Day 24

Okay children I will tell you a story about your great grandparents, Baba and Nana. This particular story ... there are sooo many ... starts on a crisp autumn day in St George Utah. After having a new anti-sway hitch installed on their 32 foot trailer they headed out for a short drive to Kingman Arizona. For the first few miles Nana drove, pulling the trailer for the first time. As with most things she was excellent, until a breeze came up and she turned the controls over to Baba. Soon the breeze turned into a gale ... 30 to 50 mile wind gusts. The anticipated one hour drive to Mesquite NV where breakfast was planned turned into 2.5 hours.

One thing you must understand children about Baba, whose genes unfortunately flow through you, is he never goes backwards (intentionally). So after "lunch" your intrepid grandparents headed back into the storm despite National Weather Service warnings that high profile rigs should be very careful. The new sway bar proved to be helpful but inadequate when the 18 wheelers sucked the air from beneath the 52 foot El Gato train. Surfing through Vegas two hours later they headed down Highway 93 to Kingman Arizona unaware that the road actually crossed the Hoover Dam ... as in CROSSED the damn dam. So much for grandma Nana's map reading skills.

The road down to the dam was, of course, built in the 30's when the dam was constructed. At that time there were no vehicles 52 feet long! Get the picture ... narrow, winding, and steep. Now children when this story takes place there was great fear in the land that Islamic terrorists (of course in those days it was politically incorrect to call a spade a spade so one simply referred to these people who had pledged to kill us all as ... misguided persons. Hmmm where was I ... Oh yes, the fear caused the government to create check points to search people who might have bad intentions where "soft targets" were concerned. If, for example, a terrorist blew up Hoover Dam all of Vegas would disappear under a flood of biblical proportions ... sort of like Saddam and Gonorrhea (I may have my metaphors mixed up, it was so long ago). The point is Baba was stopped by two very large men in Federal uniforms with big guns on their expansive hips. They wanted to search El Gato to make certain your grandparents were not planning to blow up the dam.

Oh my I forgot to mention that at this point in his life Baba was impaired as his equilibrium was shot when he lost the hearing in one ear. As part of the treatment he was on Prednisone which makes people sort of bi-polar. When Baba got out of the car, he was on a Prednisone high joking, laughing, stumbling and generally acting like a buffoon as he wove his way back to open all of the hatches where bombs might be hidden. The authorities were not amused. They glowered through the hatches and, of course, found nothing. Then they asked to search the trailer ... of course Baba had no choice but to comply, forgetting the loaded shotgun, 38 pistol and multiple cans of bear spray. Fortunately due to the violent swaying of the trailer over the previous 5 hours when the suspicious investigator entered the trailer the place was a mess ... drawers had spilled their contents on the floor, pickle juice dripped from the fridge ... it looked like an El Gato tsunami! Forgetting that he had been tasked with searching for weapons, the security guard turned to Baba and asked ... "Is this the first time you've driven a trailer?" Baba tried to look contrite but when he looked down he got dizzy, so he just mumbled... "careful don't step in the juice" as the feds walked away shaking their heads in dismay.

There is absolutely no truth to the old family lore that Nana wet herself at this point. That horrible rictus that appears on her face in all of the photos taken of her thereafter comes from the fact that after this horrible day she could not unclench her hands and was never able to quilt again.

Finally they reached Kingman 7 hours after leaving St George. They found a lovely RV park and under an incredible sunset they fell into bed with the sweet memories of Hogie Carmichael singing route 66 lulling them to sleep.

OK Children it's time for bed ... remember you need to work 5 hours before school to help pay down the debt Baba and Nana's generation allowed Pelosi and Reed to create for you!

Nighty Night Children

Sorry no photos last two nights due to a slow internet connection.