Durable Wine
One time when I was in Mendoza, Argentina, the home of so much good wine, and preparing for some travel, I stopped in at a small shop near my lodging. In that city, wine was actually cheaper than bottled water. I told the proprietor that I wanted to carry some wine in my backpack but worried that bottles were heavy and might break. He said “No problem”, and showed me a one-liter carton of local wine. “Yes, but how durable is it?” I asked. Without hesitating, he threw it across the room at a blank section of wall, where it then fell to the floor. I went and picked it up, and, aside from being dented in one corner, it was intact and not leaking. I was convinced, and from that point on in my travels, always had a liter or two in my pack.
Unrequited Love
I spent a few weeks in a city in South America. Near my residencial was a news-stand where an amiable young fellow worked. We struck up a conversation and he told me that his wife was living in Canada, in fact had been there for a year or more. She had obtained landed immigrant status and was working there and really enjoying her new-found life. He really wanted to follow her to Canada, but said there seemed to be some endless delay in getting the immigration paperwork going. Apparently she needed to do some of it from her end. He asked me for what he said would be a huge personal favor. Since I would soon be passing through her city, could I phone her at this number and urge her to call him and discuss how she could get things moving more quickly on his behalf. I agreed to give her a call, which I did several weeks later once I was back north. She told me that she no longer loved him and wasn’t interested in helping him join her, that she wanted to live her life without him. Wow, that was quite a shock to hear! Poor guy, I felt badly for him. That was my last contact with either of them. I hope he eventually found happiness, but it seemed like it would have to be without her.
Pennies From Heaven
It was September and I had just returned to the university for another year of studies. I lived in a men’s dormitory on campus which was run by a group of Catholic priests. The cost of a shared dorm room and 3 meals a day for 2 full semesters was $450 dollars (an incredible bargain by today’s standards, right?, but this was the late 1960s). For some reason, I got the bright idea that I’d pay for my room and board a bit differently this time around. My account was at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce about a mile away from the dorm. I went there and spoke to the branch manager, asking him if it would be possible to get 450 dollars but all in pennies. Nobody had ever made such a bizarre request before, but he assured me it could be done – he’d need a couple of days to make it happen, and it was on the condition that he would NOT get the pennies back under any circumstances. I agreed. He informed me that pennies didn’t qualify as legal tender and that nobody had to accept them as payment.
A few days later, he called me and said I could come in and pick up the money, adding that I’d better bring a big car. One of my buddies at the dorm was ready to help me, and we drove his car to the bank. I was shocked when I saw what awaited. The pennies were all rolled, 50 to a roll, and all the rolls were put into rugged canvas bags with CIBC written on the outside of each. He made me sign for them and deducted the 450 from my account. Bag after bag, we carried them out and put them into the car’s trunk. In all, the 45,000 pennies came in at a whopping 306 pounds (verified by the armored truck that brought them from the main branch downtown).
We drove back to the dorm, and I went upstairs to the office of the secretary who ran all of the business affairs for the student residence. I told her I wanted to pay my dorm fees for the entire school year, but with just one little wrinkle – I’d pay it all in pennies. This gal had a really good sense of humor, and said not to worry. We had timed it so that the priest in charge was out for the afternoon. It took a while, but we managed to finally get it all up to her office, and she wrote me a receipt. Just then, Father Kelly returned, and, seeing all of the bags of pennies stacked up outside his office, asked what was going on. Annette told him that it was my payment for the year. He was incredulous, and blurted out “I don’t have to accept that!”. I held up my receipt, and, with a big shit-eating grin, said “You just did!” If it hadn’t been for the receipt, he would have had me over a barrel, but he had no way out. Since there was no harm done, we were friends again within a few days.
Date Line Magic
I have crossed the International Date Line a few times, always by flying in a commercial jet. Coincidentally, the crossing occurred around midnight each time. Here’s what that meant for me. Let’s pick an arbitrary date, say June 5th. If I were traveling east and crossed at midnight, I would go from ending a June 5th to beginning a new June 5th, repeating the day all over again – I would get to live June 5th all over again, but it would be my second June 5th. If I were traveling west and crossed at midnight, the opposite happens. I would go from June 5th to June 7th, never having lived a June 6th.
The year 1992 was a good example. I took off from from Los Angeles on the evening of Wednesday, July 1st and landed in Auckland on the morning of Friday, July 3rd. When I came back home, I took off from Auckland on the evening of Thursday, September 3rd and landed in Los Angeles on the morning of Thursday, September 3rd. It’s still hard to wrap my head around this, but it’s true.
Cemeteries
It makes me sad when I visit a cemetery that has unmarked graves. I’ve seen some where a simple white cross with no lettering is all that’s there. Many are the graves I’ve witnessed where there is a slight mound and nothing else. I can’t help but wonder if any of the descendants of the one interred there even know the location of their loved one, or if they ever visit to pay their respects. Makes me think of the old blues song “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean”. It just seems sad that a grave should be so forgotten, but I have a feeling that there are untold millions like that.
Long Flight
Many of you are far more experienced world travelers than I. I’ll bet you can think back to what was the longest trip you ever took by air. By that, I mean how many hours it took you to fly from Point A to Point B, using a series of flights. Mine was from Mendoza, Argentina to Tucson, Arizona, USA. It was pretty crazy, and here’s how it went. First thing one morning, I boarded this flight in Mendoza.
We flew to Córdoba, disgorged a few passengers and boarded a few new ones, then on we went to Buenos Aires. The continuation of my journey involved taking a shuttle from Newberry, the domestic airport, to Ezeiza, the international airport. Finally airborne, we flew non-stop to Lima on the 747. An hour on the ground, then we took off again for the next leg, a 5 1/2 hour flight to Mexico City. Once there, we were held in a transit lounge for an hour while our next plane was made ready. The next part of the journey was the flight to Los Angeles. Once there, I cleared U.S. Customs and went to board my next flight. The plane was coming from San Francisco but was late in arriving, very late. I had breakfast in the meantime. After finally boarding, we sat for 1 1/2 hours in the sweltering heat while they tried to fix the air conditioning. Everyone became really pissed off. Finally, we deplaned while they brought in another plane for us. Eventually, we boarded and flew straight to Tucson.
Getting home was a journey of 12,700 KM or about 7,900 miles. I ate 6 times en route, everything from breakfast to a snack to lunch to tea-time to supper, to a second breakfast in true Hobbit fashion. I see that, as of this writing, the world’s longest non-stop commercial flight belongs to Singapore Airlines. Their flight from Singapore to New York City is 9,540 miles and takes 17 hours and 50 minutes – can you imagine?
High Lonesome Canyon
If you’ve never driven the back roads of Arizona, you might not know how bad some of them are. The most remote of them are never maintained – they just sit there and deteriorate from one year to the next. About 25 years ago, climber friend Dave Jurasevich had been doing some climbing in the Pedregosa Mountains and thought that, for a change of scenery, he’d drive back out to civilization by a different route. He drove north up Halfmoon Valley to Box Canyon, then west until he reached a road heading south into High Lonesome Canyon. The idea was that he’d try to drive west down High Lonesome Canyon until he reached flatter country and easier going – after all, that’d only be about 7 miles, and it was all downhill, so how hard could it be, right?
His elevation near High Lonesome Spring was about 5,600 feet. As he headed west, he began to experience severe high-clearance 4WD terrain that slowed his progress. After some distance, things improved enough that he unlocked his hubs and continued cautiously in 2WD High range. Then, ahead of him, he saw some deep ruts that had to be carefully negotiated, but nothing that looked as bad as what he had driven through earlier.
A bit of background for you – Dave’s truck, a 1989 model, still required stepping outside the vehicle and going to each of the front wheels and turning the mechanism which locked the hubs – that had to be done by hand, there was no other way to do it.
Where we left off, Dave was motoring along in 2WD with his hubs unlocked. He said he was probably daydreaming and not paying close enough attention to the road ahead. He felt a jolt as the front passenger side of the truck dipped downward, and all forward progress was halted. He got out of the truck to survey the situation and found that his right front wheel was buried deeply in a narrow, rock-hard rut that covered the mechanism needed to engage 4WD for that wheel. It didn’t allow him to reach down to engage the mechanism. Meanwhile, the left rear wheel was up off the ground. He was stranded with no rear-wheel traction to muscle his way out of the rut. The only way out of his predicament was to somehow engage that locking hub buried in the rut. He had a small crowbar, and began chipping away at the side of the rut. In about half an hour, he was able to create just enough space between the rut wall and the hub. He was able to slip his hand down into the hole and just barely reach the locking lever with one finger. With all his strength in that index finger, he strained like hell to finally engage the hub, and finally was successful. Next, he engaged the other hub, hopped into the cab, fired up the engine, shifted into 4WD LO range 1st gear, and in a few moments he was free.
The 2 worst spots were around 5 miles and again at 6 miles, so it was probably at one of those spots he got stuck. He said it was an enormous relief to finally see the last of High Lonesome Canyon receding in his rear-view mirror.