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Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Day 7
Driving Nevada
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| Nevada Mountains Tesco Vee is our co-pilot |
Michelle started the day; I finished it. We rolled into Sacramento around 1:00AM. I've said I'm comfortable with night driving-- I am, and I stand by that-- but I-80 west was a clusterfuck of barely-going-35 uphill to “6% grade next 5 miles – 50 mph recommended.” Michelle called me a nervous driver, and for this leg, I definitely was: I can do 18 hours straight behind the wheel, but even the huge mountain passes of Oregon and California are highways... I-80 was two lanes, tight, curvy, under construction, and I was either struggling to climb or riding the brakes. It's not a fun way to pull a low-slung trailer full of heavy band gear.
My favorite moment of the night was rolling up on the Cali border "are you carrying any fruits or vegetables" checkpoint. There was only one lane open, and I pulled up, kinda fried from hours of driving. The woman at the gate asked "Where are you coming from?"
My mind went blank. We came from SLC, but we're from Seattle. What should I...
"Seattle," says Michelle, from the passenger seat.
"Could you open the trailer for me?"
"Sure," I say. I can answer this question. I am a medulla oblongata and a spinal cord at this point, but I've got nothing to hide. "Two hours to Sacramento" is the only actual thought I can manifest.
I hop out, head to the trailer, and...
*HONK*
A shiny, white, jacked-up pickup truck behind us in line honks its horn. Dude, I think, it wasn't my idea to get out and open the trailer.
*HONK*
He does it again. The cop that stands with the woman at the checkpoint (she's not wearing California Highway Patrol gear; I don't know what her official capacity is) approaches the truck. "Did you just honk your horn?" he asks the idiot in the truck.
By this time I had popped the trailer and given everyone a quick glance of our cabinets, amps, drums, and hardware. They sent us off without incident.
Minutes later, a jacked-up, white pickup blasts past us. A few seconds after that, a police car speeds after the truck. A few seconds more: we roll past the idiot receiving his roadside interview. I have no idea what his big damn hurry was, but The Man in the Douchey Truck picked the worst possible method of getting to his destination quickly. Robert Heinlein said "Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity," but he wrote it before the CHP started getting between Death and the stupid. Now stupidity is punishable by a date in traffic court.
Anyway...
I-80 is made more fun by a trailer whose left side lights go out when I hit the brakes or a broken passenger-side mirror (we taped in a replacement and adjusted its pitch and yaw with rocks and bottle caps. I wish I was kidding.) Oddly enough, the last tour also had a van with a non-functional passenger side mirror... merging right was an exorcise in teamwork. Right now, with the last bottle cap in place (under the zebra duct tape, to crank it up a bit), the driver can actually see! Woo!
All of the Utah money is gone-- a couple hundred bucks got us across Nevada and left us in Sac with a quarter tank of gas. We have two shows in this town; no long hauls, and two nights to put money in the tank. Oakland to Portland will be another all-day drive, but the next three shows ought pay for the trip. I wish this weren't such a huge part of tour this time... last tour, gas was two bucks and change, now it's four dollars plus. Mileage costs have doubled since last time, and after blowouts and tows, a low-income show could actually sink us.
Still, we're crashing with a friend just a few blocks from tomorrow's show. We're here.
I never thought I'd say this but: I'm thrilled to be in California. I've been on the west coast nearly half my life now, and I never spent much time thinking about not being on the coast. Crossing the mountains and landing in Sac has been a relief I was not expecting. Don't get me wrong-- we had good shows in Utah, and spent time with good people, but the gestalt of our days in Idaho and Utah (and even the over-the-Rockies side of Washington and Oregon) seemed to be more limiting than expansive.
Or maybe California is just making me write like a hippie.
We're not homesick or anything after a single week, but we did play a lot of local metal in transit: Same Sex Dictator, Phalgeron, and Black Breath balanced out Beastie Boys, Bane, Devo, Gwar, and Cake (don't judge us.) The van stereo is usually run by whoever's sitting shotgun, so today was a lot of me and Michelle.
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