Seattle and Back!

A friend of mine is retired like I am and struggles to survive on his $1,000 per month Social Security check.  That used to be a lot of money but a part of this Monopoly Game Plan is as more players are allowed into the game, the money is devalued.  So we do what we can.  This guy knows about trucks and can tear them apart and put them back together.  He knows a good value when he sees it.  He buys them, fixes them and turns them over for a profit.  The American Way.
   These trucks are always someplace else.  You never find a good deal next door or down the street.  I am often the driver that gets him there.  Yesterday we took off for Seattle, Washington, a little over 400 miles from here!  The total trip was close to nine hundred miles, there, running around, and back.  I have my "TOM-TOM" and absolutely love it.  Figuring out where you are going is not stressful at all, TOM-TOM will always get you there and let you know when you are going 3 miles over the posted speed limit during the trip.  We left at about 4am and found his truck by 9am, bought it after a short test drive, had some lunch and were back in Springfield by 4pm!  I have not done that much driving since I was 21 years old and, like a fool, drove from here to Washington DC in 54 hours! I think that might be some kind of world's record!
    It is nice knowing that I can drive 900 miles in a day but I sure wouldn't want to make a habit of it.  I am not one of those Americans who love to drive or find my ego behind the wheel.  My little truck is a work truck and looks the part.  The good news is the mileage I got!  It is a 1998 Nissan, although I still think of it as a Dotson, and it got 38 mph on the freeways, going a "little over" 70 miles per hour all of the way!  My truck is dirty and has its share of dents and nicks and scratches.  It is not the kind of truck that people would buy as an investment to resell at a profit.  The truck my friend bought is a 1996 Dodge, 3/4 ton diesel with the contraption in the back bed to haul a fifth wheel trailer.  Not a ding on it, not a single scratch!  I have never understood why someone would buy a "work truck" and then not use it, afraid to scratch it or put gravel in it, treating  it like a fine car, an ego truck?  Mine's a tool and we have a good relationship.  I change her fluids, put gas in her, toss crap with abandon in her back bed and she gets me to where we need to go.
I'll keep her until she is just too tired.  She is not for sale.
   The advantage of being retired is lack of schedule.  My friend thanked me for the ride and I let him know that I was so happy that he asked me!  That was the best part of all.

Mostly Vultures

And lonely people and window shoppers and people looking for that special treasure, that's who go to garage sales!  I had well over 500 people, and often a quarter or dollar at a time, pulled in over $1,200.  I really expected to sell more junk.  A full box of nails cost me $50 twenty years ago and I had half full boxes for five bucks and still have them!  What surprised me was I sold a lot of metal art!!!  I have attempted in the past to get people one by one over to my shop/garden/studio and it just hasn't worked for some reason, but put them in a crowd in a garage sale atmosphere and something weird happens!  I sold a lot of it and have some potential clients for the near future!
    The selling of the junk was sort of fun.  It began the very first night with the theft of a large cabinet!  This was a gaming cabinet with ten drawers I made years ago for my kids to keep their games in.  It has been in my garage for years, in the way and swelling a bit from being in an unheated space.  It took me and my helper and a dolly to get it out and we left it in front of the garage.  The next morning it was gone!!!  This has never happened to me before!  No thefts of any kind, not around here.  Apparently my neighbor, a single mother and her sons thought I was going to haul it away to the dump!  they struggled with it and got some help from other neighbors and took it home!  I awoke to a very apologetic note on my front door!  After she got it home some other neighbors said I was about to have a garage sale and she thought it was going to the dump!  It was just too heavy to return and what did she owe me?  Ha ha, I "sold" it to her for a plate of brownies!  and we didn't have to move it again!
   I would some kind of junk on a table with maybe $7 dollar price on it and someone would always say, "would I take $4?"  some times I would say yes and sometime no and once I said, yes, but only if you take two of them for the four dollars!  It was really about getting rid of stuff as it was about the money!
   I feel as though I won the lottery, an unexpected windfall.  This summer I may go to San Fransisco! I do have a Tom-Tom you might remember!  My daughter who lives 3000 miles away in Washington DC is going to California to a wedding of a friend this summer and I may meet her there and have a road trip back to Oregon,
that would be so much fun, a road tip with my daughter!
   Oh, and I got a job out of the deal too!  I will spend all day today in the shop welding, making a big table for a local restaurant.  I am not sure how I will get it off my welding table when finished, it will weigh over 400 pounds!  That will be a problem I will deal with when I get it finished!

I Love TOMTOM!

   The last memory I have of travelling in a big city was New Orleans in the late '60's in my VW bus.

Pretty scary to be down in Southern States at all during the tumulus riots and protests of that era.  I was a Western boy from a small town in Oregon and we just plain didn't hate anyone!

   The freeway system over New Orleans is a spider web of raised roads with 60 mph speed limits and off ramps it seemed every thirty feet.  You get skilled at reading the green sign boards fast or you get lost.

   I can get lost in Portland, our "big city" only 100 miles from my home town.  The same 100 ramps as New Orleans and decisions that need to be made while travelling fast, sandwiched between cars.  Certainly not the time to get the map out!

   Port Townsend, the nearest big town to Nordland, Washington was across State Lines, right through Portland, into Vancouver, off the main route to Seattle and driving through the heavily forested Olympic Peninsula was where I was headed.  I would need Oregon maps, Washington maps and a good sense of direction.  Me?  hahahaha!  I can get lost in my own town.

   I am not a 21st Century kind of guy.  I don't own a cell phone.  I could get along just fine with a well trained horse who knew its own way home.  I admit I own a "BlueRay" but don't admit that I know how to use it or what it really does.  It has been sitting in the same place for two years and has a little blue light that tells me it is powered up, attached by a cable to something.  It won't talk to me, ask me questions or guide me in any way in an attempt to understand it.

   TOMTOM is different!  She, (I actually programed her to sound like Marilyn Monroe!) tells me everything!

She asks me where I would like to go! and tells me how to get there.  She is wonderful.  Gives me tons of advanced warning that my next decision will be to turn left or right or just veer one way or another.

   "Go straight for 37 miles and then turn left"  She is brilliant!  I have no decisions to make for half an hour and I can turn the radio on!  I don't want to miss a single word from Marlyn!

    I found two radio stations, both talk radio, and, of course both politics!  One left leaning and one right.

I get balance that way and conformation that the craziness of Oregon politics extends into Washington and satisfaction knowing the whole world is nuts!  We are not alone!

   "In two miles turn left"  By now I would do anything Marilyn asks of me!

   At the beginning I was nervous and without complete trust.  How could she know where I was all the time?

Would I dare stop for a cup of coffee?  What happens if I have to pee?  I thought seriously to stay on the route.  I was afraid of detours.  I could maybe just pull to the side of the road and pretend I was "checking my tires"? A radiator leak maybe?  No, I wanted coffee too and I was hungry.  I left on this trip at 4 in the morning and now it was after seven.  I saw a sign for food and pulled off the freeway onto a little side road without Marilyn's permission or guidance!  I got my breakfast thinking, where has she gone?  Does she know where I am?  I certainly didn't have a clue.

   I started my little truck and instantly there she was!  "Redirecting, please wait".

   Marlyn, well TOMTOM anyway, was my guardian angel and knew where I was all along!  She was waiting for me!  Love and devotion, she never left me at all.

   She tells me at two miles, the one mile marker, 200 feet and 40 feet and then what the next decision will be.  She knows everything!

   When you get to where you are going, now, can you imagine this!  Marlyn Monroe says, "You have reached your destination!"

   No, Norma Jean, you made it all too easy!  We will do this again, maybe another place, a different destination, who knows? maybe all the way!

   I love my TOMTOM!  and she does nag!  If you go over four miles faster than the speed limit she will turn

red! and a little faster then she will blink!  She knows the speed limit and how fast you are going! And the time of arrival!  She is so clever, not a dumb blond at all.

 Early morning sunrise on Puget Sound

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