Cookout Stories 2009 Vol. 2

Last volume, I told the beginning and the end of this trip. This volume, I'll tell the noteworthy moments up to our arrival in Maine.

Sushi, Einherjar, and Night Driving

Kaelis got home to find a Canuck and myself sitting on his back porch drinking beer. After some chitchat, we go inside and start getting set up for our Einherjar run later that evening. All of us could have taken the night off in regards to Einherjar due to already having the feathers needed for Odin...except for the Canuck...who, for some reason, prioritized things like...family, concerts and beer over Einherjar. So in order for us to see the "Everyone doing Odin Saturday" plans come to fruition, Yoteo is faced with a must-win Tier 3 run.

Since we had a crapload of time before Einherjar started, we decided to go get some dinner when Mrs. Kaelis got home. Japanese restaurant named Ando was where we went and boy did we destroy some sushi. I think the final count was 6 california rolls, 3 sushi dinners, 2 eel rolls, 2 spicy tuna rolls and I can't even remember the rest. We had leftovers that made their way to CT with us (more on this part later).

Einherjar went off w/o a hitch and Odin on Saturday for everyone was now possible. Given the time, we all started prepping the car for our 12 hour drive to Hartford, CT the next day.



This would be said car (in Maine at the end of the trip...it was dark in Cinci when we loaded it up). Note the open hatchback. Fill it up with all of our stuff and keep that mental image in mind for later.



This would be an obligatory ass picture demonstrating the actual loading of the car.

After I took my shower, I felt really refreshed and energized and I knew if I had tried to go to sleep, I'd just feel like absolute shit driving the next day. So I had the bright idea to get everyone packed up and get on the road....

...at 1AM.

Now the 3 that were in the car with me will all gripe about having to get in a car at 1AM and start the process, but given the events that unfolded later in the trip with said car, it was actually awesome that we did. Aside from my fatigue logic, I also knew it'd be faster if we drove through the busy portions of the trip (mostly Ohio) during the night. The original plan was for us to head out about 7 or 8 AM and it was already 1AM.

So off we go. A stationwagon full of luggage, gaming gear, Yoteo, Kaelis, Erimentha and myself.

A Canuck's Collection of Rest Stop Ass Symphonies

About 2-3 hours into this trip, we pull off for a restroom break. Kaelis, Yot and I all head into the men's room and take up a stall. I just had to pee, so I wasn't going to be in there long. While I'm in there, I start singing "Swing Low" in my basso grando voice and next thing I know...I'm being drowned out by what sounds like someone letting an untied, air-filled balloon go flying around the room.

Repeatedly.

And not your standard sized balloons, we're talking hot-air balloon sized.

Now normally, someone farting while having a bowel movement isn't something I would laugh at, but this just kept going and going and going. It was seriously along the lines of the Jeff Daniels' "Dumb and Dumber" laxative scene. I couldn't help it any longer...I just cracked up. Even Kaelis, who is far less likely than me to laugh at that sort of thing, started laughing. There's nothing I can really say to describe the noises that came out of Yoteo's stall that particular break to do it justice other than to say that was one manly ASS EXPLOSION!™ [call4]

Talk about first impressions. Yot hadn't been around us any longer than maybe...half a day at that point and two of us had already had audio representation of his bathroom trips.

(Sorry, no pictures of this thankfully.)

Car Upkeep Part 1

Back on the road we go. The rest of the drive is relatively uneventful until we get into Connecticut. I drove up to I-80 then let Yoteo take over for a bit. After a couple hours, it was Kaelis' turn to drive, then Erimentha's. As we got towards the end of I-80, I took over again and drove the rest of the way.

Once we got into Connecticut though, we got stopped by some heavy congestion on the highway. About this time, I notice that the temperature gauge on the car is almost in the red zone.

Thats....not good.

When we'd move, it'd drop, but when we'd idle, it'd go up. So I pulled off at a rest stop a bit to let it cool off (plus we had to take a rest stop break anyway). Turns out the oil hadn't been changed prior to us coming up here. It wasn't that the car was way over the mileage (hit the "change me" point when we actually got into Hartford), it was that if it had been changed, odds are the cooling issue we discovered later would have been found and dealt with then. Fortunately, we weren't slowed down much after the rest stop break and the temperature gauge behaved itself for the most part. We knew we were going to have to get it checked before we made the part of the trip from Hartford to Maine though.

Kaylea's Place

Finally the long part of our drive was done. We got to Kay's place about 2PM and unloaded the car. She didn't know we were leaving earlier than usual and upon finding that out, she calls me to make sure I wasn't going to take a nap and to come pick her up from work.

Brief recap...

- Overheating Car
- Boyfriend that just drove 12 hours on a couple hours of sleep.

...and she wouldn't even let me take a nap.

So it's only natural I ask her to marry me w/o a ring right? :)

Yeah...

After picking her up, I did indeed get a nap in (along with everyone else). We woke up around 5:30PM all hungry, but first, we needed to get the oil changed and find out why the car was overheating.

In my own, do-it-yourself diagnostic, I guessed the fluid in the cooling tank was low or gone. This guess was backed up by me wiggling said tank looking for the silhouette of fluid bouncing around inside that would indicate how much was in there. There was no bouncing silhouette...and I avoided opening the tank up due to the engine being hot at the time (I did this when we initially got to Kay's apartment right off the highway).

The only place that changes oil that's open after 6PM is apparently Sears. When we come back to get the car (we killed time by looking through Toys R' Us and a couple other stores in the vicinity), turns out that the cooling tank is indeed full of fluid but...it's actually some form of congealed goop. This is usually caused by fluids mixing via two different brands of coolant, oil leaking in from the head gasket, etc. Cooling system flush was going to be $80, but Kaelis wanted to try to wait and see if it was cheaper with his mechanic back home. We knew the car was fine on the highway as long as we were moving and the trip from Hartford to Maine wasn't exactly a congested trip and the weather was on our side as it was rather cool for this time of year in New England.

With that, we ran off to dinner at a greek restaurant called Tapas (my favorite place to eat in Hartford). After dinner, it was off to the mall to pick up chocolates from Munson's for Kay's grandmother and mother. This was an absolute necessity as my life would have ended if we showed up without them. Then it was back to Kay's place to lounge around for a few hours until everyone went to sleep and then back on the road again in the morning around 9AM to head to Maine.

Enter King Cranky and "70MPH + Open Hatchback = ?"

Once we crossed into Maine about noonish, we met up with the King of Cranky himself, Suraph.



This is in Maine at the end of the trip, but pretty much sums up Comrade Cranky as best as any picture can w/o a plane and hockey gear in it. We split the crew up between cars making sure Kay was in one car and I was in the other since we were the only two that knew the way to our destination. It ended up being Cranky, Canuck and me in Cranky's car and Kaelis, Kay and Erimentha in the wagon.

We drive for a bit, pull off to get lunch, then drive for a little bit more and pull off at a gas station for a restroom break. While we're all in this store, Kaelis gets into the back of the wagon to get something out (I can't remember what). Yoteo and I both saw him close the hatchback. As we're leaving the gas station parking lot, the Cranky crew notices...the hatchback has opened.

No problem right? We can just honk our horn or call them and they'll pull over to close it.

Yeah, no.

We're in the left turn lane getting ready to turn back onto the interstate. Suraph basically has the nose of his car against the back of theirs laying into the horn. I've got the passenger door open getting ready to run up and try to close the thing before they take off, but it's too late. They took off. I fumbled around with my phone trying to call Kay to let her know what was up and...

...no answer.

They're up to about 70 on the highway now and what's worse is they're changing lanes quite a bit to weave in and out of traffic. We're watching the contents of the wagon blow around a bit and we're certain we're going to lose a lot of stuff. Finally I get through to Kaelis and they pulled over, but not before we lost the most important thing in there:

The Munson's chocolates.

Man I was pissed.

There's two stages to my level of anger. Mouthy and Silent. If I'm mouthing off about it, I'm not too angry. If I'm silent...yeah don't bug me. While they're checking out the contents of the wagon to make sure everything is there, I ran about a half mile back along the shoulder of the highway to see if the chocolates stayed in their box. The run was actually a lot further than I thought it'd be, but I knew I needed to do it to blow off some steam.

Here's what didn't make sense and why it didn't ring a bell:

Q: Hatchback is open, there's a light on the dashboard indicating that it is.
A: Bike rack that's normally kept on the hatchback door prevents it from closing, thus the light is usually ignored.

Q: Nose of car nearly touching your rear end with a car horn blaring would usually be cause to at least turn around and look.
A: Music in car was apparently louder than the car horn.

Q: Gaping hole in the back of the car causing the wind to blow or at least make more noise than usual in the car.
A: See previous answer. My own car has an issue on the driver's side window where when it rolls up, it'll sometimes catch the moulding and flip it into the car. This creates a little hole for wind to get through and I hear that no matter what. I'm not sure I understand how this little hole in the side of my car can make more noise than the gaping hole a hatchback door being open would make...

Q: Girlfriend didn't hear her phone.
A: See previous answer.

Q: Driving with music blaring as you're getting onto an interstate thus drowning out noises that could potentially be helpful and keep you alive?
A: I have no explanation for this.

Q: Three people failed to hear a car horn blaring through an open hatchback situated less than 6' behind them.
A: I have no explanation for this either.

Before I go further, I need to explain why I was pissed. Generally, when something happens that's potentially going to cost people a lot of money, I'm going to get angry. The contents in the back of that car probably totaled nearly $6-7000 in value. If those things had fallen out, yeah they're all replaceable, but how do you explain "loud music" as a justifiable reason for not seeing or hearing that in the first place. If it were something like "I hit a pothole, jarred the hatchback open and everything fell out", I would have been mad, but I would have known there was nothing that could have been done.

It just completely baffled me and it's due to my own set of standards while I'm driving. I'm not always the best when it comes to paying attention to my surroundings, but when I'm in a car, I'm more in tune with my surroundings than Beethoven was with his pianos due to the death/danger factor. This was something that wasn't anyone's fault combined with something that was. Fortunately, this was the only time I was angry throughout this entire trip.

Anyway, I got to what was left of the chocolates on the highway and saw that one box was mostly in tact. The other box didn't fare so well and had been flattened by a truck before I could get to it. When I got back to the car, it was pretty obvious that they felt bad. I know the hatchback not latching when Kaelis closed it at the gas station wasn't anyone's fault, but seeing some expressions, I kept what was left of my anger to myself aside from saying "I feel a rant coming on" in the car after we had already gotten back on the road. Suraph is a fan of my rants at times, so he naturally tried to egg me on, but I kept it to myself.

Kaelis fixed the chocolates issue though. While we were driving, he apparently ordered more online. That still didn't stop me from pointing at him the second we saw Kay's mom and saying "it's his fault" before she could even say "Hi."

The Arrival



This would be the house that Kay's Mom designed and Kay's Dad built. It looks modest from the front, but...



From the back, you can see the actual size of the house. The design of this house is meant to have a very open and airy feel to it. You can see in this picture, the bottom and middle floors of the house have windows 3/4 of the way around it. Can't really tell on the bottom floor due to the firewood stacks, but they're there, I promise. :)

From inside the house, you get views like these:






Needless to say, Kaelis, Eri, Yoteo and Suraph were not expecting this. I certainly wasn't when I went up there the first time. Lakefront property in Maine though is pretty much like regular property everywhere else. It's hard to build a house in Maine that isn't next to some body of water or a huge forest.

Once we got in though, we barely had time to get settled in before we were served up with a huge platter of Shepherd's Pie. This started a series of meals that her mom fixed for us every two hours it seemed like.

We had arrived though and now it was time to kick back and relax for a couple days. :)