About Me

I feel the wanderlust and the call of the open highway. Which is good, because I drive cars for a living. But I'm a writer, and someday hope to once again make my living using my writing skills.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

REHOBOTH BEACH, DELAWARE

Ever hear of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware?
I think mostly only people who are wealthy enough to live there
or vacation there know where it is.
I was told to go there from Florida and drive down a SUV pulling a
UHaul trailer along.
Which I'd never done, even with all my driving experiences.

So I flew from Orlando to Philadelphia, then took a train to downtown
Philly, then caught a NJ transit bus out to Cape May, NJ. Then I got
on a shuttle that took me out to a Ferry boat, where I climbed aboard
and chugged across the water of Delaware Bay. An hour and a half later,
we came back to shore and I got on another shuttle, which took me to
city bus, then transferred to another city bus.

On the last bus, I was asking the driver how close he would come to
the address where I was to pick up the car.
Some younger women stared at me, and one of them said, "You don't
look wealthy enough to live in Rehoboth."
I told her I didn't live there, I was just going to pick up a vehicle.
"Then the people you're driving for must be rich, especially if their
house is that close to the ocean."

I got off the last bus and walked one mile to the house.
I found that the UHaul was twice as big as the SUV in front of it, and
felt nervous.
It was a trick to find where the customer had hidden his car keys for me,
and a bigger trick to back the SUV and UHaul trailer out of the driveway onto
the narrow street with cars parallel parked on it.
Wooo-hooo!

As I began the drive, the cell phone rang and I spoke to the owners.
They sounded like surfer hippies, saying "cool" and "mellow" a lot.
"We left you some righteous snacks in the car, dude. There's granola
and organic trail mix. Oh, and a case of organic water."
Never heard of organic water.

I stopped in Norfolk for the night, and the next day I noticed that the front tires
on their SUV were losing lots of tread very fast on the outer edges.
This worried me incredibly, so I just chose to drive ten miles under the speed limit.
Which led to lots of people honking and waving at my with one finger.
I called the owner to tell him about the tires, and he said "Wow, bummer. Sounds
like you need to puff a joint and be mellow. I rolled you a fattie, its in the glove
box"
Seemed like a bad idea.

I made it OK, but barely.
I sincerely hope I won't have to pull a big trailer again anytime soon.
Not conducive with a stress-free driving experience for A Driving Fool.

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