Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Volunteering
Raul and I drove to wisconsin yesterday. It was such a quick and odd trip I didn't tell any of my dear friends I'd be there. Am I actually sacrificing my social life so I can volunteer? boo.
On the way there the truck without weight in the back spun out of control in the snow and fell/zoomed off the highway into a 5 foot deep marsh/median off of I-90. Luckily we didn't tip-over. We spent half an hour trying to get out. We tried everything, but it was hard getting up the steep embankments, because as soon as you make it up you'd be right in the fast lane of the expressway. I spent a long time on the phone with 911, but they couldn't help us because we couldn't figure out where we were...it was so snowy we couldn't see very far and the only thing I could see was a sign that read, 'wisconsin fun, next exit' with no exit number...I kept telling the emergency operator that was all I could see... that and an abandoned farm on the other side of the highway. I hope I didn't sound too frantic. After trying and trying and reversing and reving and pushing in the snow we finally drove half a mile through the frozen marsh and somehow angled and ground our way back on the road...ok, when I say 'we' I mean Raul did the driving...it was a manual transition. Despite the fact that he looks like Che Guevara, Raul is not very revolutionary in his ideas of how women should act or be treated. I wasn't supposed to work too much or use any of my own money...I guess that's nice?
Then we went to a warehouse on the outskirts of madison and got all the crappy bikes 'wheels for winners' would give us (we tried to avoid the huffy's but the bikes with one piece cranks).
Before we could leave town we stopped at Budget Bikes to see if they'd be interested in selling Working Bikes basement bikes in the future. On our way to the shop there was a huge thud...for some reason we both thought a dead body had dropped on the cab of the truck. Raul almost squeeled, "what was that?" I looked up and the roof was still there. Looking behind me I saw the whole back window was shattered, a handlebar trying to get through the glass towards us.
Long story short, we made it home.