Category: Travel

You know that it is going to be bad when even the GPS unit warns you there will be High Gusty Winds.

          I knew it was windy!

          I was driving!

          How did my GPS know it was windy?

          Did it sense my erratic driving style?

Could it tell by the many Lane Departure warnings she was giving me?

          At that point, I wondered if she had a DWI Warning built into her too! ( No worries there, I do not really drink except for an occasional Strawberry Wine Cooler maybe once a month.)

          Then I passed a sign that read, “High Wind Area”

          OK, now it made sense. Someone had programmed it in. We were traveling on Interstate Route 10 through southwestern Texas headed for New Mexico and eventually Colorado. This area of Texas is about as broad and expansive as any Texan could brag about. To complicate things, that Weather Anomaly that kept us from departing on schedule reared its ugly head once more, as if bidding us a evil, final, farewell.

           But we had Bluebird Skies and Bright Sunshiny Vistas!

          And Wind.

          Lots and lots of Wind.

          So not only were we in a High Gusty Winds Warning area, but we were still in the clutches of a departing Low Pressure System, which as it leaves, gets filled with an incoming High Pressure System that packs a Pressure Gradient that will knock your socks off! (in our case I guess you could say “tires off”). And unfortunately, it hung around for a while because Hurricane Zulu, Zorba, or Zumba (Can’t remember and don’t care) was still hanging in Louisiana and environs and wouldn’t let “our” system pass through!

          This made the previous drive through the Louisiana Bayou seem like just another Sunday ride on a Bike Path. (except there are no ‘gators in the Texas Desert, just a rattler or two). Remember how that previous drive went on for thousand and thousands of miles? Well, this one went on for millions and millions of miles!

          All day long, constant, no let up, save when we pulled into a rest area for a break.  At that point we could still feel the wind rocking us back and forth like we were on the boat with Jesus and the Apostles when the storm came up.

          Everyone knows the feeling of the Passing Truck on the highway.

          As the truck approaches and  pushes that big wall of air in front of it, you can feel it coming and you need to counteract that push by steering into it. The problem is that you need to stop that countermeasure the precise moment that the Wall passes you because if you do not, you will oversteer and only cause more problems.

          All of those issues are compounded by our size.

          I’m used to that by now.

          I watch my rearview mirror for the overcoming Big Rig and as it comes alongside, I steer into it until I feel the effect lessen and then I pull back to center and then steer the other way because now, as it passes, it wants to suck us in behind it.

          Got it!

          Been there. It is now all part of the Driving Experience.

Except when in the aforementioned High Gusty Winds Warning Area.

          Now it gets dicey.

          All of my carefully calculated, tried and true, driving techniques go out the window (literally and figuratively) when every maneuver that I make gets buffeted back and forth always in the wrong direction.

          I considered taking a Xanax but decided that it would not look good on the Police Report if they did a blood test. Poor Paula was as nervous as I was but made heroic efforts not to show it. You know how it is riding Shotgun, all of the drama and none of the control (slamming your foot to the floor in an effort to grind to a halt using your invisible imaginary brake on your side of the vehicle!)

          Miss GPS and Navigator Paula found an alternative way to go that not only promised to get us off of blustery Interstate 10, but it looked like it was even shorter! Off we go onto Route 285 North towards Pecos. I felt like I was in a Western Movie just hearing the word Pecos!         All was good until another Destruction Zone.

          They were widening the road (good) but in their efforts to do so they forgot to keep even the semblance of a shoulder on the right-hand side (bad). The road is only two lanes, one each way, so there was no riding in the left lane. The big issue with the No Shoulder scenario was that IMMEDIATELY after the white stripe on the right side there was NOTHING! Except a downward slope of freshly graded, sandy-type soil that would have flipped us over if I even thought about wandering over the line. It was so close to the edge I wondered how they even painted it onto the road. We made it into Carlsbad, New Mexico which is in the next time zone so theoretically we bought ourselves an extra hour to do with what we pleased.

          Sleep?

          How about Coma.

          Except we were so used to the constant motion of being shellacked all day long that when we finally stopped for the night and pulled into Walmart of Carlsbad, we felt like we had just gotten off an all-day rollercoaster ride.

          It took a while to fall asleep.

          Javier is an accountant and former pharmacy owner who sells cars in College Station, Texas. He was the person who picked up the phone when I called the Kia dealership and asked for the Sales Department.

          A relationship began.

          It turned into friendship that spanned all of six days.

          And possibly a lifetime.

          Probably not, but maybe. That is the nature of Javier. Sincere, friendly, honest, and just an all-around good guy that I know that I could call anytime in the future and he would remember us.

          All for the need of two new front tires. On a used car.

          This serendipitous acquaintance began because we needed to find a car to tow behind the motorhome. They are called “dinghies” after the small boats that are used by yachts to get back and forth from the anchorage to the dock. Using the motorhome to get from a Campground to the local store to buy vittles is a bit complicated when you must unhook all of your utilities and ready the unit for the road. There are also times when you really do not want to try and drive the beast into one of the already crowded National Parks. Better to stay on the fringe and just drive the car in. Our first choice was to be a Jeep Wrangler (the most popular car for this purpose) but after seeing what they were going for used (which had me wondering what they could possibly sell for new!) we decided to look for the second favorite vehicle to use as a tow-behind and that is a Honda CRV.

          You see, not every vehicle made can be towed “Four Down”, that is, with all four wheels on the road as opposed to using a dolly (two wheels up on a trailer) or a regular trailer that you would drive the whole car up and on to. It seems that not all drivetrains are set up to be towed “four down”, hence the extra needed research and subsequent acquisition.

          We needed to tow an enclosed trailer out West for several reasons. We still had “stuff” that we did not want to part with yet, we had items to deliver to Danny, et al, in Texas, and the same for Lorelyn in Colorado. It was decided that the trailer would live in Colorado mostly for practical reasons, the most important being Relative Humidity.

          Durango’s relative humidity is crazy low, that’s good

          Houston’s relative humidity is crazy high, that’s bad.

          When the majority of the items are disgorged and finally at their final destinations the remainder of the contents will be my Very Large Remainder of My Book/Library Collection and my Almost Complete Back to the Beginning National Geographic Collection.

          Hence the choice of storage location.

          Which means that we cannot hook up a dinghy until we make a return trip to Texas where the Honda awaits.

          Back to Javier the Anomaly.

          “Car Salesman.”  That says it all. We have all had our experiences with these evil persons. I come from a sales background and I NEVER understood why one need to do battle with car dealerships every time you needed to purchase a vehicle. There had to be a better way.

          There is and his name is Javier.

          After I spoke to him, he promised to go out on the lot and verify that they still had it in inventory (there are several connected dealerships), take some pics and text then to me. A half hour later, several photos came my way with the following message:

          “Here you have the pictures Donald, it’s in very good shape and drives perfectly fine. If you have any more questions, please let me know my friend.

Best regards and hope you have a blessed rest of your day.

Javier

Sterling Kia

          “My friend”?

          “Blessed rest of your day”?

 Are these what we usually hear from these salespeople?                               I think not.

          The vehicle was what we were looking for and being the closest one to us at 30 miles away, we decided to give it a go before we made the trip  in the other direction to see the rest of the possibilities. These other prospects were approximately 60 miles away.

          Off we go to College Station, Home of the Aggies and the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library.

          Being wary and initially distrustful, we entered the showroom to find that Javier was out with another customer but had left the keys on his desk and had informed his compatriots that we may be dropping by. The new guy got the car, brought it around and gave us the keys and said, “See ya later.” Off we went. Scarily the car was really nice. It had !00,000 miles on it but showed like it was brandy new (almost).

          We parked halfway through our test drive and discussed it.

          Condition: Good (almost too good)

          Price: Fair

          Year: Perfect, the recommended models for towing were from                           2012 to 2014. This one was a 2012. 

          Hoping against hope we asked ourselves if this could be true. Why would we waste more time and head south when this baby seems to fit the bill?                                                                                                                          So we decided to give it a go.

          Back to the lot where we finally met Javier. He was as genuinely nice as he was on our phone conversation and in texting.

We offered him $1000 less than what they were asking and said that it needed two new front tires. He looked at them and readily agreed.

Then came the song and dance routine that we are all used to. “I’ll bring your offer to my Sales Manager and see what he says and I’m going to take a photo of the tires so that I can show him.”  

          To our surprise the Manager agreed but we needed to go to one of their adjoining dealerships to get the tires. Javier went back and forth between 3 dealerships trying to get the tires for us. It seemed that they did not have that exact size in stock and would need to order them. We finished up the paperwork and were told that the tires should be in on Friday, two days hence , so we would need to come back and get them installed. No problem, Paula had a haircut booked in a few days so we could do it then.

          This is where I started to admire Javier. As most salespeople, he works on some sort of commission basis. As he ran from dealership to dealership trying to procure these two new front tires for us there was no way for him to spend any time with any other customers or be by his phone to talk to prospects.  And it was for a used car. This was not some high-priced new baby that he was selling to us. It only cost a couple of grand, not much room for profit margins, especially after coming down on the already fair price and throwing in two new front tires.                                                                                                                              We finally pulled out of the lot and drove home trying to figure out all the do-dads that were in our new ride. We drove it for the next two days as we waited for the signal that the tires had, indeed, arrived.

On Friday I received the following message:

          Donald my friend! We got your tires, let me know what day will be better for you next week and I’ll take care of everything my friend.

Hope you and Paula have a great weekend!

Best Regards

Javier                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

          After spending an inordinate amount of time on Wednesday with Javier (my new best friend) this message, as nice as it was, came as no surprise. We made arrangements for Monday.

          Paula had an appointment at the hair-doozers at 11 so I dropped her off and went to the dealership. I waited for Javier who was out on a test drive with another customer. When he came back, he immediately took the car and brought it up to the other shop where the tires were. By this time Paula had called me to say that the girl who was supposed to cut her hair was out sick, so they needed to re-schedule. I told her that I would call when the car was done and to just go “walk around”.

          Javier came back and said that it would be “done by 2”.

          That’s a problem

          It’s only 11:30 and Paula is not getting her hair cut.

Javier’s solution:

“Let’s go get Paula and have lunch”

          As we drove to get Paula, I had the opportunity to get to know Javier a little better. Born in Venezuela, he is an Accountant by trade. He and his brother had a small pharmacy in Venezuela, and they did just fine with it. They were good to the community and when they started helping out the local youths, well, let’s just say that it “got in the way” of what the local authorities liked and so they were made to feel so uncomfortable that they just left. He spent a few years in Chile and then arrived in the United States  about 15  months ago, landing in College Station. Javier had been here years ago to visit his uncle who was a professor at Texas A&M. So naturally, this is where he headed this time.  His wife found a job as a teacher and he has two cute little daughters.

          During lunch I brought Paula up to speed about what I had learned about Javier so that she could join in the conversation. Phones came out, pictures of kids, et al, were shown and we had a wonderful time sitting on the patio “catching up” with a friend who we just met.

          Back to the dealership we went and when we arrived the car had been finished and it was time to say good-bye.

          Handshakes and hugs all around finished our session for the day.

          In our conversations I had the chance to talk about sales and the like. It turns out that Javier’s boss thinks he’s “too friendly” and told him that he was going to miss him whenever he left.

          Javier has been employed there for 15 months.

          Javier has been the top selling associate for the last 14.

          Too friendly, I think not. New tires and being dealt with civilly, I think so.