Your Basic Adventure Part III: Rules for Mountain Trucking

Although I loved working on RALPH, I had come to think lately that he was taking over my life. I worried about him for a good solid month and although I was excited for the launch, a part of me was also excited that I wouldn’t have to worry about him any longer. After spending my nights poring over launch predictions for the past week, I decided that I was just going to have to choose the launch site to the best of my ability and then let it go (like a giant weather balloon). I find there is a great value in checking and double checking calculations and data, especially when they are important. I also admit that sometimes, I can over–do it, becoming way too anxious over something that I am sure is right. On Friday evening, I invoked Jeffry Lebowski (The Dude) and tried to become a little more Zen about the situation. Part of this was telling myself that as soon as the balloon left my hand, I would consider it “over.”

After I let RALPH go and I high-tailed it off of the dirt field to avoid any men in blue that may be approaching, I stuck to that plan wholeheartedly for about 45 minutes. HAMs were on the radio, calling out the altitude of RALPH every minute or so as I walked across the mall parking lot into the outlet mall food court. I figured once I was inside the mall, I was now a “shopper” or “patron” and no longer an “irreverent law breaker.” It made me smile to hear people I had never met before on the radio doing what HAMs do best: communicating and giving updates (and not the passive aggressive kind, either). At one point I heard what sounded to be a very drunk woman on the repeater we were using. She was asking us what frequency we were on. I only mention it because it is rare to hear ladies on the radio and it reminded me of other drunken phone calls I have fielded. “Hey! Sssssoooum, WHAT’S my phone number? This GUY at the bar wants to know.” The sober HAMs quickly shooed her off the frequency (they may have missed an opportunity, though).

I went into the food court and relaxed, just a little. I ordered lunch, talked with my friend Margaret and taught Wei how to order a sandwich at Subway. I was even calm enough to eat a little bit of pizza (this, as it turns out, was probably not a good idea since I felt like RALPHING just a few short hours later—we’ll get to that).

I was checking my iPhone (no, I did not put it in the package) and could see RALPH on www.aprs.fi. I checked the Spot page I had created to monitor the tiny orange panda bear (yes, I do name just about everything) and was only slightly disappointed to see just four GPS updates after launch—we would not hear from the tiny orange panda again. Sitting in the food court watching the buses full of Chinese tourists pull up, I noticed that they seemed to be having a hard time opening the door and also seemed to be entering with uncharacteristically disheveled hair. I took a stroll outside to see what was going on.

It had started to rain. Yup. You heard me, rain. Rain in the desert isn’t all that common, let me remind you. Just 30 minutes after launch, the winds were violent enough to move bus tourist helmet hair and rain had started to fall. It looks like we got rid of RALPH just in time.

I went out in the rain to deliver a sandwich to Chris (my duties are many) who was sitting in a van, outside of the lottery store. Primm lies on the border between Nevada and California and you can walk across the state line in the parking lot and find a store in California which sells lottery tickets. With my luck I should have bought one. I was beginning to grow anxious again, knowing that the balloon should pop soon. My Zen moment was over, it was time to get going. The balloon was heading north and it was time to follow. Travelling at about 60 mph, RALPH went north until he rose in altitude to 60,000 feet where he met with the Jetstream which took him sharply and suddenly west, right over the Pioneer Saloon.

I stocked the Camry full of people and drove up I-15. We turned off at the Jean exit and headed west towards Goodsprings. It was during the drive that the balloon popped. I was a little scared that it wouldn’t, that it would float around for days in the upper atmosphere until the helium leaked out and McCarran airport police came to arrest me, but sure as excrement, it popped. I heard “dropping like a rock” come crackling through on the radio and Jason began to navigate, telling me where to go. I took a second at the stop sign to have a look at where the balloon was headed on my iPhone. My heart surged, there were roads! Near where it was headed, it looked like plenty of roads! I got really excited and even squealed with delight. Then my brother said, “Yeah, but what’s the topography like?” I had forgotten all about topography. When I turned on the “topography,” my heart sank. Yeah, there were roads, but they were roads up a formidable looking mountain.

Over the radio I could hear “looks like it is headed near the road to Potosi.” Was this the road to Potosi? I was hoping that it would land right in the middle of the road we were driving along. Jason navigated us to the bottom of Mt. Potosi, where a few other trucks had stopped as well. We got out to assess the situation. Halley and his father were calmly scanning the terrain, trying to see the parachute as it came down. It was discussed that the road to Potosi could be driven on, but there was a gate blocking the path about a mile up the road. Being a very good girl, I never open gates across roads and drive through. If I was on foot, I would definitely climb over it, but I would not violate the gate in the Camry. These types of gates are always closed by a large chain and a huge lock. It looked as though if we wanted to get up the mountain, we would have to have a key to the mountain. Much to my surprise, the guys on the radio were asking each other “who has the key?” I thought, “How lucky am I?” I know the man who has the key to the mountain. I wouldn’t feel so lucky a few hours later.

I left the Camry at the bottom of the mountain and piled into Denny’s truck to head up Potosi. Three trucks went up, Denny first, followed by Jay with Halley bringing up the rear. I thought I was very lucky to go up with “The Mountain Man” since I figured he had been up the mountain nearly 50 times. This was before I made up Amanda’s Rules for Mountain Trucking. The mountain was steep, like a Dodge Ram commercial (by the way, I can no longer watch those).

On the way up, Denny turned to my brother, Bo and I in the back seat and asked “so, how do you feel about mountain roads?” Having never been asked that particular question before, I didn’t know, so I lied and said “I’m fine.” Well, it wasn’t really a lie, at least not yet, but at the time, the truth was, I didn’t know how I felt about mountain roads because I had never been on one before. Sure, I had driven over the Hoover Dam and been on Highway 1 in California and even driven on some steep roads in Wisconsin, but I would no longer classify those as “mountain roads.” Those are more like “country roads” as in the pleasant, relaxing song. If those roads represented calm, country song the song “mountain roads” would be done in the German death metal style. As we went up, I was a little scared, but figured I was okay, being driven by a man who had been up the road over 50 times (again, see rule 11) and I managed to stay frighteningly calm.

We had been traveling up steep hills for about 20 minutes when we noticed that behind us, Halley had stopped. Driving up in a two-wheel-drive truck, he had mentioned at the bottom of the mountain that he would only proceed as far as he felt comfortable. His comfort level was apparently exceeded. The two lead trucks were on a rather broad, relatively flat part of the road when we noticed Halley stopping behind us. Denny stopped his truck and said “well, if they aren’t going any further, maybe we should go pick them up,” and started backing down the mountain past Jay’s truck. Nobody in Jay’s truck had a HAM radio license or a radio, so I started to say “maybe we should tell them what we are doing, otherwise Jay may start to back up too.” I definitely felt strange about backing down the mountain (violating rule number 8), but I was worried about the other truck. I was too distracted to notice that we were BACKING OFF THE SIDE OF THE FRAKING MOUNTAIN.

As we were BACKING OFF THE SIDE OF THE FRAKING MOUNTAIN, I was on the passenger side and hence not the closest to the “scary” side of the road. As I was looking out my window towards the other truck, I heard and felt a thunk. Denny calmly said “ohup, looks like we got a little close to the side of the road.” I am often a thoughtful person, scatterbrained too. This is why after I heard the thunk and heard what Denny said, it still took me a second to realize that we were BACKING OFF THE SIDE OF THE FRAKING MOUNTAIN! Jason, who was sitting on the “scary” side, did not have such a delay. As soon as I heard him scrambling for the door saying “maybe we should get out,” I burst into action. He was reaching over Bo, trying to push her out of the car. I believe that if I hadn’t been reaching for the door handle myself, he would have crawled over us to get out. Who can blame him really? That is also my plan for an airline emergency. I’m going to find the slowest, biggest people and use them as footrests as I fling myself through the emergency exit. I’m quite sure that I won’t remember giving the flight attendant my verbal agreement to assist other passengers. I’m going to remove the door, throw it out the window and immediately follow it. No way am I going to let Chunky Charlie go first. What if he gets stuck like Winnie the Pooh? We don’t have time to starve him out of the hole. Unless he looks small enough to fit through the door, yet big enough to cushion my fall, I’m going first.

So I sprang to action, opened the door and practically fell out of the truck with Bo being forced out by my brother right behind me like falling dominoes. I immediately went over and told Jay to stop his truck and not to back up and then went and sat down by the side of the road. Denny, with hand signals from Dan, was trying to un-stick his truck. He was rocking back and forth, trying to suddenly give it enough gas to make it over the berm. The truck would not budge, it was thoroughly stuck. In fact, it looked like he was only making it worse; he was getting dangerously close to going over the edge. He got out to have a look and decided to call it quits.

I wasn’t really scared in what was actually the scariest moment inside the truck BACKING OFF THE SIDE OF THE FRAKING MOUNTAIN. While Denny was trying to un-stick his truck and people were trying to advise, coordinate and communicate, I went and quietly sat by the side of the road. I could see the truck, looking dangerously close to the edge, hung up on the berm. It was then that I started to get really scared. Traumatized, I downright freaked out a little. It was a quiet freak out, but I definitely felt like RALPHing. I just had to sit there for a while and stare at it.

Dan helped guide Halley as he backed his two-wheel-drive truck back down the mountain to a flat, wide part where he could turn around (see rules 4 and 8). I decided to have a walk further up the mountain to see if I could see RALPH. Jay offered to give me a ride further up the mountain, but there was no way I was going up any further in a truck. I told him that he should absolutely not move his truck another inch up the mountain, at least not while I could see it. I began to walk up.

At first a whole group of people were walking up with me, but it shortly thinned to just me. People were waving and yelling from further down the mountain that I should stop. I gave them the finger, but it must have been too small to see because they kept on waving. I had just finished getting up a rather steep part and did not want to go back down to discuss the fact that I was going to go up further, but I did. I met my dad and brother and told them I was going to just hike up a little farther around the bend to see if I could see RALPH and then come back. After all, that was going to be the LAST time I was planning on ever being on that forsaken mountain. My dad and I went up and around, stopping periodically to scan the terrain with binoculars. Mel was on the radio and I was checking in with him. He was clearly sitting in front of a computer and in no mortal danger. He was using my description and the map to tell me where to look for RALPH. My dad and I passed a couple of big green electrical boxes on the loop road at the top of the mountain, but never saw RALPH. We decided that enough time had elapsed and we began to come back down.

On the way down, we met my mom and Wei, who had decided to walk up a little further as well. We all strolled down the mountain road together and found the rest of the group waiting near Jay’s truck. Since we had “lost” one truck, the rest of us needed to consolidate into one truck. It looked like many would have to ride in the bed with the helium tank. After calling seats, there was still an empty seat in the cab. A lot of people wanted to ride in the bed “for the experience” or “because it looks fun.” Clearly they did not have the same level of PTSD that I did. I took shotgun so I could help guide the truck down the steep road.

I was pretty tense as we started down. Let’s just say that I had a very firm grip on the arm rest and overhead hand grip, in my left and right hands, respectively. By far, the scariest part about going down the road is a curved part right at the bottom of a steep part. There were many of these, no bueno. After we had been travelling for a few minutes, Denny asked Jay to make sure the truck was in first gear. It was not. A few minutes later, Denny suggested that we take a break. Jay stopped the truck and put it into park on a relatively flat part of the road. There was some disaster talk in the bed of the truck and Jason suggested that Denny give Jay some safety tips. They were just the kind of “scared straight” safety tips that pushed my anxiety level to defcon 2. Denny explained that if the brakes overheated, the brake fluid would boil and the brakes would no longer work. Air, you see, is much more compressible than fluid and having it in the brake lines is bad, bad news. You can press down the brake pedal, but the truck will not stop.

He further told us many stories of death and destruction on the mountain. Something about ice and snow (so glad it was still hot out), a roll over and a helicopter rescue. Luckily, I couldn’t hear much of these over the sound of the thundering heartbeat in my ears. We started on again after about a 10 minute break. Now Jay and I are both utterly freaked out about the brakes failing (okay, so maybe it was just me).

We had been going for another 15 minutes or so when I started to smell something wafting in through the window. It smelled like hot truck. As I mentioned before, a man in a truck is by definition hot but this smelled more like the literal hot and had nothing to do with the driver. Jay says “can you smell that?” Yes, yes I can. I say “let’s pull over and take another break,” but there doesn’t look like any good places to stop. Furthermore, momentum wise, it is really hard to stop a big truck filled with people on a steep part of the road. I look ahead and see what looks like a tiny flat part of the road at the bottom of the steep part we are on. I say “see that flat spot?! Stop there!”

We spill down the road like uncontrolled emotions and blow right by the flat spot. I’m saying “okay, stop here, stop here.” I’m trying not to yell because that could freak out the driver even more. Instead I am speaking in a calm, but firm tone, the way you would speak to a bad, angry dog. He just couldn’t stop there. The target was too small, like a pterodactyl trying to land on a canary perch. I have an even tighter grip on the arm rest and overhead handle (respectively) than before. I’m mentally preparing for The Worst when we round a bend and see a really great flat place to turn off the road. Jay hits this one no problem and I exit the vehicle immediately.

From this blessed flat part, I could see the gate just about 100 yards down the road. Just in front of the gate was a white truck, which Denny said was his ride home. People were anxious to get back in the truck and move down the road, but the driver and I were fine with waiting a little longer to make sure the brakes were nice and cool. We waited for so long that a guy from the white truck appeared walking up the road to meet us. He also went into the bed as well and we rode the rest of the way down without incident (although the arm rest would argue otherwise).

After going through the gate and down the rest of the way, we stopped at the small “parking lot” where the Camry and other cars were gathered. Jim and Chris were waiting for us and said that I looked quite pale. Plans were made by some to come back the next day to try to rescue RALPH and Denny’s truck. I was asked to join, but I said that there was no way I was going up that particular mountain again.

That was it, without much ceremony, we all packed it into our respective cars and headed home, leaving RALPH exactly where he had landed.