Rally I was sure it was caused by my car windows being open.  The rain would stop, the sun would come out, Akela and I would go over to dinner or some other activity. He would unfortunately have to wait in the car.  I check the sky and its blue with a few clouds.  So I roll down the windows so he has air and head into eat or participate.  Just as I get through the serving line I notice the sky has opened up again and dumped another  300 gallons inside my car on my seat and on other stuff.   This happened 5 times in 4 days.  I did learn to stop opening the driver window, as I had run out of dry towels to sit on.  Good thing I was one of the main photographers as there are no pictures of me walking around with a wet butt.

Butt,  err….  I mean but,  when we go up into NY to visit and stay with my son,  it only rained 2 days out of 4.  Nice, but I had put the trailer down to store it in his friends yard and it was so hot the frig gave up on it’s job.  All the food was more or less 60deg F and there was a leakage of gross brown water that had made its way into the corner of the trailer onto my bed.  Luckily I was saved because I sleep in a sleeping bag and that had been far away from the corners.  That could have been my angel. Hard to tell.  Well cleaned up and did a mild food restock as we left Syracuse and my Son after July 4th.  Headed for the wilds of the New York Adirondacks.  This is a place I have been to many times. I know it very well. But this time I was super stupid.

We occupied a great campsite I love and have stayed in many times.  But it was out in the open for good solar capture.  However, it was located next to a Beaver swamp so the biting flies were horrible.   Akela spent a lot of time hiding under the car (with a stick of course).  We searched some other campsites and thought we should move to the deep woods where the biting flies are non-existent (but mosquitoes and No-see-ums are plentiful). So we were packing up to move, and I was transferring video files from camera to the laptop.  When suddenly the laptop screen did a strange jitter-bug flashing and then turned “Negative”.   Like a camera photographic film negative (does anyone know what I’m talking about?  Damn digital cameras).  Anyway, the screen was trashed, I could not see what was going on. I was panicked!  Where would I get this fixed in the middle of nowhere?  And it was Thursday noon.  Chances of getting out of the woods and to a business that fixes laptops in zero. Is it just the screen or has the whole laptop just fizzed out on me!?  Panic has entered my trip.

So, as I do, I am dumb struck by such bad luck and I sit down and freeze in panic and stupidity.  I finally decide in case its a complete loss of computer, I better go home so if I need to buy a new computer  I can get it delivered and set up so I can finish posting the trip videos.  I talked it over with Akela and he immediately jumped into the car and slammed the back hatch behind himself.  Only trapping about 10 deer flies inside the car.  He is no stupid dog.  When we came here 6 years ago with “the boys”, they would just walk around with 10-20 biting flies feasting on their ears.  I would clap my hands on their ears and have a handful of dead flies.  They were appreciative, but would immediately walk through the tall grass and bushes and attract another 100 flies to feed on them.  They seemed totally unaffected by being eaten.  When Akela and I went down to the river to try to cool off,  he kept his head in a bush to try to hide from the flies.  When we were done he run up and got under the car. Apparently flies don’t like a “Ceiling” above them.  If you have an “Easy-Up” awning, try drilling holes in the legs so it will stay up at half way. Keeping it lower so you just have to stoop a little, and you will be able to sit under it without being bothered by flies.   Check This Video of us practicing this method.  https://youtu.be/8SM8W59iAq8

So anyway, we loaded up and headed out of the forest. Leaving 300 hungry flies following my mirrors for 10 miles.  The way out was 18miles of very rocky dirt road.  It was flat, but there were good sized rocks growing out of the road bed that you either had to swerve a lot to avoid (someone had painted them orange) or when unavoidable go over them slow (like a speed bump)  So the 18miles took 90 minutes to get back to the main access road, and another 30 minutes to get to the main road to then drive 30mph through all the little villages.  We stopped and got gas, with 50 other people escaping the ADK wilds. Then we finally got on the main highway going 60mph to get back to civilization. At this time it was 4pm and the GPS said we should be home by 9:00 O’clock.  Doesn’t sound bad.  But that was 9am.,  16hours away.  We had to stop for gas twice, potty breaks twice (Akela in particular where he goes).  Since it was the end of the July 4th week, the rest areas were packed and pulling the trailer left us no where to park at rest areas.  Better though, was there were Sheetz Gas stations that were surrounded by grassy areas with trees and bushes. Akela was happy.  We picked up what he left and another 3lbs of garbage around the stores in gratitude.

I am an excellent long distance driver.  Or at least I was when I was 25 and didn’t have sciatica.  Sciatica is a “Chair Caused Disease”.  Sitting just makes it worse.  Getting in and out of the car made me feel 100yrs old and I had to carefully hold on to the car to get straightened up and walking like a humanoid again. The pain quickly went away when I saw the gas pump clicking away from $50 to $60 and beyond.  Some where around Virginia as the sun was just making its appearance (sunrise twilight is like 5:30am) I noticed my eyes kept turning off.  So we did have to pull over at an exit and take a nap for 45 minutes. With the car stuffed with junk it wasn’t a comfortable nap, but we proceeded onto McDonald’s for Breakfast and a large drink and we were good to go.  Akela had the McDonalds “Big breakfast” and I had the Sausage biscuit.  Though I did steal his hot cakes and syrup since he makes a mess opening the syrup. Especially in the car!  We came into the Statesville NC area around 10:30am Friday.  So much for the accuracy of Googles GPS map routes.

I had Google call a few PC repair places for me and we found one who would look at it today.  So without going home, Combing my hair, or brushing my teeth, we went there covered with bug squashes and camping dirt.  They were your typical PC nerds, completely looked the part, and said they would take a look and call me before 5pm.  I felt relieved. I gave them all the necessary passwords, chargers, and descriptions and we headed home.  When we got there we pulled into the back yard and parked the trailer, unhooked and went into the house to to hear the alarm yelling “Intruder Alert” “Someone in the back yard!”  I hate that thing. If I ever leave it on at night the bats set it off and it will scream every 30 minutes.  And then of course I had a dozen video clips of me unhooking the trailer and a very bad parking job.   So we got a call from the computer guys.  There was a bad driver that made the screen “Negative”, but the screen is running on 2 cylinders and should be replaced. I knew it had been having troubles, but I only use the screen when I travel. At home I use a 36inch monitor screen through HDMI.   He said I can still do that, but if I want them to fix the screen it’ll be around $200 and the part will be in Wednesday.  Sounds good to me.  And I can take it with me and work at home just as  normal.  Just bring it back Wednesday and they will install the new screen in an hour. So all is good!!

Now maybe you’re wondering what this has to do with my Guardian Angel.  Well, if we had moved to the Less buggy campsite, and then traveled on to Vermont, we would have been in the middle of all that chaos and rain in Vermont. Have you seen the news?   There are over 80 roads washed out and flooding in 3 of the places we were headed for.  Being where we were and totally disconnected, we would not have known until we were in the middle of it, and another 5 hours further from home.  So my panic that my computer was dead and I was going to have to replace it, and a instinctive desire to run home was all the work of a benevolent Angel who makes sure every bad thing in my life become a better thing.  Like getting retired instead of just hanging on. This allowed me to do so much to prepare for the trip.  We really had such a great time for all we did and we will still pick up and finish the summer with more of the trip.  After all, I have a wedding to attend.  We just aren’t going to go into New England.  We will stay around NY and Pennsylvania.  At least until the fall and the weather calms down.

So now you know what was going on behind the scenes, and you know that if you just trust things will always work out.  And of course you have to believe in your Guardian Angel.  Somehow they will always come through!   Lemons make lemonade!

Thanks for stopping by

Rick &Akela
GoingNoWhereFast