LA - MSP v1.0
I left LA. After weeks of getting rid of my crap and packing the few things I wanted to keep, the sad goodbyes and farewells from friends and co-workers, and the myriad of little things you need to do when you move, I finally left LA.
Melissa and I loaded up the U-Haul Wednesday and hit the road to Phoenix to spend the night at my mom's in Surprise, AZ. Traffic was nice to us and we made good time, arriving at casa Davis at about 7.30 local time. Visits with the Davii always seem to last longer than I think they will, so I wasn't too surprised to be leaving there at about 3pm Thursday.
For our drive from Phoenix to Minneapolis, I picked the flattest route possible - but this still meant that to get out of Arizona we'd have to go through Flagstaff, which meant a bunch of hill climbing to get to the 7,000+ ft. elevation of Flag.
Here's where it gets tricky. I own a small BMW convertible and am towing a U-Haul trailer full of my "valuables". I got the smallest trailer I could get, and did a good job of getting rid of excess shit, but the trailer still has some heft and the aerodynamics of a Frigidaire. So climbing some of those hills at highway speeds took a bit of work. We made it up I-17 into Flag ok, but I noticed that the clutch pedal was starting to make a chattering noise. The car seemed to be running fine, but this noise would prove to be the start of a Bad Thing.
Just outside of Flag, I stopped to let Melissa drive for awhile. As I stopped the car, I noticed a weird vibration in the clutch pedal that was in sync with the weird chatter noise. Hmm.
Melissa took over and drove the next ~120 miles with no trouble, but just after crossing the border into New Mexico on I-40, she had to slow for a construction zone, and the shift lever would not move into 4th gear. Not good. I muscled it into 4th and we continued, but decided to pull off at the next exit so I could drive. As we came to a stop on the exit ramp, she put the clutch in and the engine immediately stalled. I got back in the driver's seat, but fared no better. I got the car to start, but putting it in any gear was impossible. The clutch was toast.
We waited for about an hour for a tow, and ended up at the El Rancho Hotel in lovely, picturesque, scenic, and delightful Gallup, New Mexico. To call this town economically depressed would make the word depressed feel bad. We spent the night at the El Rancho (or The RanchEro, as M calls it), and found a repair shop willing to tow the car in and install a new clutch this morning. The only catch was, the nearest new clutch was found in Albuquerque, so we've got to wait 'til tomorrow afternoon before it will be ready to go.
So we're holed up in The RanchEro 'til tomorrow afternoon. I took a few pics of the place and will upload them in the next post.
Melissa and I loaded up the U-Haul Wednesday and hit the road to Phoenix to spend the night at my mom's in Surprise, AZ. Traffic was nice to us and we made good time, arriving at casa Davis at about 7.30 local time. Visits with the Davii always seem to last longer than I think they will, so I wasn't too surprised to be leaving there at about 3pm Thursday.
For our drive from Phoenix to Minneapolis, I picked the flattest route possible - but this still meant that to get out of Arizona we'd have to go through Flagstaff, which meant a bunch of hill climbing to get to the 7,000+ ft. elevation of Flag.
Here's where it gets tricky. I own a small BMW convertible and am towing a U-Haul trailer full of my "valuables". I got the smallest trailer I could get, and did a good job of getting rid of excess shit, but the trailer still has some heft and the aerodynamics of a Frigidaire. So climbing some of those hills at highway speeds took a bit of work. We made it up I-17 into Flag ok, but I noticed that the clutch pedal was starting to make a chattering noise. The car seemed to be running fine, but this noise would prove to be the start of a Bad Thing.
Just outside of Flag, I stopped to let Melissa drive for awhile. As I stopped the car, I noticed a weird vibration in the clutch pedal that was in sync with the weird chatter noise. Hmm.
Melissa took over and drove the next ~120 miles with no trouble, but just after crossing the border into New Mexico on I-40, she had to slow for a construction zone, and the shift lever would not move into 4th gear. Not good. I muscled it into 4th and we continued, but decided to pull off at the next exit so I could drive. As we came to a stop on the exit ramp, she put the clutch in and the engine immediately stalled. I got back in the driver's seat, but fared no better. I got the car to start, but putting it in any gear was impossible. The clutch was toast.
We waited for about an hour for a tow, and ended up at the El Rancho Hotel in lovely, picturesque, scenic, and delightful Gallup, New Mexico. To call this town economically depressed would make the word depressed feel bad. We spent the night at the El Rancho (or The RanchEro, as M calls it), and found a repair shop willing to tow the car in and install a new clutch this morning. The only catch was, the nearest new clutch was found in Albuquerque, so we've got to wait 'til tomorrow afternoon before it will be ready to go.
So we're holed up in The RanchEro 'til tomorrow afternoon. I took a few pics of the place and will upload them in the next post.
posted by steve at 4:11 PM
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