2001 Boring Odyssey

            by Sam Pardee

 

We drove along uneventfully. Mile 107 looked exactly the same as mile 108. Mile 109 was different. Right in the middle of mile 109 we heard a big "KATHUNK!"

"What do you think that was?" my mother asked anxiously, as she pulled over to the shoulder lane. We all shrugged and piled out of the car to see what we'd hit. I got out last, as I had been relegated to sitting in the third row next to all the luggage. Fortunately, I had a good book with me. I turned around and looked in the freeway to see what looked like a big gear right in the middle of the lane. It was completely covered in some gross black liquid.

"Do you figure it came out of the car?" my dad asked, going over to the front of the car to open the hood. "It looks like it's covered in oil."

He opened the hood and surprisingly, everything appeared totally fine. Dad decided that he should go ahead and check the oil just to be sure. Sure enough, the dipstick came back almost completely clean. On my dad's orders, I went to the back and get out the emergency road kit, took out the extra oil and refilled the car's supply.

We got back on the road, prepared to continue the tedious trek that had been our lives for the past two days. Sadly, we hardly manage to travel another twenty miles before the oil light popped on; Mom pulled over again and this time only she and my dad got out.

They conferred for a few seconds, my dad gesturing to the long black streak that had formed behind the car over the past twenty miles. He went over to the front and poured about half a gallon of oil into the crank case. He then bent over and looked under the car, where a small pool of oil was not-so-slowly collecting.

My mom poked her head in the window, "Could we please borrow one of your cell phones, kids?" she asked overly cheerfully. My sister was asleep and had begun to drool slightly so I rooted around in my backpack for my cell. I handed it to my mom and she began to dial. Dad came back into the car and explains to me that the car seemed to be broken and is no longer holding oil, so they're calling AAA to tow us. We both groaned and began to think of what we'll do, caught in the middle of nowhere, between Seattle and Canada.

The tow truck arrived after what seemed like an eternity and hitched up to our car. I was actually somewhat excited at this point, never having ridden in a car that had been towed. We were on our way to Tumwater, the nearest town that had any kind of auto repair shop, about 20 miles away from where we are.

The area around Tumwater looked no less boring than the rest of Washington we'd been touring for the past day and a half on our trip from Berkeley to Canada, there were the same huge Washington trees, the same signs saying "McDonald's 3 miles", and the same endless stretch of ugly, boring asphalt.

Tumwater could most properly be described as a parking lot, but I'm going to be a little bit more kind and describe it as a concrete jungle. To the best of my knowledge, all that there actually is in Tumwater is a Motel 6, a Best Western, a Kragen's Auto and a Denny's.

As far as I was concerned, that wasn't so terrible, I can stomach a Denny's meal; but for my mom, who works at the Cheese Board and cooks almost every single meal we eat because she can't stand restaurants, Denny's is like a death sentence.

She was lucky though, because we had packed a picnic in the car, prepared for the eventuality that we'd get hungry on the last leg of our trip. It was only 1 PM and business at the Kragen repair center was slow so everyone felt optimistic that we'll be out of there and only end up a couple hours late in Canada. Of course, there was no way that we were going to get out of there that day, as the repair center was quick to tell us.

"They don't have the part we need, so they think that we'll have to stay the night here then get it fixed tomorrow," My mom told us. We knew that tonight, we'll be eating at Denny's then staying at the Best Western, probably the two worst things she could imagine.

We finally unloaded our essential luggage and began to transport it over to the Best Western. We didn't have to worry about if there was a vacancy - the condition of the town and the size of the motel should have said it all for us, but my sister is still freaking out.

"What if they don't have room for us?" She half-yelled.

"It'll be fine Ruth," my mom snapped, still contemplating the Denny's meal we were about to 'enjoy' in just a few hours. We finally got across the giant blacktop that is Tumwater to the Best Western Motel, an impressive complex in that it was probably large enough to hold everyone who lives within a 20 mile radius several times over. We checked in, booking the 2 biggest rooms they had available.

The rooms were respectable; they were clean and rather large, with all the hotel type stuff you'd expect: complimentary shampoo, soaps, a mini-bar and a television with really bad reception and amazingly overpriced pay-per-view movies. It was about 4:00 by now and we're all somehow exhausted by the strenuous work of sleeping in the car and sitting around in the Kragen Repair Center "courtesy wait room" so we decided that a good nap would be in order to tide us over to dinner.

By the time we all managed to wake up and mobilize, it was around 6:30. Not having eaten for a solid 5 hours was probably a smart move, as it made the "Denny's Classic T-bone Steak© " slightly more palatable. Overall, dinner was not that bad for me; the steak was dry and looked like it had come out of a government issue ration, but at least it was edible, and the mashed potatoes were slightly soggy and lumpy. Together, they combined to form an entree of exceptional mediocrity

Even my mother was able to stomach her light salad with grilled chicken without getting too grumpy, and my dad actually said he enjoyed his meal! We paid our check and returned to our room to do what our family generally does on vacations, play cards.

The masochistic card game my family usually plays is called "Gripe", because that is usually what everyone starts to do by the end of the game. We get through the first four hands of the game uneventfully, some of us get terrible cards and complain accordingly, others get great cards and smirk with an air of superiority

The fifth hand is often the worst in the game. It requires people to get seven cards in the same suit in order out of eleven cards in the starting hand. No one is dealt anything even remotely close to what is needed to make the run of seven. The hand goes on, with everyone complaining, until it gets around to my sister Ruth.

Ruth isn't a very fast card player. As a matter of fact, Ruth is a very very slow card player. When it gets to her, she draws a card and then begins to stare intently at the ceiling. After two minutes, which feel more like two hours, we ask her "Ruth, what're you doing?" she takes the subtle hint and finally decides what to discard. Play continues. Yet again, everyone took their turn with angry and depressed overtones.

Then it gets to be Ruth's turn again and she draws a card, glances at it, and begins to stare at the ceiling. Everybody at the table groans, their frustration amplified by their own pathetic hands.

"I'm not THAT slow," Ruth complains. At this point, I know what I should do - not respond and not get involved, but somehow, I find myself responding back "Well, it sure didn't take any of us 30 minutes to decide what to discard."

"SHUT UP Sam" Ruth responds angrily, slamming her discard down hard onto the pile. It's my turn next, and somehow, I manage to pick up exactly the card I need to win the hand. Of course, this only served to further agitate Ruth, who is close to exploding now.

My mom realizes that the situation is getting to the point of no return and that if she doesn't intervene, there will be a full blown sibling fight. "Alright, game's over. Let's go get some desert."

Ruth and I were somewhat puzzled by her decision, but we realized that it probably meant that we're going to get ice cream or the like so we went along with it. We headed down the really long corridor to the lobby, where there were vending machines galore to meet all our junk food needs. I got an ice cream sandwich and Ruth got an ice cream bar that looked as if it had been in the machine since Tumwater had been founded.

We returned to the room with our treats in hand to find my dad asleep. Despite it being only 9 PM, no one was at all surprised to see him passed out in the chair. My father is a software engineer, and usually stays up until around 2 AM working on whatever project his company is pushing. He averages about 5 hours of sleep a night. This has the interesting side effect of making him fall asleep if he has no human contact for about 30 seconds.

No one bothered waking him up and we all decided that perhaps it would be best if we just go to our respective beds and read until we fall asleep.

The next morning, we returned to the lobby for our complimentary continental breakfast, which consisted of bagels and cold cereal. Sadly, it was probably the most appetizing thing that any of us had eaten in the previous twenty-four hours. After the breakfast, we immediately headed over to the Kragen repair center to see what the status on the car is.

It's nothing but bad news, the part that had fallen out of our '94 Odyssey had been recalled a couple years ago but we hadn't gotten it changed within the one year window for free service.

"The part we initially needed will be here today, but we also noticed that the casing around the crank case is cracked and we need to order that part. It looks like you folks'll be here another day." the mechanic told us.

We headed back to the hotel disappointedly, trying to figure out what we should do for a whole day in Tumwater, Washington. Back in our room, my mom began looking around in the desk for material about what there is to actually do in Tumwater. She found a pathetically thin travel guide for the area.

The few attractions that there are in the Tumwater area were further diminished by our lack of a car, but we managed to find a glimmer of hope! There was a brewery on a waterfall just two miles away.

We headed out along the thoroughly disgusting litter-ridden street with no sidewalk. The brochure must have been talking about two miles driving distance because by the time we finally reached the brewery, it was around noon. The brochure must have also been a couple years old, because the "scenic waterfall" was nothing more than a small trickle over a 10 foot concrete drop-off.

I was already bored by the time we started the tour, and despite our wonderfully animated guide, things did not get any better. Brewery's sound like some of the most interesting places in the world, with lots of machines mixing, and high pressure casks to hold the beer. However, in reality, brewery's are the most terminally boring places on the face of the earth. While high pressure caskets sound awesome, they're really nothing more than big, boring steel drums.

After our three hour tour, we went to the brewery diner area to eat. The food was actually quite good and much more in line with what my mom was comfortable eating. I ordered crab cakes on my her recommendation and wolfed them down quickly.

It was 9 by the time we finally got back to the Best Western. Yet again, we all found ourselves somewhat wiped out from all the walking we had done so we went back to our respective rooms to go to sleep.

We got up way late the next morning, missing the free breakfast, and headed over to the Kragen center to watch the triumphant return of the Odyssey. Ironically, after our two and a half day stay in Tumwater, we all felt as if we were returning triumphantly from the twenty year voyage the vehicle is named for. The very second that the new part is installed, my mom grabbed the keys out of the mechanic's hand and drove it over to the Best Western parking lot.

We loaded up our luggage and continued our run towards the border.