It all started on a lovely Saturday morning in Billings Montana. Two weeks of massage training finished(pictures coming soon lovelys), time to move on, Rama’s Journey continues.
Mission?
Take old 77 Dodge RV, get back to Bozeman, pick up 60 massage tables and drive to Vancouver, about 1000miles away.
Sounds fairly simple, right? I mean it all should go smooth…. .. .HA
Bags loaded, water bottle filled up, ready to rockn roll!
Engine starts no problems, okay, reverse. Oops. No go there. So I push the thing forward. Now I’m 6’5 but don’t weigh that much, I imagine it was a faily comedic sight watching me battle to get the thing forward half a foot at a time.
Is it gas? Go to the hotel find a gas can, which I’m given woohoo! Well I spend about 30 mins running down the battery and pouring gas into the carbi, it doesn’t even fire up. Battery near death so staff are nice and help me out with a jump. Still no love.
Call a towie to come start it, they do, punches up nicely and idles. Well I’m pretty happy at this point so I pay them a quick $50 and go dump $60 into the gas tank.
ON THE ROAD! Wooho! I even bought a cookie just for the occasion.
Splutter splutter. Okay, you better keep going I’m thinking and wishing, as the engine starts to have gurgling reactions about 15 miles out. They get more frequent, oh oh, time to start thinking about getting to a service station.
Splutter die. Splutter die. Side of road time.
Start dam you!
Barrom!! 5mins in it fires up with a bunch of gas poured down the carbie. Review mirror. Oh oh, high way patrol stopping behind me. Now this wouldn’t be a bad thing usually but it so happens I’ve been trying to find the title for this RV from someone in Australia and it’s currently got no registration or insurance since 2008. Fuck. (this is when every responsible person in my life looks at me in a disapproving way and shakes their heads, tutt tutt).
My heart picks up pace.
I decide to hop out of the car, hoping to distract the cop enough so he doesn’t look at the license plate or call it up. Wow, it works, he hops out and asks me what’s going on, I talk to him about getting to the next service station. “Well we ain’t got no service station close to here”. He says with a thick middle American accent. “ There’s one about 25 mile going this way, but if you head back about 7 miles there’s one there too.”
I ask if there is a way to get the thing turned around. “If you go ahead here, just down there a way is the emergency vehicle exit so what you’re gonna do is hop into the far left lane here and I’ll follow you along there and we can get you turned around.”
Well… I can’t think of a better option and seemed like he hadn’t decided to arrest me yet so off we go. Everything seems to go smooth, slow down for the exit, his lights flashing, I turn and be on my way as he over takes me.
I carry along the speed of a snail.
Well, as I approach the 6mile out mark, there is another patrol car in the center strip hiding in wait for some speeders and my buddy has pulled up to have a chat, I’m sure about the that weird Australian lunatic.
Splutter splutter… YOU CAN NOT BE SERIOUS, omg I’m stressing that the thing is going to break down just as I get close to these guys. Omg omg omg, come on you dam thing! make it!!!
Phew, past them…. Splutter splutter, ahhhh shit. 50ft down the road it dies completely.
And now all the fun starts.
I quickly rip of the engine hood, get some gas down the carbie and try to do the same thing all over again. Well it works for a while, 20feet, then dies. So I keep doing this for about 5 miles, just running on the side of the road indicator on, stress in full swing that my buddy is going to pull up behind me again.
20 feet. Die. 10 feet. Die. By now I’m stinking like fuel, my fingers are completely black and actually sore from turning the key. Getting fairly over things…. I’m thinking, lucky I’ve been consistent with my yoga and meditation the past few weeks, a few stress hairs would have came out by now.
GET THERE DAMIT!
Omg here is the exit! 1 mile to go. Go for it, come on! Yes!
Splutter splutter. Die. Die die die .dieeeeee!!!!!!
Battery is dead, sorry, no more for you Rama!
Well, at least I got of the interstate.
I Decide to write a sign and go look for a tow truck and just as I was about to put it on tried to flag someone down. A nice lady stops, dodge caravan loaded with toys and everything else that comes with having 2 or 3 kids riding in there often, I see a few Chirstian talk dvds and think that maybe she will be really nice and help me.
Luckily she is caring a phone book, imagine that. So we find a tow truck and she helps me explain where I am too him. Many thanks are expressed and she’s on her way. Halleluiah! 
25mins later the towie shows up and hooks everything up, we head back to his shop, I drink a pepsi with his dad as he goes back to the scene and gets his phone he left there.
Small shop, lots of car stuff everywhere stacks of Go Tow magazines, I’m interested what they put in there but no chance to read.
His dad launches into a story.
29 years ago 2 other Australians broke down out here and they gave them a tow. Apparently these two girls where traveling around the world, had been to India, eurpoe, china, had already driven half of the US and where on the way to the Black Mountains?(sry can’t remember exact).
The girls ended up staying for two weeks(quietly I’m wising that doesn’t happen to me).
Well his son(who towed me) and his daughter were somewhere between 1st and 4th grade and happened to take these two girls to school for show and tell, they talked about their trip around the world. I thought that was pretty awesome.
Apparently they get a lot of news about Queensland and their bush fires, he told me about the huge fires around here and the drought in Australia.
Sweet old fella. Sorted me out a motel. Quite a far cry from my luxury king sweet at the best and western, but it smells okay and has internet so I’m not one to be posh.
Well, here I am. It’s Saturday evening, no shops open till after the weekend so I just got to sit it out and hope that come Monday someone will have time to look at it and hopefully fix the darn thing.
To the stars Rama! Yehawa!
..I wonder how weird I’d look doing yoga on some grass out here. Ahahaha. I get enough stares just walking around dressed up like a surfer dude.
Who doesn’t want to be just FREE!
