Foreign Aid VW repair

Now that I was reconnected to the world I had left behind, I could finally focus on what really took precedent: fixing my speedometer cable so that driving would have a calculable speed and distance to it each day.

I know that few Volkswagens, especially those whose vintage preexists 1990, have little ability to travel fast enough to warrant even a first glance from a cop - and having VW's version of a minivan made that potential even less likely - but it was not Bessie's speed I was ultimately worried about. Knowing that it is against the law to have a faulty odometer, even for a car whose classic status renders mileage less of a concern, it was Bessie's faulty gas gauge and the subsequential guesstimates in calculating gas consumption that necessitated figuring out what was wrong with her.

The week's stay in Albuquerque prior to my flight home gave me ample time to research VW repair shops and I stumbled upon a promising one a couple of miles from Amberlee's house. Located on the corner of San Pedro and Constitution, a scenic 2.2 mile walk from Amberlee's house through the demographically diverse residences of Albuquerque's outskirts, Foreign Aid Auto was a bit of a graveyard for all things VW - a common sight I have come to find when dealing with any shop whose main job entails VW repair.

A towering, two story black building whose blazen, ten foot red lettering stood out against the brown and dusty landscape, loomed before me as I noticed that the shop's five garages were filled with numerous VWs of various vintages in various stages of disassemble. Walking through the shop's glass front door, I noticed the garage sale atmosphere immediately and, with a look somewhere between skepticism and awe, perused the gadgets and trinkets as I waited for a lady to finish her diatribe on the malfunctions of her bug.

Finally called up to the desk by Mike, an overweight 20 something whose black Metallica T-shirt looked as though it doubled as a napkin, I proceeded to explain my dilemma and my out of town status. Looking like he forgot to wipe chocolate milk off of his upper lip, the sporadic hairs of Mike's mustache moved lightly in the fan's wind as he listened with feigned interest to my tale. Telling me that they needed to take Bessie and run a diagnostic on her, I left her in his care and headed back to Amberlee's only to be called a few hours later and told that Bessie needed a new speedometer cable, a part that they could order but one that would take a few days to arrive.

Knowing that my flight home was leaving the next day, the timing seemed perfect and I informed Mike that I would bring Bessie back in ten days. Setting an appointment for the Monday of my return I left and thought nothing of the ordeal; I figured I would be back soon to a new part and a scheduled appointment, that Bessie would be fixed quickly, and I would be on my way, out of Amberlee's hair and off again along the open road.

Ten days later, upon returning back to Albuquerque from the needed break in my vacation, I entered Foreign Aid expecting a short visit that would end in a fixed van. Entering a shop that I now knew all too well, I started to get a feel for the workers and wondered silently about the level of competence and the safety of my rig. Though I have come to realize that most VW mechanics are a touch kooky, all of these workers had a uniqueness about them.

Some, like Paula, a frumpy but organized Mexican lady who was the shop's governing mother, had a common look and an ease of personality that allowed easy integration into any situation. Others stood out a little too much, such as the old guy whose constant short shorts, long black socks, glasses, and creepy eye-balling of all the patrons coupled with a grin only a mother could love made you wonder what convoluted thoughts pin-balled around in his mind on a daily basis.

When the store's manager, Paul, a slick Mexican whose glasses and always semi-buttoned shirt showcased limited tufts of graying hair and a single gold chain, went looking for my "hard to find" part, he found it hanging in the shop, along with two more exactly like it that had been on the shelf for over a year. It turns out that one of Paul's coworkers, the bearded, semi-stoned looking one, had accidently ordered a speedometer cable for an '82 Vanagon instead of an '81.

With his slightly slick black hair that was just starting to speckle with salt, Paul was nice enough, but his use of humor and slang quickly wore thin, especially since both increased with his ineptitude. I was told that it would take until Thursday to reorder the correct part and that they would call that morning when it arrived on the truck.

As 2 o'clock Thursday rolled around I called only to find that the replacement cable was in but they were "swamped" and wondered if I could bring it in Friday morning. I informed Paul that I would be bringing it in that afternoon and that it needed to be done first thing in the morning; Paul promised it would be.

Trusting Paul's word, I suspected something was amiss when noon rolled around on Friday and I had heard nothing. Picking up the phone I called and was informed that Bessie was done and that they were again were "too swamped" to call. Cursing under my breath, I stormed out the door for the half hour walk to pick up Bessie.

A short while later I arrived at Foreign Aid and had to wait for Paul to finish another phone conversation. Finally finished, he called me over and he started the invoice, his attempt at humor, "can I add $100 for me?" falling flatly to the floor when my response of, "no, but you can subtract $100 for me", was uttered and he silently handed me my keys.

Walking across Constitution to the shop's parking lot, my joyous adventure was not yet over as I noticed that Bessie was blocked in by guy loading a bug onto a trailer. By now I wanted to kill someone but I called Katie and waited, blood boiling, for the man to slowly finish.

Finally free of Foreign Aid, and with a working speedometer, I made my way back to Amberlee's, the late time now pushing Friday's departure date back to an early Saturday exit. After the entire ordeal, all of the hassles and mistakes, I came to realize that the worst part was what dawned on me when I was cleaning out Bessie, I had purchased a speedometer cable back in Bend.

Perfectly good airplanes

I did something last Thursday that I swore I would never do, something that the very thought of causes in me profuse, full body sweating: I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane. While actually contemplating this event is scary enough, having a girlfriend who's idea of excitement involves more than a couch and a good book actually schedule it onto our calendar elevated my fears suddenly from a laughable event to a forseeable future.

I told myself that I would never jump out of an airplane, but a misspoken yes to an assumed joke led me down a path I never thought possible. It was this path that led to a date with a parachute last Thursday.

My fear of planes is based upon a deep rooted fear of heights; this fear comes thanks to a ruptured inner left ear, the byproduct of an injury sustained during an uncoordinated mud football moment my freshman year in college. The resultant vestibular disorder makes balance a very precarious game for me; my mind is constantly trying to tell my body that it is tilting or falling. This false feeling has led to many envisioned free falls from planes, skyscrapers, and cliffs and, with that, all of the dire ends and mangled body parts these falls would include.

I honestly thought that I wouldn't be able to sleep the night before, that in the days leading up to jump day a building of nervous energy would culminate in restless fits of nervous sweats and tremors. Oddly enough, I was calm the entire week leading up to the jump and slept peacefully Wednesday night. Surprisingly still, I even found myself looking forward to it from time to time.

That Thursday Katie and I woke at our normal 11 o'clock hour and hurriedly packed the car and left for Molalla, stopping off in Albany to pick up Katie's brunette haired friend and fellow grad student Amanda, a one time veteran of skydiving. The drive up was filled with jokes about my demise and calculated probabilities of my survival. Pulling into the gravel lot of Skydive Oregon we were greeted by sight of people on their final descent and I noticed nary a dead body anywhere on the grass landing strip (which part of me took to be a good sign while the calculated percentage part of my brain screamed that someone, somewhere soon had to perish). With smiles galore lighting up their faces, across my mind flashed an image of the contorted expression sure to cross my face should my parachute actually deploy and I land safely (gruesome would be the expression should it not).

We spent the next half hour wading through a mountain of paperwork, signing our lives away along with our right to sue for anything. No joke, the paperwork included the sentence, " I hereby sign away my right to sue for any fault due to negligence on the part of Skydive Oregon". Odd to me that this would be legal, that even when the fault lay in them, their employees, equipment or training, Skydive Oregon was without blame or responsibility. To say the lawyers had a field day creating that contract would be an understatement for sure; I somehow find it hard to believe that many, if any, lawyers choose to jump from this locale.

Paperwork finalized, and our lives now in the tenuous balance of life and death (with no financial windfall for our heirs should our demise come within the day), I met my tandem partner, a burly, blond headed and long goateed dude named Tim. Shaking his massive hand briefly - and confessing my sins in hopes of forgiveness and a smooth ride - he briefly covered safety and strapped me in to my harness and promptly showed me my waiting spot outside.

I began to worry a little about the breadth of my training as I realized I was outside a full 15 minutes before anyone else.

Finally the group ahead of us landed and we were off on our death march to the field (though this may have just been me as everyone else, including Katie, seemed quite content; some were even smiling - damn them and their audacity). After being held like anxious puppies by our harnesses to ensure we did not bolt out into the prop of the oncoming plane (Warning #2 of 6 from our "thorough" training), we climbed a steel ladder up into a rackety old, single prop plane that looked and felt as if it would fall apart immediately should the wind pick up past a stiff breeze. My only consolation at this time was the knowledge that we did have a parachute strapped to us should anything go wrong.

Making our way to the end of the runway, we bolted off and climbed our way up to our jumping altitude of 13000 feet. Perhaps it was a case of nerves playing tricks on my mind, but it sure felt like we toured half of Western OR before finally circling back towards our jump point.

Though my palms were sweaty, my nerves were surprisingly under control, and I gave Katie a couple of last kisses just in case (much to the chagrin of her fat tandem partner who took a little too much pleasure in strapping her close). As my partner and hers joked about tips in hopes of bulking up their day's pay, the red light came on indicating our need to ready ourselves for the jump ahead.

Before I knew it Amanda and her friend Gary were out the door and Katie's fat instructor was racing us to the exit. As the last ones out, I had a moment to look down at the world below and contemplate what I was about to do. In that instant, time stood still and my focus rested solely on the grassy field far below, when suddenly I felt my legs get thrown out from underneath me and felt, for a brief second, my stomach float to my throat.

Uttering a silent and quick "oh, shit" (silent at least in my own mind, it may well have been bellowed for all I know) Tim proceeded to twist and turn us in a procession of somersaults and spins; enough to make me queasy, but not enough to raise my fear level. Within ten seconds we were in an arched position and I was staring out at the clear skied expanse a July day offers as I watched the ground edge closer and closer to my frame of reference.

For an instant, as the ground and runway below loomed larger and larger, I feared Tim had suffered an unfortunate heart attack when I felt his legs wrap around mine and the parachute deploy. Instantly, we were floating serenely over the exact spot we took off from and Tim quickly taught me how to maneuver and control the chute and I was free to steer us down in spins and loops.

As the last one out of the plane but first ones down (the more you spin the faster you drop), we edged towards the ground and I was warned to put my feet up. Before I knew it, we were down and the journey was over, I was again on solid soil (thankfully, without so much as soiling myself). We had dropped 13,000 feet in a little over five minutes (8000 of them were in 55 seconds).

I don't know if I expected some giant epiphany, I know I at least expected nerves, but I felt no real fear until after we were driving off and I had a moment to contemplate what I had just done.

One of the greatest things about having a girlfriend who likes to try new things is that I am never bored, one of the worst (and this is only because I am a wimp) is that I am actually forced to go through with them all. I have had an eventful year and plan on letting Katie continue to challenge me and force me to do things far out of my comfort zone, as this surely was never close to my radar before meeting her.

I have to admit, I never thought I would be saying this, but I would recommend everyone try and jump out of a perfectly good airplane at least once, the feeling is unlike anything you will ever experience.

Going back: April 24-30

As much as I enjoyed Amberlee's company, by now my brain was so fried from the previous four days that all I wanted was to be back home. The allure of a cozy bed, a new girlfriend, and the knowledge that home held limited surprises proved too great a draw, and I spent the next day and a half looking for a ticket back. This endeavor of course, garnered nothing but endless jokes from Amberlee, but I knew that she understood my reasons as our conversations about her last boyfriend, Ari, let slip her true opinion of love.

Though I knew that I would again be running away from the experiences and ensuing drama needed to learn and to grow, my tail tucked sheepishly between my legs like a dog that just tore apart his owner's favorite slippers; for my sanity, going home was something I had to do.

With a flight booked for a week out, it turned out that my anticipated time catching up with my friend was to be shared in equal parts with an unanticipated guest, as Jenn's love of her roommate became painfully obvious in her puppy dog affinity for anything Amberlee. Though extremely sweet, the concept of space was something that seemingly never crossed Jenn's mind, and wherever we went, so did she. Through conversations I could tell that she was an intelligent girl, but her desire to be involved often trumps her common sense, even when aware that two friends long separated may want a minute or two of unaccompanied time.

It was later on in the week that I met another of Amberlee's disciples, her neighbor Will, the other curious stand in from the front door conversation the night of my arrival. At 30, Will's biggest claim to fame is something most people would be remiss to have as common knowledge, he has not had sex in a decade. Obviously intelligent, and not an ugly man, it is perhaps Will's chosen life path that does him in.

Choosing employment at a job normally reserved for pimply faced teenagers, his pizza delivery pay affords him no other luxury than residence in the garage of his parents' home. Though decked out in the latest of technologies, and an obviously comfortable, laid back room in which each visitor is given a marker and his or her own brick to create their own unique mark, nothing about living in such close proximity to one's parents shows a desire to change one's reality.

Through all of this, neither his lack of drive nor confidence has slowed his attempts at courtship of Amberlee. By the end of the week my jokes of "charity work" done by her on his behalf had worn as thin as hers about my sheepish return home.

Thankfully, during my stay, Amberlee had limited responsibilities, a rarity for a girl whose inability to say no is legendary. Over the week we passed the time watching bad Mexican soap operas, rock climbing and philosophizing about life, relationships, and our friendship. Knowing that she was about to embark on the draining experience of nursing school, and wanting a get away from all things Albuquerque for a short while before a self-imposed exile to focus on school, we planned a trip to Carlsbad Caverns, a destination she had visited as a child and desired to see again.

We left Saturday morning around noon, our goal the southernmost part of New Mexico. The drive was scenic - in as much as looking at open expanses of nothing but dead or dying brush and dirt can be considered scenic. Though the huge skies and dark, rain soaked clouds left over from the night's storms were beautiful, the biggest debate - and perhaps Amberlee's greatest gift - was the conversation about what constitutes life and therefore our interpretation of scenic beauty. For Amberlee, though dry and barren, the desert is alive with plant and animal life; for me, something with a hue other than brown has to actually block my view of the horizon before I can truly consider it beautiful and alive with life.

Through a seemingly endless desert, we arrived later that afternoon in Roswell, home to famed Area 51. Much larger and more modern than I would have ever guessed, with new buildings and strip malls housing all of the latest offerings popping up everywhere, Roswell took me by surprise. We stopped off just south of downtown for some food a mile or so away from the New Mexico Military Institute at a large wood and glass restaurant called Farleys. Farley's was a modern, messier version of Red Robin, perhaps due to its location in the middle of the New Mexico desert but probably more so for the massive boost of testosterone from the local base. Because the Military Institute made the guy to girl ratio in this part of town 10-1, I had a difficult time convincing Amberlee to leave, as a night of free drinking crossed her mind more than once.

After a meal of a huge, greasy cheeseburgers, interesting artwork, and great people watching, we again hopped in Bessie to finish our drive. Arriving at the northern gate to Carlsbad around six, we took note of a campground just outside of the Park's boundaries and headed up the road to the Park's entrance. On the drive up we realized why the campground was full as we noticed numerous signs banning overnight camping.

Both tired from a long day's drive and with a belly still full from a meal of greasy food, we decided to take a nap and woke just in time to see a ranger making his rounds through the parking lot. Pulling up next to Bessie the baby faced, blond headed ranger swung his legs out of his truck and made his way over to us. Young enough to look as though he just finished his Junior Ranger training a year ago, and knowing Amberlee would have much more luck avoiding any wrath, I left her alone to head him off and converse.

Through her wiles and charms, we found out his job was to kick us out for the night, but he was now rethinking this task. Seemingly smitten with Amberlee, he told us that if we stayed longer he would not "notice" if we slept there, though his warning of his boss' legendary tirades made us rethink the possibility. I tried to convince Amberlee that she could have as much success convincing a female ranger, but she seemed to think it would be a better idea not to try.

Driving back down in the dark to the campground we spied earlier, we decided on a dinner of tacos, chased down by SoCo and ginger ale. Later that evening, after cleaning up the spilled taco meat fat lost in a poorly executed balancing act, we decided on a walk through the Park and wandered lazily out to the road. On this moonless night, the sky looked as though someone had poked thousands of holes in a black canvas as we walked and talked about life and relationships.

It was during this conversation that my phone rang, Katie was calling to say hello and see how the drive was. Sensing that Katie may be wary of me spending the night alone with another woman, Amberlee grabbed the phone out of my hands and introduced herself with the ease of an old friend being reacquainted with a long lost best friend. Before I knew it they were already planning on hanging out in July during Amberlee's annual trek back to her beloved Corvallis for some tree hugging; the strangest part was they were going to hang out whether I was there or not.

Waking the next morning we arrived at the Park's headquarters to find out that the reason so many cars were still in the parking lot at dusk the night before was the nightly feeding of the thousands of Carlsbad's resident bats. Saddened by the missing of such a rare event, we checked in at the Park's counter and, with my National Park's Annual Pass, we covered our costs and strolled off towards the cave's entrance. On the way we were stopped by a female ranger no older than 20 whose job entailed reciting the same dry dialogue about the caves' rules over and over every day. Sheepishly holding my pack full of contraband tight to my back, we bee-lined it for the cave's mouth and made our way into its depths.

Words cannot adequately describe the wonderment of below, 754 feet of cave walls and formations formed in a blackness so profound that no amount of time would allow a human's eyes to ever adjust. Found by a teenage cowboy, Jim White, in 1898, Carlsbad Caverns have been explored by countless over the years. Lit up by recessed lighting, the formations, crevasses, and shelves create a picture of serene beauty; much like a sky's clouds, the walls and formations hold images unique to the eyes of every individual. The craziest part of the caverns were the bathrooms and concessions built into the rock walls at its extreme depth, bathrooms and even a concessions stand meet you before taking the elevator ride out as a means to avoid the long walk back up.

We left that afternoon on the long drive home, leaving ourselves just enough return time before her soccer game when Bessie started acting up, coughing and sputtering on the uphill portions of the drive, the load seemingly too great for her 67 horses. We arrived with minutes to spare and Amberlee rushed off to change. I chose to stay home and talk to Katie, a decision based upon a missing of her voice as well as Amberlee's stalwart no to my offer to come watch her play.

The next couple of days were rife with talk, wanders around town, and roommates until Thursday's flight. By now, I think Amberlee was needing a break from me and, with one last poke at my failed independence, I gave Amberlee a hug of thanks for the ride, as well as the hospitality, and made my way through an empty Albuquerque airport, longing for the next four hours to vanish rapidly so I could be home.

Reconnection: Albuquerque - April 23

I spent last night more alone than any other on this trip as my usual telephone conversation was relegated to the blinking black letters staring back at me from a computer screen rather than through the compassionate, loving voice I had grown so accustomed to hearing. Surprised at my need to possess a phone that's operations expanded beyond emergency use, I quickly set about finding a T-mobile store to reconnect both my phone and my mind in Albuquerque.

Cresting over a hill, the scenery of desert and dead brush finally gave way to an expanse of concrete and metal rising out of the seemingly lifeless ground, as the city's skyline and freeways spread out before me. The long, lonely four lane interstate quickly became a spiderweb of red clay lanes as the city's roads struggled to keep up with the exploding population.

Though catchy, I had come to find that AT & T's slogan of "More Bars in More Places" is much more a marketing catchphrase than an actuality as their 3G network paid off only when near a city, the remainder of the time I was forced to wade through dial-up length downloads or no connection at all. Thankfully, being in Albuquerque, I was able to locate a local T-mobile store and bee-lined it north using the flow of cars as my speedometer.

Having spent so much time on the endless, open freeways, battling traffic was something I was unaccustomed to and I slowly went mad weaving my way in and out of all of the vehicles, eyes peeled in earnest for the purplish hue of a T-Mobile sign. Spying it on my left, I used Bessie's bulk to force my way into the turn lane and pulled into an all too common strip mall of concrete, steel, and glass and parked in a corner spot.

Excited to be so close to hearing Katie's voice again, yet weary from the past few days' turmoil, I exited Bessie and ambled slowly towards T-Mobile's front doors. Entering, I was surprised to see six employees milling about shooting the shit, the economy obviously taking a toll on customers but not factoring into managerial decisions.

A cute, dark haired girl, wearing glasses that spoke to either a possible college education expected of her age or just a stylistic need, broke away from the pack with a gait that spoke of pulling the short straw.

Listening with feigned interest to my tale of woe and need she immediately pulled out a prepaid phone and set about unnecessarily explaining its operation. It must have been something about my sarcastic questions surrounding dialing protocol that caught her on to the fact that I was telephone savvy as she finally rolled her eyes with a look somewhere between thanks and annoyance and walked me over to an unused store phone to connect me with the T-mobile.

I guess my assumption of competence out of T-mobile's service line was overzealous, as I spent the next twenty minutes trying to explain my phone's problems to a girl who obviously wasn't listening, as her ideas of a fix involved operations beyond the phone's current capabilities. Perplexed that I was unable to even access the menu, she walked me through an obvious corporate protocol designed to find fault in the phone's owner. Relying on patience and humor it was finally understood that the issues lay in the phone and decided that T-mobile would send me a replacement for a "nominal" shipping fee of $19.99.

With a promise of the phone's arrival within three days, I realized that I could get by using Amberlee's phone while in Albuquerque and set about finding the fashion conscious salesgirl. Chatting briefly with her, she promptly informed me that, once bought, nothing could be done about returning the prepaid phone, even though it was never used. Shaking my head in disbelief I left the store fighting back a desire to question the logic of a faceless corporation and hopped into Bessie to call Katie, a need to hear her voice ringing in my ears and guiding my steps.

Relaxed finally and pulling back into the throngs of traffic, a list of items forgotten in a hasty departure days ago flashed through my mind. Spying a poor traveler's beacon of hope, WalMart, a few blocks down the road, I pulled into the parking lot just as my ex's name and number flashed onto my replacement phone's screen.

Tired and frustrated from the past few days I answered, my voice ringing with frustration, and she quickly realized that talking to her was not high on my list of priorities. Apathetically, I told her I would call her back in the next few days, my lack of apology for my haste falling with a thud on the other end of the line and set about my shopping.

Finally feeling like Bessie was completely ready for travel, I made my way through the outskirts of Albuquerque and arrived a short while later at Amberlee's street, a nice residential area filled with trees and stucco houses. Rolling down the road I set about checking the fading addresses on the curb to find her house and edged past what I thought was an empty lot as the trees, vines and weeds covered all I could see. Noticing the faded address on the next drive I realized that I had rolled right past her home and backed up to a spot in front of her house.

Laughing to myself about her gardening skills, and knowing that she would not be back from work until nine, I planned on spending the next few hours killing time by giving Bessie a long overdue cleaning. My antisocial nature took over and left me feeling a little odd as my lack of a courtesy hello to either her housemate or neighbor - both of whom stood out front of her house chatting for a good 15 minutes hoping to coerce this recluse out of hiding in some form of assurance that I was not a complete creep - left me realizing the extent of my fatigue.

A couple of hours later, finally done cleaning and in need of a bathroom, I headed for the front door to introduce myself just as Amberlee's roommate, Jenn, a shorter, pudgy girl whose desire to fit in fell short of fitness but was apparent in her attempts at fashionable dress and hair styling, was leaving for a friend's house. We chatted for a short while and made our introductions, our conversation giving her hope that I was not a complete whack job, and I headed inside to use the facilities.

I was impressed at the house's size and cleanliness, something I was unsure of after seeing the overzealous nature of the vines climbing over the windows and walls. Making my way back out to Bessie, I was cleaning up from a dinner of tacos a short while later when I heard a gleeful voice yell my name and turned to see Amberlee joyously jumping into Bessie, her blond hair and pretty, white smile lighting up the darkness.

Immediately making herself at home, she plopped her skirted, athletic body down and we spent the next half hour talking and telling stories until her need to pee forced us inside to indoor plumbing - for some reason my offer to share my bottle did not sit too well.

We spent the evening catching up and planned the next few days. I fell asleep later that night happy to be in the company of friends, and happier still that I could actually hear Katie's voice.