Update Post

This is an update to the post: Chapter Two: Welcome to Bridgeport, Population 817.

I wrote about how I got stuck in the small town of Bridgeport, California, when my car broke down after hitting a large rock.  While it was not fun to wreck my car and stressful to be unexpectedly stranded more than 200 miles away from home with no immediately discernible way to get back home, I did have a good time in Bridgeport.  Bridgeport sits in a gorgeous part of the country, just east of the imposing Sierra Nevada mountain range, and is surrounded by breathtaking views of snow-capped peaks.  More importantly, all the people we met were incredibly open and friendly people.  In a city, with its teeming anonymity, faces melt into the urban landscape.   In Bridgeport -- where someone you meet on the street is someone you might see the next day at the only coffee shop in town -- everyone stands out as a distinct human.  Whenever I stopped strangers on the street to ask for advice, each person listened and answered my questions with care.  No one seemed to be in a hurry to shake me off or eyed me with suspicion about my motives.  Some people offered to let me use their phones.

Several people, in particular, buoyed my (and my boyfriend's) spirits during this stressful time:

• Ramon and Merna -- the wonderful couple we met at the coffee show.  Ramon and his blue-grass band, "Big Meadow," played several fun, toe-tapping songs while my boyfriend and I sat in the sunshine outside the coffee shop waiting to hear from Steve about the car.  Merna inspired us with stories about about driving snow-mobiles in Swagger Creek and building her hydroelectric powered house.  
• Brian -- the slightly drunk, bigger than life personality that made two different phone calls on our behalf to his friends to see if he find a hotel or camping spot for me, my boyfriend, and my dog, for the night.  Brian also went out of his way to knock on the door of a friend who might have been able to give us a ride to Mammoth Lakes (a city about 60 miles away).
• Kathy -- the incomparable hostess of the Bridgeport Inn who not only made us feel welcome at the Inn, but went out of her way to inquire about Teabiscuit several times.  
• Steve -- the mechanic who went above and beyond the call of duty -- including working on a holiday weekend and driving 1.5 hours to search for the right transmission fluid -- to try to get my car running again.  And when all those efforts failed, Steve refused compensation.  

Also, Fourth of July in Bridgeport is a must-see event.  The city spends the whole year fundraising, planning, and looking forward to this occasion.  Even the most cynical, I've-seen-it-all naysayer would be charmed by the honest-to-goodness earnestness of Bridgeport's Fourth of July celebration.  

• There is an old fashioned parade, complete with donkeys, horses, marines, balloons, fire trucks and old cars.  Everyone shows up to the occasion wearing red, white and blue.  

• The city coordinates festivities that involves many members of the community.  Men and women arm wrestle in their weight class for trophies.  Kids climb up greased poles to grab dollar bills. These simple games were enormously entertaining to watch.

• The community organized an arts and crafts fair where you could buy handmade birdhouses shaped like tractors and kids could make candles in the same of ice cream floats.  There was also mobile studio that took old-timey photographs that portay you as a western-style gunslinger or showgirl.  I went for the Annie Oakley look.  (Thanks to Chris, at antiquesportraits.com who did a great job.)

• Of course, there are also fireworks.  It was a spectacular show.  In a year of depressing economic times when major cities struggle to pull off fireworks, the Bridgeport display is a testament to the resilience and come-together spirit of small-town residents and businesses.  

All told, it was a beautiful way to spend a holiday weekend.  I plan to head out there next year.

(Peace Love Bridgeport)

My Moron Tax Weekend: Chapter Two

Chapter Two: 
Welcome to Bridgeport, Population 817

As I wrote in my previous blog post, on July 3, 2010, my car broke down at the gas station on the edge of the small town of Bridgeport, California.  I had run into a large rock that, in turn, ripped a hole in an oil pan, causing my car to lose motor oil until the engine could no longer run.  When I ran into the gas station to ask for help, I was informed no one there could help me.  "Find Steve," I was told, "He's the only mechanic in town."  I asked at the gas station across the street and got the same answer: "You need Steve, and Steve's not here."  When I called the local AAA affiliate to locate a mechanic, the dispatcher asked, "Isn't Steve there?"


It took some time to find Steve.  The rodeo was in town -- I mean that literally -- and Steve was enjoying it with his family.  This was not only a Saturday but a holiday weekend, and he was rightly on vacation.  Lucky, for me, though, word somehow got to Steve that an idiot fool tore up her car running over a rock and needed his help rather desperately.  Steve was nice enough to follow up and find me at the gas station to offer his services.  He, my boyfriend, and I then pushed the car over to his garage and Steve examined the undercarriage.  He came back with sobering news.  As it turns out, the rock did not merely crack the oil pan, it crumpled one of its corners.  The pan looked as if Superman had punched it in anger and left an indent in the shape of his fist.  The rock also ripped through some wires and chipped off sizable hunks of the metal frame.  Despite how bad it looked, Steve would try to patch (J-B weld) the oil pan.  If everything went perfectly, the patch could allow me to limp home with my car.  

With hope in our hearts (and wild, delusional optimism in our minds), we left Steve to his work, bought ourselves some burgers for lunch, and then lodged ourselves at the one coffee shop in town.  The coffee shop was across the street from Steve's garage, so we could watch the progress.  Around 5 pm, Steve called me over for the bad news.

"The rock," Steve explained, "cracked your transmission pan.  In order to weld the pan, I had to drain out all the transmission fluid."  

"Uh huh..."

"I welded your pan, and it looks really good.  But, your car isn't like most cars.  Most cars have a place in the engine for you to pour in transmission fluid.  You car has a sealed transmission, so there's no place for me to pour the transmission fluid back into your car."

"Huh....?"

"And here's another problem: even if I could pour it in, I don't have that kind of transmission fluid.  Your car takes a very special kind of transmission fluid that I've never seen before."

"Uhhhhh.."

"There is no way to fix your car until -- best case scenario -- I can drive down to Bishop (a town about 1.5 hr drive away) on Monday (today was Saturday) and find the transmission fluid you need and then use a pump to get the fluid back in the transmission."

"Shit."

Here is a comprehensive list of the challenges I was then facing:

• I was 231 miles away from home.
• Nightfall was coming, and I had no place for me and my boyfriend to sleep.  There were only four motels in all of Bridgeport, and the Fourth of July Weekend was the town's biggest tourist event of the year.  The nearest campground was more than 6 miles away, and it was totally booked.
• The closest town bigger than Bridgeport was Mammoth Lakes, more than 60 miles away.  The closest city was Reno, Nevada, more than 115 miles away.
• There are no taxis, buses, or public transportation that run in that area.  The nearest rental car company was closed until Monday.
• Neither my boyfriend nor I had any cell phone reception.  (I can't tell you how many times I heard someone say to me "Oh, you don't have Verizon" while shaking their head.)  There was only one pay phone left in town.
• Lastly, I had my dog with me.  Poor Teabiscuit.

I did not feel I had much choice.  There was no place to go.  I left the car with Steve on the instructions that he should try to fix the car on Monday.  My boyfriend and I set off to see if we could find any place that would squeeze us in for two nights.  I felt desperate.  I could see the neon "no vacancy" lights of the motels turning on in the dusk-light.  We walked up and down the main street, stopping random strangers for advice on where to go and what to do.  People were warm and kindly, but everyone turned up the same answer, "It's July 4th weekend.  It's the biggest weekend here.  Everything's probably sold out."  Someone suggested that we ask the church if we could camp on their lawn.  I started to wonder if we should appeal to the Sheriff Department for a ride somewhere, anywhere, that would have a bed.  

At last, we came to the Bridgeport Inn.  They had the last available room in town. I jumped up and down as relief steamed out of me until, I realized, there was a catch.  No dogs allowed.  I started to beg the proprietors for compassion (and frankly, propose to pay a double rate), but they told me that health laws forbade dogs in the room because it was above a restaurant.  I relented and quietly paid for the room.  My boyfriend and I spent the rest of the night sitting in the warm night air at the local burger joint with Teabiscuit, until it got late.   Around 11pm, we walked the dog back to the car where he would sleep alone that night.  I bedded Teabsicuit down and left him with a bowl of water and doggie treats.  He didn't even bark or whimper when we closed the door and walked away.  When we got to the hotel room, I cried.

To be continued...

*This is a blog about moron tax, so I focused my story on the stress and series of unfortunate incidents that plagued me.  At that same time, there were some really fun and great times.  Bridgeport is a really cute town with tremendously friendly people and a great spirit.  If you want to read about the bright side of the weekend, visit my updates.

My Moron Tax Weekend: Chapter One

This past four-day weekend was an Odyssey of moron tax.  On Saturday, I committed one small error in judgment that got me stranded far from home.  It took me nearly four days from that point to find my way back.  On that journey, I got stuck in 2 cities that I never thought I'd visit, spent three hours in a tow truck, abandoned my car in Reno, rented three cars in three days, drove through a violent hail storm, and wasted more than one thousand dollars.

What happened?  As Homer might have said, Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story....

Chapter One: I Hit a Rock with My Car

For the Fourth of July weekend, my boyfriend and I decided to spend a few nights camping around Peeler Lake in the Hoover Wilderness.  The Hoover Wilderness is on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada.  To get there from my house, we would have to drive several hours on Highway 108 and traverse the Sonora Pass.  Because Highway 108 travels over a high mountain pass, it is notoriously steep, curvy, and narrow.  It also goes through relatively remote territory.  There are no cellphone signals in that part of the country, the towns are many miles apart, and there are no public phones or public transportation to speak of.  If you car breaks down, you are stranded until you can hitch a ride from a kind stranger to the closest gas station, which may be more than 40 miles away.

I was coming around a corner on Highway 108 when I saw a huge rock in the middle of my lane.  The rock was a chunk of the mountainside that must have broken off and tumbled into the road perhaps just moments before I arrived.  I had less than two seconds to make a decision.  Although I braked, I did not have time to bring the car to full stop.  I did not want to veer right, because, at such speed, I could careen into the mountainside that runs along the highway.  I also did not want to veer left and cross into the opposing lane.  Instead, I decided to run over the rock and hope that my car could clear it safely.  Of course, it didn't.

The car slammed into and then violently bounced over the rock.  There was a crunching sound so loud that it could be heard over my involuntary screaming.  When I regained control of the car, I pulled over to the side of the road ahead of the rock and jumped out to assess the damage.  I could see splintered bits of my car strewn across the road.  Part of my bumper had cracked off.  Worse yet, I could see a trail of black motor oil leading from the rock to my car.  From past experience, I knew that such a drip meant that my car was heading towards total system failure.  

My boyfriend and I hopped back into my car and drove in the direction of the nearest civilization.  Despite the trauma, the car drove well and carried us almost twenty miles to the nearest gas station in Bridgeport, California.  After we reached the station, I turned off the car and ran inside the station for help.  When I got back, there was a puddle of motor oil beneath my car, and my car was dead.  We were now stranded 231 miles away from home.

This was the beginning of my weekend.

To be continued...

**To give you an idea of what it was like to run over the rock, I would say that it was worse than this:

but better than this: