Placerville

We arrived for lunch...easily the most relaxing leg of the trip. Don & Louise actually seemed happy to have us there. At night, we went to Bill & Donna Emery's across the way for drinks & dinner...fun and boozy...accidentally did I drink from Sylvia's scotch, thinking it was water. Almost lights out after that.

Don & I commenced on a major trade, all sorts of major items from the records I brought, to things he thought looked interesting. It took days, but we finished it on Friday...after an Aretha Franklin Checker to a Python Lee Jackson on GNP. Then he complained that the latter wasn't getting any Ebay action.

Next day, we did a grand tour down 49, but only to Sonora, great fun being out there antiquing. A night, more drinking, more food. So was Thursday, more junking around the area, going to an Indian mkt. for samosas (perogues equivalent) with Taj Mahal, then on Friday, packing and fooling around.

Left for home on Sat. at 9 a.m., thinking this would be a 7 hour trip. Good luck. Half an hour later, outside of Folsom, we experienced our first major glitch, a hiway 50 flat tire! Stuck on the side of the road for an hour. I tried one freeway phone, no luck, so we went over the rise, found one that worked. As I waited, up pulls the CHP, responding not to us so much as to the use of the first phone! Our plight was obvious, he was friendly enough, thought we shouldn't attempt to limp into Folsom, gave a half laugh when I mentioned my world-class experience with L.A. area CHP pursuits on TV made me an expert as to how tires disintegrate and catch fire.

After an hour exactly, help arrived, but only to change, not replace the tire. So into Folsom we limped on a donut tire and waited almost 2 hours for our turn at the tire shop...half the time at the Mimis down the street eating bkfst. The tire guy told me that the same thing happened with another rental car just days before and the agency told him, "you just bought a new tire." Hertz, to their credit, agreed to pay for it, after they found out they didn't have an acct with the dealer.

After noon, we were on our way. Halfway down the 5, we saw a sign: Grapevine closed, use alternate route! What alternate route? The one oh one, the 14? Nothing on the radio about this, it's all syndicated slop, no local news or hiway reports...local radio does not serve locals we found. Finally, at a place called Kettleman City, we talked to some truckers in a truck stop. They had heard nothing - whatever happened to CBs good buddy? One trucker advised us to use 46 instead of 58 to get to the 99, then cross over. Great advice as we found out, because when we got the 58 on the 99, it was jammed up!! Slid through and got on the 58 with minimal delay. Now the 58 going east thru Tehachapi and eventually Mojave was extra-jammed and near stopped in spots because of the extra heavy traffic...guy in mattress in the back of a pickup jumped a lane in front of us and it was hell to get past him.

At the 14, a CHP car monitored the jammed up transition which ended in stop sign. Had he actually gotten out of his car and directed traffic, there would have been much less of a jam to monitor, but what do I know? Finally on the 14, and hours and miles past our original arrival estimate, the sun went down as we left Lancaster/Palmdale and headed south into the heavy 14 traffic, all the way and time back to the 5.

Got home at 9:30, instead of the more viable 4, but afer it's done, it's done. The news had the bottom line, a Kern County trash truck "with low level radiation" caught fire and the lanes were shut down from 2:50 to 5:30, so who knows where we would've been when that happened. One of three in the truck was hospitalized.

Lots of precautions and problems for a very small hazard.

Next day, we rested, organized and slept! Then I returned the Chrysler Sebring to Hertz and the woman asked me, "did you call road service?" Why would I do that? And "why didn't you change cars?" Because no one suggested it, I told her. By now I was angry and they just stood there as I vented. After all that stress, I wasn't in the mood to be cross examined by some critical clerk.