Tales from the Christensen Cruiser

Leaving Breaux Bridge, I headed down through New Iberia to Highway 82, which runs through Pecan Island and the rest of Louisiana, including a little ferry ride as close to the coast as I could and in to Texas. I drove through Port Arthur, the only thing I knew about it was that that is where Janis Joplin grew up. I didn’t explore as I was trying to make tracks. And make yet anther ferry to Galveston, Texas.

It was a nice ferry ride and I pulled into Galveston at close to sunset and spotted an RV park right by the ferry dock. I was tired so went to check it out. I rang and a nice guy came up to the office and said they had some sites available. He asked what sort of rig I had, so I pointed out the Cruiser and he said it was too small! They actually don’t allow anything smaller than huge to stay there. That was a new one on me! The employee was very nice though, and wasn’t the one making the rules. He told me the street would be fine, so I found a spot right by the water, in front of a beach bar. I pumped up the camper and went in to the palm frond roofed place and had some sort of boat drink of rum and some dinner. They closed pretty early, but across the street was a fun little club where some sort of hippie trio was setting up. They were just great, and there were some nice, colorful regulars. I had a fabulous time and danced my socks off. It was the first time in a long, long time that I felt like dancing. I clamored into the truck and woke up the next morning with a bit of a hangover and a dead battery. I got that squared away and headed for San Antonio to pay a visit to a good friend from high School. We were roommates senior year so a visit on his home turf was something I was looking forward to.

I took interstates from Galveston to San Antonio and made good time getting to Peter and Mirella’s house. I had never been to their house and it was just fabulous. Peter had had the house for many years, but had done a major remodel a couple of years ago. Not a large house at all, but every detail was done with class – every door, every fixture was the best, just as I would have expected. I love the details in a house, and this was a feast – the latest technology in every aspect, most of which I had never seen before. Most importantly though, was how wonderful it was to catch up with Peter and get to know Mirella more. I needed to do some legal stuff and got to use his office to do some of that, rather than some store somewhere. It wasn’t planned, but I ended up around an old friend at a tough time. We stayed up late and talked and talked and talked. I asked if there was a good hat store in town, as I wanted a new straw cowboy hat – the one I had was just a bit tight. So the three of us went downtown to a store that had obviously been there since forever. It was a venerable store with a guy working a steamer to shape hats, about a gazillion hats of all kinds, plaster missing from the ceiling in a few places – just about perfect. I got a great hat and had the guy with the steamer shape it for me. The truck has a hat holder on the roof that was a present from my big sis – I just needed a better fitting hat. My other hat went to Peter, so it was nice circulation, all in all. They took me on a cool tour of the neighborhoods, and the city itself, including the Alamo, which was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. I’d never been to San Antonio before and I got a great introduction from those two.

It was also good to be with Peter because one of our classmates killed himself a few weeks before, and we were both stunned by his doing this. It got a lot of us talking – another good friend said that it “was a long-term solution to a short-term problem.” It was good to be able to talk with someone who knew him as well. They crawled around on the floor together as babies – just a huge loss for a lot of people that leaves a hole where he should be.

It was time to head north, Santa Fe being my next stop, where I have some more old friends. I ended up getting a late start and headed west on Interstate 10 through the hill country of Texas. It was late and I was in a hurry, so I pushed the truck more than I normally would. The Texas hill country is rolling hills for miles and miles. I stopped in little town called Comfort and found a very cool Antique Mall. It was close to closing, so I didn’t have much time, but the whole place was filled with great things of all kinds. It turns out that Comfort was settled by “Freethinkers”, a group of predominantly German intellectuals who emigrated to America advocating reason and democracy over religion and political autocracy. They took a bad hit during the Civil War for siding with the Union and lost lives and property during that time. It is pretty country in its way, but the thing is, it was hell on the truck. It wasn’t like a mountain pass, where you just get to the top and are over and done with it – it’s up and down for ages – really hard on the transmission, especially if you happen to be a guy in a hurry trying to make up time. I was pushing seventy or seventy-five – the speed limit was eighty. Everything is going well, but the transmission is downshifting and upshifting constantly even with my help. I pulled in to a rest area and when I got back to the truck there is a little puddle of oil with a few drips leading up to it. Now I’m freakin’. I’m thinking I have killed the truck or done some damage just by being in a hurry. Turned out I hadn’t lost too much oil, but it scared the heck out of me. I found a motel room shortly after that to collapse in.

The next morning I hit Highway 285 just past Fort Stockton, a perfect blue highway that took me north all the way to Santa Fe. Starting out, I decided that I needed to let the truck decide what felt right speed-wise. It was easier country, miles of open country with oilrigs interspersed along the way. It was a far more relaxed drive and much more enjoyable as a result. This has never been a trip about pushing it, and when I relax into the flow of the trip everything seems to fall into place. I arrived at Robbie’s’ house in Santa Fe, just as it was getting dark.