I, for one, am enjoying this story. David, where in the world is your Sequoia? Some other town with a random mechanic? Won't it cost you more money to get it fixed once the issues are diagnosed? And if it does get fixed, won't you have to bribe some estranged relative to give you a ride back to pick it up? Or take another bus? I think your spreadsheet this morning really lowballed the expenses you're going to end up incurring because of this trip.
I've always followed these NSS adventures--they're entertaining, mind-boggling, and always fresh. I remember back in...let's see, 2010? Whenever it was you drove to Vermont, I was working at a staffing company and most of that summer I was out making sales calls to potential clients. I would drive from office to office around in the blazing sun, and on my breaks and at lunch I would read your updates. I have to admit, I gritted my teeth back then, thinking, "why does this guy get to have all the fun while I slave and sweat down here at work all day?" I was pretty bitter. But I have to say that 1. If I had a nickel for every time your emails made me giggle you could fix your Sequoia and 2. If I spent as much money as you on poorly planned road trips I wouldn't have any nickels to give you. I guess it's all a question of priorities. I will suggest that if you're going to go through the effort and expense to go to convention every year you should stay the week instead of just going to the Howdy Party, it's way more fun. But you keep doing you, boo. You keep doing you. Mallory Sent from my iPhone > On Jun 23, 2017, at 11:08 AM, David via Texascavers > <[email protected]> wrote: > > In hindsight, I could have attended the entire NSS convention had I left the > Sequoia in Houston and just hitch-hiked straight to Albuquerque. > > > The data below is just to give someone an idea what can happen on a ill-fated > road-trip: > > Below is a rough summary of my expenses so far: > > Gas to drive to Decatur: $ 40 > Money given to my ride $ 100 > 1 Day Pass at NSS $ 60 > Motel in Decatur $ 73 > Motel in Rhome. $ 65 > Mobile mechanic $ 500 > Bus ride $ 59 > Misc expenses. $ 20.75 > City bus fare. $ 3.25 Albuquerque casino. $ > 10 > > Approximate total. $ 931 > > Craigslist rider credit. + $ 76 > > Approximate subtotal $ 855 > > The casino loss was stupid, but I will just skip casino trips to Lake Charles > and lotto tickets for a few months to make up for that. > > The $ 60 to the NSS is a worthy expense. Right ?? > > I might have missed 2 days of potential work. I certainly missed 2 days of > relaxing in my motel in Houston which was already paid for. > > I did learn some road-trip concepts that would help me on future trips, if I > had some common-sense and were not so hard-headed stubborn. > > The 2 unecessary motel fees were something that I did not budget for, and > were due entirely to me compromising my route in order to carpool with a > quasi-caver. > > But I think it seems obvious now that trying to get from Arcola, TX to Rio > Rancho, NM for a 4 day vacation road-trip was a really bad idea and the odds > of success were very low. > > > The mechanic still has not done a compression test or been able to get the > Sequoia to come close to starting and they have had it 26 hours. The > mobile-mechanic had it driveable in under 2 hours, but it only started > briefly once again before it would no longer start. > > > I heard a rumor that the NSS made about $ 80 of my LED light donations. > > I did say "Howdy" to over a hundred people at The Howdy Party, but only > briefly spoke to about 10 cavers, as I knew very few people there. > > There is a girl that I had really hoped to see at the convention and I did > get to talk with her for about 3 minutes. That sort of has intangible value, > even though she probably doesn't know me, or worse, thinks negatively of me. > I often wonder, if my life would have been different had I married a girl > that likes caves, instead of one that doesn't like caves. She was someone I > would have like to have known when I was a bachelor. > > Unfortunately, I paid for all of the above on credit. So the aftermath of > the reality of the damage has not hit me yet. > > David Locklear > _______________________________________________ > Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com > [email protected] | Archives: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers _______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com [email protected] | Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers
