Adventures Pt. 2

Since we were back in North Dakota with no means of personal transportation back home, the next obvious step was to secure transportation back to Indiana. Keep in mind this is the 29th. We narrowed down our choices to either taking Amtrak back or a series of buses.

Attempt 1: With our luck, there was an Amtrak leaving the next morning at 1AM with a stop in Chicago. We ordered ordered our tickets and were set to pick them up when we arrived at the station. This is where the blizzard decided to roll in. The train wasn't canceled that morning. So my traveling companion, the army lad we met, and myself decided to brave the storm. Well that's all fine and well... if we could get out of the drive way. What ended up happening is that we got to the end of the drive way, and with the sheer amount of snow we got stuck. Not just typical stuck, but more of we were sitting on the snow and the tires weren't even touching the ground stuck. So we shoveled the truck back to ground level and drove it back up the drive way. First attempt failed. We rescheduled our tickets for the following day.

Attempt 2: Having tickets ready for the following morning was more of an... inconvenience than anything. On the morning of the 30th, Amtrak calls us. The train for the morning of the 31st is canceled because of the blizzard. After a little bit of research, the trains wouldn't be back up until Saturday. When we go to reschedule for Saturday, it is full. The next available? Wednesday. The 5th. By this point I've also already missed a few days of work as well. Ultimately a fail. We gave up on the tram.

Attempt 3: The bus. Considering the interstate and local roads were closed except for emergency vehicles, we weren't getting out until Saturday at the earliest. Which ended up not happening. We left Sunday afternoon en route to Minneapolis. In a few words, this was the worst bus ride I have ever been on. Not because the cabin wasn't nice, it was. And not because some kid screaming, it was silence. But rather because of the fact that the driver thought it was a good idea to accelerate and decelerate, accelerate and decelerate the entire 4 hours. Now I typically wouldn't have minded except for the fact of the preceding events. We arrived in Minneapolis four miserable hours later. What did we learn here? There was a crack house about a block away, the police that were stationed there were douches, the "help desk" people were of no help, and the whole environment was just all together sketchy. After an hour layover in Minneapolis, we were on our way once more. Only this time, our destination was Chicago. The remainder of our trip was not bad at all. We arrived at Chicago at about nine in the morning, and in back home at about 1 in the evening. Only to have work the same day. Yaaaaay...

And now for the car...

Adventures (An Ongoing Series)

Back in December a friend and myself embarked on a journey to the great white north. North Dakota. Now, to understand why we went, you kind of need to know some background information:

One of my best friends from my childhood was on break from basic over prior to Christmas through a week after. I decided that it would be a good idea to go visit him. The next time he will be back is in the summer of this year (as far as I know). And so began the adventure north.

We left from central Indiana heading towards Illinois, and this wasn't at all a problem. The problems occurred as we headed farther North. 

As soon as we entered Iowa there was a fog. Not just a small patch, but the entire time we were going through there was fog. The distance visible was roughly two feet from the front of the car, so it wasn't exactly the safest adventure thus far.

We entered Minnesota and the fog immediately lifted. The drive was looking up. Other than the fact that the state was cold, there is nothing worth mentioning. It was amazing, though. I feel you should know that.

Early in the morning on the 27th, we arrived at our destination at West Fargo, North Dakota. The events that transpired there are of no importance. The main thing, if anything, to gather from this is the travel parts. The nightmare aspects of this adventure - traveling. Total money spent going up was

We had originally planned on being there from the 27th through the 30th. That's not how it went down. On the 28th we got news that a blizzard was rolling across North Dakota, Minnesota, and part of Montana at around 10 PM on the 29th. So we planned ahead and intended to leave on the 29th around 6PM so that we had plenty of time to beat the storm. We did just that by leaving at that time.

We only made it two hours on the interstate when we hit a patch of black ice in Minnesota which quickly ended up in the median of the interstate... in two feet of snow. A police officer had called a wrecker and had us pulled out ($90). The guy who pulled us out of the median told us that the remaining snow would just fall out as I drove, so I thought nothing of it and we continued.  About 10 to 15 minutes down the road, my car had overheated. No warnings - just stalled, switched to neutral, no power steering, no power brakes, nothing. Moments later the same cop that had us pulled out showed up behind us. He pushed us from the median to the outside of the interstate and left moments later. Little did I know that there was snow caked in my radiator. We then called the same wrecker and had him pull us back to his shop for the car to be looked at ($120). After trial and error it was determined that  the engine either had a cracked block or gasket estimated, at the time, was to be a minimum of $2k.

Enough about the car for now. After the assessment of the damage we were taken to a truck stop to find out what we need to do, get food, and just gather our thoughts. We arrived at the stop at about 9PM central. While we were there, we had about 20 cups of coffee and made about 40 calls around seeing what we could, who we could stay with, lodging, and things of the like. After about four hours of being at the truck stop, we were introduced to a trucker who was heading to Fargo and we were invited to go with him.  Things were looking up, but there was a catch. He wasn't leaving until 7 the next morning. We had 6 hours to kill. For a while we had passed time doing crosswords which filled about a whole two hours of time. Food seemed like the next logical situation. The boredom set in and endless texts began, and the migration from one end of the lodge to the other began. We made our way to the opposite side of the lodge to find a TV and a slew of "waiting room" chairs. My companion decided to sleep, so I took to a silent vigil over our belongings. For three hours I sat watching Fox News. Three. Hours. Dreadful. Down right dreadful. Time dragged on and our ride with our new acquaintance was all to far. 

Seven couldn't have gotten there sooner, but when it did get there it was the most relieving feeling. We boarded the big-rig and began our return to Fargo. My friend had taken to shotgun and I to the cabin in the back. It was finally my turn to sleep. For an hour I slept before we made our next stop at yet another lodge. There, we met another trucker who was not heading the same direction as us, but his generosity was astounding. He knew us for all of 15 minutes and outright paid for our meals. At this point we found out that the blizzard had begun its voyage across Fargo. Our driver was not willing to get stuck up in Fargo - understandable. Luckily for us, he knew of two gentlemen heading the same direction as we were. We were on our way again.

I slept for another hour and when I awoke we were in Fargo. Back to square one minus a car.

Another installment will be posted on Friday. Until then, enjoy the week!

-Cam