Friday morning Dave and I woke up late, big surprise. Thankfully we had almost everything ready to go the night before so it didn't take too long to get out of the house. I walked outside and almost fainted...beautiful blue sky in Salinas at 6:30 in the morning...unheard of. A great start for our ride.
I have to say that it took a little bit of adjusting to being on the back of Dave's bike again. He finally had to tell me that he didn't need my help to lean the bike, oops, sorry.
We got over to Willy and Carol's and they were waiting outside for us. I tried on a half helmet that Willy had hoping it would fit, because I wasn't really looking forward to wearing my full face helmet in the heat. It didn't fit so I was stuck with my Power Ranger helmet. Oh well.
After a couple of smokes and talk about the route we would be taking, we all saddled up and headed on our way.
Usually Salinas is super overcast in the morning, and once you drive a few miles out of town you can see the sun, well, that morning was completely opposite. Salinas was beautiful and when we got out of town it was cold and foggy. It didn't last too long before the sun came out again and I was a happy girl.
We were on our way. We made a few stops that were really not anything too exciting to write about. Once we got to Bakersfield it was getting pretty hot. We stopped for gas at a place called Weed Patch, Willy figured it would be an interesting place for a stop.
This is where the only regrettable part of the trip took place.
We stopped at Chevron and got off the bikes to gas up. Dave said something to Carol and when he got no response from her he looked at me and said, "Man, she doesn't look happy." Then he went inside the store. It was about that time that I noticed Carol was walking funny. At first I thought maybe her leg was asleep or she had a cramp or something. But then I could tell something was seriously wrong. Willy noticed about the same time and realized she was having a bad reaction to the heat. He was basically dragging her inside to sit down in the air conditioned building. When we walked in he asked the woman behind the counter (we'll call her BITCH just to keep things simple) if they had a chair. She very rudely told us that she did not. So Willy told Carol just to sit on the floor. As he was trying to help her sit she almost feel on her face and hit the shelves on her way down. BITCH says, "Be careful for those shelves, they're expensive!" I shot her the nastiest look I possibly could, and then she says, "Well they are and they're really fragile." I looked at her and said, "Yeah, well so is my friend right now, so thanks!" She shut up, for a minute.
Willy got Carol a Gatorade and left me with her while he went out to move his bike. Carol looked like she was going to throw up so I asked for a wastebasket. BITCH again showed her compassion by rolling her eyes and making a grunting sound. I said, "Look, I'll fucking clean it up, just give me a wastebasket now, she can't even fucking move!" At this time the poor guy working with BITCH looked very sympathetic and handed me the basket.
BITCH then decides she needs to show more of her character by saying, "I have other customers who have to come in here."
I looked at her with more disgust than I have felt in a long time and said, "I'm pretty sure your other customers will understand, I really hope nothing ever happens to you." I think that at this point she realized how close she was to being punched in the jaw because that was the last I heard from her.
Carol was starting to look more like her usual self and Willy and Dave took her outside to sit in the shade and put Dave's water vest on her. As I was cleaning up the wastebasket the nice guy who worked with BITCH came over and told me not to worry about it, he would take care of it. Thanks decent Chevron employee. He also later came out to ask us if Carol was okay and to apologize for BITCH's behavior. I thanked him and got the name of who I should talk to when I called to complain, because believe me, I will be making sure something happens to that poor excuse for a human being.
Carol was feeling better, but she and Willy decided it wasn't wise for her to continue on the trip, but Willy also didn't want to put her back on the bike and go back through the heat that had just caused her the problem. After looking at several options, Carol's parents said that they would come down and get her in the car. Now we had to figure out where this left the rest of the plans. Willy offered to go back home and not make the trip without Carol, but she is a good wife and insisted that he carry on without her. We were all sad that Carol wouldn't be continuing the rest of the trip, but none of us wanted to risk her health.
It would be at least three or four hours before they would be there to pick her up, so we all hung out over at the Burger King, they were so nice, they never said a word about us being there for so long. Even though the situation sucked, we were making the most of the time we had to hang out with our friends.
Okay, this is long already, looks like day one will have to have two parts.
Next up: Amazing Arizona Adventure: Day One, Part Two
Pics from day one will be with the next post........
