Reflections

I know for those of us in the fire service, our families and friends, that today is our Pearl Harbor.

I feel strongly we need to reflect on what the fallout from that singular day has been and to consider acting to undo so much of the damage done since that day.

We all know thousands of people died horrifically and there is no mitigating the magnitude of that nor the years of pain and suffering that only time will put into a rearview mirror for most and only death and new generations for many.

When we reflect on this day do not forget that the USA extracted it's toll afterwards and hundreds of thousands of people died in addition to many military service members while many others continue to suffer from their service in the Middle East.

The master planner of that event lies at the bottom of the sea somewhere and many families and cities were, in large part, turned into rubble.

Since that day 15 years ago Americans have happily given up many civil liberties that, before that day, would have caused them outrage.

I feel we should still be outraged at the intrusions into privacy, travel and everyday life that we have willingly stood by and let occur.

The degree of intrusion and obstruction of personal freedom since then is remarkable and the money making machines that profit from it are extraordinary.

I am not certain that continuing grand public displays are the proper course for this day any longer..... to me, I feel it is a day for reflection.

I love events like the San Diego 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb because it is firefighter centric and not necessarily a huge public display but, rather, a family or service brethren event.

Yes, it is public, but the participants are in the field or affected by the workers in public safety, whether through marriage, family or friendship.

I know I live in and raise my family in Mexico and I know many have viewed that as an abandonment of my right to even contemplate politics or life in the USA.
However, I am and always will be a citizen of the USA and so will my family.
Immigration is the American story and I am only continuing it so I will continue to be interested, concerned and vocal about issues in the USA.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Have an excellent day and I will dedicate my run today with thoughts to all those that died and were wounded that day.

Editing

I am now in awe of professional editors.

I reflect on how I have written and re-written my pieces while looking for grammatical errors, errors in tense and punctuation and whatever other pitfalls await this amateur writer  and then, foolishly thinking that I am ready to publish, I do so!

The next day when I reread my latest and greatest I marvel at all the glaring mistakes in it!

Good thing my life and my writing are works in progress.... plenty of mistakes but all worth correcting.

I'm a gonna get right on it!

Tomorrow.

January 25, 2014

An epic day in the tropics….. this was a day to make me remember the joy and the magic of why we moved here.

It was just a normal Saturday. It’s just that normal hadn't been a big part of our lives for a while so this Saturday made normal feel extraordinary.

We all slept in a tiny bit(OK, a lot) longer than the Monday through Friday school routine of up before dawn and that put us all in good spirits.

I lounged a bit while Liam and Mairead played some Wii and Terraria and I walked with Seamus down to the hardware store to pick up the organic eggs I had paid for the previous day.

Yes, we buy our organic eggs at the ferreteria. It makes perfect sense to me and, at 3 pesos each; I’ll take ‘em.

So, being that no walk in our little town is just a walk, it was darn near an hour event to motate a total of about half a mile. 

I chatted with a man on the way there whose son had attended the Primaria for a year here when he was a boy and we swapped stories and philosophies about the importance of growing up bi-culturally.

Of course, then I ran into Robert and his girls at Entre Amigos, the community center and heart of this town, and he and I discussed surf. He told me Burros was perfect yesterday but now he feels like he is getting ill.

A few feet later Doug and Carol caught up to me and we walked the rest of the way to the ferretería while we talked about car importing and what an adventurous man, John, an 87 year old retired priest is.

While buying my eggs, of course, I spoke with Joél quite a bit. He had been employed by the polo club, Las Patronas, but they have not  opened for the season so he had decided to open a little place with a pool table and Foosball directly behind the ferretería.

Sheesh! 

And, of course, Seamus had to pee on everything that had a vertical surface, it seemed…. I, honestly, don’t know how he manages to do it so prolifically.

I swear to god, if Seamus was crawling through the desert near death from dehydration and on his belly with visions of water shimmering through his head and he came upon a bush he would somehow manage to pee on it.

Then I stopped and bought some fruit for the day at the stand somehow I managed to get out of there with only routine hellos.

Almost home I had to stop in at Super Mary’s to buy Seamus some dog food and I ended up having an extensive conversation with Maria…. Who I am convinced by her constant laughing loves talking to me in rapid-fire Spanish and watching the wheels turning in my head while I try to keep up with her. Man, she was telling me about San Miguel de Allende and how beautiful it is there and how much we will love it when we move there.

Lordy! 

After that I managed to make it home with the eggs, fruit and dog food with only a few brief “Adios’s” which is how you say hello when you don’t have time to chat.

We were heading to the beach so it was time to load the surfboards, boogie boards and all the other stuff we bring with us when we go.

Seamus was out of luck because the beach we go to is public but the access is private. It’s a weird deal that the owners of the Four Seasons Punta Mita had to be forced to submit to.
Something about having your cake and eating it, too……

There is a guard at the gate and you must have at least one wave riding vehicle per person or there is no admittance. 

No umbrellas, ice chests, tents…. Nada. But, the surf is usually good.

When we got to the beach we expected it to be packed since a large swell was running and it was a Saturday.

During the week this place is usually packed with surf school people…. Sometimes 40 people on the inside trying to figure it all out…. Today, virtually empty!

There were only 3 guys in the water….. And, as soon as we stepped onto the sand a horizon blocking set came through…… like 15 smokin' big waves!

As soon as everyone was sun screened and good to go I got waxed up and headed out. Katie was a bit nervous because a guy that had just come in told us the current was ripping to the south and the sets were really big.

Awesome!

I timed it my paddle out just right and I barely got my hair wet paddling out!

And, then, I sat….. Seemingly forever but it was probably only 20 minutes…. Where the heck were those set waves that were so huge when I was standing on the beach?!

Everything coming through was only just overhead. I wanted those big sets. I knew from personal wave-bait experience that as soon as I settled for one of the regular waves a giant set would come through and pin me on the inside….forever..... Happens every time…..

So, I waited awhile longer and the peak was shifting north with the dropping tide. 

Finally, on the horizon I see white water on the north side of the Marrieta’s.

At first I thought it was some giant boat's wake but then I could see that the whitewater was from giant waves on the northern most point of the islands!

To be able to see that from 12 miles…. I knew something big had to be coming!

So, I kept waiting..... and, finally, there it was. 

The first wave was building on the horizon and it was big. It was easily twice as big as any of the between set waves that had been consistently rolling through. The best part was that I could see many, many lines behind it, too.

I actually felt some nervousness in my gut! 

It had been quite some time since I had ridden big, heavy waves and I had this momentary vision of myself getting launched off the top of one of these big ol' things!

I was thinking to myself that I really had to judge these set waves right…… a bad take off means getting pinned inside for a pounding and with that sweeping current most likely with me ending up right over some exposed rocks. 

I just kind of let it go. I've been surfing a long time…. 35 years now….. I know how to surf.

Funny thing with these waves today, though, is that they were soft on top. Which means that you have to really paddle to get into them…. They didn't stay soft, just on the tops. Mid-way down they were sucking sand right of the bottom and steep.

They also looked a lot bigger sitting next to them than they did from the shore.

I needed the right position on these things. These were not waves for the inexperienced or pussies. The two other guys out had paddled much further north and were looking for deep entry waves. I knew that I was sitting right in the right spot for what I was looking for. I lined up on the point and knew I just needed to be patient.

The other two guys couldn't get lined up where there were at and I was just floating over the shoulders of the waves they were trying to scratch into while I waited patiently for my wave. 

Some of these waves looked to be a solid 4 meters on the faces…. I watched a few go by and they were, easily, a meter and a half to two meters and more on the back…..these were real waves!

About 3 waves into this set I saw some bumps way outside that are pointing straight at me.

I started paddling out further because I just did not want one of these monsters to land on my head……
I've been to that movie. 

In fact I've starred in it more than once and I didn't dig it any one of those times!

Finally, one of my waves was coming right at me….. I paddled and paddled and then it just rolled under me. I was thinking “damn" (or something to that effect but probably starting with an "F" and ending with an "uck")! 

I was really going to have to get into one of these when it was starting to pop”!

I scratched again and I was closer but this one rolled under me, too!

I saw another wall of water coming at me and, instead of paddling out to it, I just decided to sit and wait….. I started thinking that maybe I was waiting just a bit too long and this thing was going to ingloriously hand my rear end to me but I waited anyway.

It built just right and I turned and started paddling hard. I was just at perfect spot! I stood up and got ready to drop and it just started to soften on top and roll under me again! I was looking straight down the wave face and there was a lot of wave down there and I was going to miss it!

Not happening.

No way.

I stepped up to the nose of my board and shifted the weighting of my craft all they way to the front and I felt the wave catching me….. I also saw it getting incredibly steep and the sand that was sucking half way up the wave face as I was beginning my drop.

Completely committed. The point of no return was just behind where I had been a split second ago.

This is a feeling that is akin to that sensation where you are on a roller coaster on the first hill, the lift chain the car you are in lets go, you are in the front seat and gravity just starts to take over.

The big difference is that there are no rails to guide you. 

It was really steep…… The prominent thought in my mind was that there was a high probability I was going to eat shit and get hammered. 

I wasn't excited about that in any fashion but you don’t get the big drop without pushing your limits.

I figured worse case scenario and I'd just hold my breath and feel a little foolish..... nothing I'm not used to!

So, I just let ‘er rip and dropped hard and straight, knowing all the time that I could pull this off. 

As soon as I had any kind of edge I buried a rail and cranked a turn off the bottom….. I still wasn't sure I was going to make it but my rail held and I was on my way back up to the lip for a cutback and another hard drop! 

Woohoooooo!

I got to ride that wave top to bottom for another 200 meters…. So much crazy fun and I heard myself hooting more than once after making that drop!

I popped out into the channel and started paddling back out….. a long paddle and me just filled to spilling with stoke. 

The next set started building and I patiently waited for the wave with my name on it.

By now a couple of German guys had paddled out with GoPros mounted on their boards to capture all those perfect moments and they kept parking it right inside me…. I kept thinking, man, I hope they get the hell out of the way when I go!

With the tide still dropping the waves started shifting north a bit and I was ready. I knew I would have to take off late and I positioned myself for a big one I saw way outside.

It was popping up perfectly and I took off very late. I pulled it off and I got to carve a nice section from bottom to top and I cut back into the breaking part of the wave to keep in the fastest part of the wave.  As the wave developed and shifted in front of me I could see this giant section sucking up on the reef and looking like it just might tube!

This would have been an easy stand up tube on these set waves! 

I've  never really seen it tube here much but I am an optimist.
Cynical, yes, but always an optimist!

I was also thinking that if it didn't tube that lip was just going to pitch and smack me in the hard in the head and drill me straight to the bottom.

So I stalled this thing out and set myself up to drive this barrel section hard…. I was going pretty slow at this point and so I pumped it up the wave face to speed into this barrel…. It started to form and I dropped into it and my positioning was looking so good!

And then, of course, it pitched hard, didn't hold a barrel and this big, fat and powerful lip hit me in the head, which on normal waves is no big deal, and subsequently drilled me deep into the water….. I was happy I am not bouncing off of reef but, having had a respiratory infection for about 3 weeks, I was thinking to myself that my lung capacity was not what it normally is…. I didn't see any light so I knew I was deep. I just laid it all out and kept myself relaxed so the wave would let me go!

Man, it sure seemed like it was taking forever to do so! There was so much air mixed in the water my buoyancy wasn't so buoyant........and, yes, fat is, was, and always will be lighter than water.......

My lungs were not doing so well and, at that point, I started scratching for the surface! It felt to me like I had spent more than enough time down there and I was ready to be on the right side of the water surface. It sure seemed like a long way up but I saw light so I just kept powering up! I was REALLY happy for a lungful of air!

Woohoo!

I decided to catch one more of these beauties and head in to play with my family.

Another perfect wave filled with many turns and cutbacks with a nice kick off the end.

I was more than satisfied and filled with so much stoke that I decided to head in to get some beach time with my family.

Katie, Liam, Mairead and I all spent a few more hours just playing smash ball, boogie boarding, snacking and really enjoying our time together on this empty beach…… it was the first time in a long time since we have felt the magic of living here and we all relish it deeply.

The tropical warmth, the light breeze, the waves playing the backbeat….. a perfect day where the jungle meets the sand.

I have yet to allude to why we haven’t felt the magic lately but I will at some point…. Now is not the time, though.

Now is the time for me to ramble on abut how much I LOVE those late take offs….. there is no feeling comparable to dropping late on a large wave. 

It is as if  I am free falling and, then, when I land it and bury a turn the adrenaline pump is amazing. To say it is exhilarating, life affirming and what, to me, it is all about, pretty much sums it up.

Taking chances and pushing myself on real waves might just be a metaphor for life and being alive.

For me it is a fitting one.

If I don't make it, I pay. I pay with lung-testing hold downs and a significant test of my ability to just chill out and wait for the ocean to let me go...... she is a fickle one and she won't let go until she's ready to.

It's kind of like life when it decides pick me up and slam me around for a bit.......I just have to hang on and take the punishment, the lesson, and learn from it.

It is as elemental as it gets for me. It is, really,  not that much different from being in a gnarly fire(from my old life) and relying on my knowledge and skill-sets to do what I need to do to make it out alive and unscathed. 

Well, maybe a little scathed..... just not too much!

All the small days are practice. I get water time, push hard, do goofy things like headstands and switch foot both ways, talk with people I've never met before and just have plain ol' unadulterated fun.

It all comes together on the big days. Days like Saturday was.

Saturday had it all and on occasion I need a good reminder to myself that every day is a gift.

Family, nature, fun, amazing surf and a giant reminder to me of the power and the beauty in and of our lives and our paths really brought me back to my core philosophy of how I am living and want my life to be lived.

I Might Have a Touch of PTSD

I've walked through people’s piss and blood, their shit and brains violently slapped across asphalt like melting pieces of jello while sizing up a situation and determining what my part in it will be. 

I've ignored their cadenced, brain-stem driven breathing while what’s left of them waits to die to get to the ones I can actually help.

After scraping up messes and saving or extending the lives we could we'd go back to our stations to eat our meals or whatever, joking about shit nobody should see or experience, the horrified looks on normal peoples’ faces, maybe talking about the weather and what our plans are for the next day and that’s pretty much it.

The tables turn a bit when I see someone I love experience some sort of event that I know can truly cause them harm, real harm. 

My psyche quakes and I involuntarily feel ragged ice move through me.

Watching her smile at me while posing for a picture, slipping fast, wedging that upper leg between two tree trunks and me, waiting for the sound of a snapping femur that I know is just a second away.
And then the pain.......

In those split seconds my mind is a firefighter's. I am already thinking of keeping the wound clean and isolated from the jungle it if is open. Making a traction splint out of branches and discarded rope to lesson the pain of a mid-shaft femur break. The extrication to our car which is a mile away through cow pastures all with two sets of nine year old twins in tow.

She is shaken and sore, but fine.

The event continues to haunt me in the quiet of the night, keeping me awake and, because I know what can really happen, the fear of loss cuts me hard.

Love mixed with a bit of PTSD.

Echoes, man……. 

In Like a Dog, Out Like a Dog

An amazing day, really, January 1^st 2009……..the best part of that morning was the rotty mix just wanting to be calmed and petted in the backyard.

She was awfully sweet and so grateful for those caresses and “good girl’s” I gave her. It seems like dogs, not unlike us, will take that affection as long as you keep it coming.

And, to be frankly honest, I was pretty relieved she wasn’t attacking me because when we arrived she was pretty disconcerted.

I was, after all, a uniformed stranger in her backyard.

Doggy petting wasn’t really what I wanted to be doing at six in the morning on New Year’s Day but, hey, that was my job. It was different every time…….

That little interlude of doggy love kind of belied the dead guy just past the Jacuzzi face down in his vomit. The air was cold; he was purple and stiff with rigor mortis and I was relieved that I didn’t have to work him.

We started the routine, notified dispatch to respond Sherriff’s Officers so they could paperwork another death and then we could leave it all in our rearview mirror and head back to our station.

Selfish or pragmatic, who knows…… Besides, I was still half asleep and I had just started the coffee at the station and hadn’t even had a cup, damn it…… habits.

A long night of calls and very little sleep meant I wasn’t awake enough to register or even care much about the woman twisting away on the floor of her kitchen, frantically shrieking in horror and denial about her new reality. I was just tired.

Understandably she just could not believe what was happening.

 Well, what had already happened and that was only the beginning for her.

There wasn’t any undoing this one.

I am pretty sure this was not what she expected when she fell asleep on the couch late New Year’s Eve while her old man was out drinking in the backyard.

Another exciting New Year’s……. one that surely won’t ever blend into the others gone by.

Of course, then I fully woke up and found my compassion.

After so many years on the job I’d have to remind myself, on occasion, that these were real people with real, normal people, feelings.

My captain was really having a hard time with this lady. Of course, he had never been married nor had he ever had kids. It had always been difficult for him to connect with distressed women and kids and at times like this he was often at a loss.

So, I went in, held her hands and lifted her up off the floor and gave her a hug….. She really needed one. That’s when she told me her little girl was upstairs.

Boy, did that little announcement completely changed the tone of the call for me.

She asked me to go a couple of doors up the street and tell her neighbors she needed them to come take care of her little girl. Of course I volunteered……frankly I just wanted out of there for a few minutes to regroup.

A minute later I was knocking on this neighbor’s door, hoping he wasn’t going to be armed. A man who looked like he’d been up late bringing in the New Year finally answered his door with a “what the hell are you doing here” look on his face and I said to him, “Look, I’m sorry to disturb you but your neighbor two doors down needs you and your wife to come down and take care of her little girl. Her husband is dead and she is losing it and she needs your help now.”

He was like, “WHAT!???! (Whatever the hell his name was) is dead!!!?????” That was when he started to flip out a little. Immediately I said, “Yeah, hey uh, she and I don’t have time for you to lose it right now. I know this is going to be a bad morning but she, her kid and I need you to get it together and get down there now and handle this. She’s losing it and can’t take care of her kid. Are you gonna be able to pull it together and get over there”?

He was waking up quickly and he gathered his emotions, assuring me he would be there shortly so I split back to the death house.

As I made my way back I could see the mom was in the front yard and the neighbors were starting to pile up.  Everybody comes out for fire trucks and tragedy. She was grieving heavily and my boss and I exchanged a look acknowledging that this was starting to really go sideways.

I asked him if anybody had seen or talked to the little girl upstairs yet.

He said no and I asked him if he wanted me to go do that.

He asked, “Do you mind”?

 “Is that what you want me to do?”

 “Yeah, would you?”

“Sure, no problem”…………like it’s bringing in the paper or something…… but it isn’t……

I’ve got a wife and kids and I love them like I can’t believe and if anything happened to them I’d be that hysterical person in the front yard…. But that New Year’s I was not, thank god.

I knew talking to this little girl was not going to be fun at best and could go really sideways at worst. My heart started to fracture and bleed a bit but I kept all that on the inside.

I headed up the staircase, all the way thinking to myself how much some parts of my job just suck, rounded a corner and walked into a bedroom.  And there, sitting motionless on the bed was a sweet little girl about 7 years old in her pee-soaked jammies.

I sat down next to her and put my arm around her. She started to cry and tears started to work their way down my face….. It’s hard to see a little girl scared like that……….

In a minute, once I knew I could speak to her without my voice breaking, I told her who I was and I asked her if she knew what was going on. She shook her head no so I asked her if she was scared and she just quaked….this tiny, now fatherless, child breathing fast and shallow with fear and tears just pouring out of her…… I kept my arm around this little girl in her pee-soaked jammies while my heart broke for her and I just stared out the window as she cried.

Once I got a handle on myself again I asked her what her name was. She wouldn’t say. I asked how old she was and she was just not talking.

It was too big….

So I thought to ask her about books and school, playing, her friends, things my little girl loved, and she opened up and we talked about nothing at all but we talked.

I was dreading the thought that I was going to have to tell her that her dad was dead. Christ, I didn’t want to but if she asked I wasn’t going to lie. It seemed pretty certain that she already knew on some level but who was I to do that?

As I felt this little child’s fear, confusion and grief and tried somehow to relieve it just a little I thought about going home in a few hours to see my own family and how I would look at them just a little different for a while.

Until you live it you just don’t know…..

Finally her mom came up grief stricken but somewhat composed. I watched her suck it up and  tell this little girl, her daughter, that her daddy is very sick and we have to take him…..that she has to go to the neighbors for a while……

I gave her a hug and we left.

Rolling With It

Day 4 

(the afternoon)

Well, it wasn’t too long after my little interlude at the bargaining table before the hills began to get steeper and steeper and the road signs were showing kilometers to Tepic and San Blas.

My plan was to turn towards San Blas to avoid the steep grades and twisty roads south of Tepic while towing my heavily loaded boat and instead drive the steep grades and twisty roads south of San Blas. I am not sure why this was a good plan but somebody told me it was so I went with it. At least I would be paralleling the coast with amazing scenery to finish my journey with.

Everything was going amazingly well and I figured that was just and fair after all the delays that I had experienced and the universe’s axis was truly tilted my way.

Well, teach me to think…….. As I was heading down a long grade I hit a small dip and I felt my boat trailer really bounce. This motion was uncharacteristic and it caused me a little concern but everything thing looked and felt fine after that.

The next dip I hit everything really bounced………and kept bouncing! 

My first thought (this, I realized, is called denial) was that the road, like many others here in Mexico, was just really poorly constructed and bouncy.

My second thought was “hmmm, I smell rubber burning”. I hopefully looked all around for smoke from trash burning somewhere nearby and didn’t see any. Damn it!

At that point I knew it would be prudent to pull over and take a look at my boat trailer. 

What I saw was, well, I wasn't really sure what I saw! It appeared to me that my load had shifted somehow and caused the right side of my trailer to sag a bit and the fender was rubbing on the tire. I couldn’t figure out how since everything looked fine but the evidence was in directly in front of me. I grabbed some tools, loosened up the fender a bit and raised it where it was rubbing and all was right (wrong) in the world again.

I traveled on a bit and had just cleared the last of the toll booths I was going to need to stop at so to be prudent I decided to pull over again to take a look at my situation.

The fender had shifted even more and the tire had a huge groove in the sidewall! There was melted rubber from what had been my brand new trailer tire all over the side of my boat! What the heck was going on?!?

The strange part was I just couldn’t see the shift in the fender but the melted rubber and gouge in my tire’s sidewall clearly indicated that it had shifted!

I knew at that point I had to completely remove the fender to prevent further issues and to change the tire so I wouldn’t have a blowout.

I knew in my heart that this would be an easy fix and I would be on the road in 20 minutes.

I popped the fender off and then, as I was placing the jack, that was when I noticed half of my leaf spring on the right side was gone!Completely! Nothing but........ air....... ugh.....

Ok…… so, the fender never shifted…… the whole damn thing was just broken and sagging on that side and held up by what amounted to less than half a leaf spring! Ohhhhh……. Not good at all…..

Damn! I had inspected them thinking I might replace them before I left San Diego but they looked fine at the time. 

Oh, man, I was a little (a lot) sick to my stomach.
This was one of those “Oh, shit, I am seriously screwed”, moments.

I felt my heart rate increase and my sense of well-being dissipate in a fraction of a second. 

I was nowhere. 

No town nearby, nothing visible but jungle for as far as I could see……… 

I thought of every southern engineering trick I could up to and including ratchet strapping around the frame and boat to try to keep things together so I could find a mechanic. I knew it would be many kilometers before that would happen and I was feeling hot and more than a little desperate.

I also had the completely irrational and barely realistic hope that a Green Angel (paid mechanics that patrol the toll-roads in Mexico to keep you safe) would magically appear and help me out.

This, in fact, did not occur and I drove many kilometers very slowly and finally turned off towards the coast and San Blas.

It was at that point I saw in my rear-view mirror the very Green Angel I had prayed for (I think that is what is referred to as bargaining with God) under the trees exactly where I had just exited the toll-road. There was no way to back track the many kilometers to the next on and off ramp to see if he would still be there to help me when I passed by again. I couldn’t believe it and figured the Road-Gods were having a nice laugh at my expense. I attribute this to what I call "Divine Ambivalence".

So, I just kept going. I knew there was a town ahead somewhere and every town has a mechanic, right?

In short order I rolled into a town that looked like it had twenty or so dwellings in it and, sure enough, a yard, as evidenced by all the auto parts scattered everywhere, that had to be a mechanics. I pulled into his yard and we chatted a bit while I showed him my dilemma.

He told me in the town of Santiago was a man who built muelles(leaf springs) and that all I had to do was go about 400 meters, turn right, go another 17 kilometers, turn right again and then another 12 or so and I’d be in Santiago and the guy could set me straight. Easy peasy, right? 

Alrighty then………. Well, seeing as I had about zero choices I turned right at 400 meters and after about 10 kilometers saw what was clearly another mechanic’s house that was significantly more orderly than the previous mechanic's and I promptly pulled in to his yard. There was no way I was by-passing any potential help!

No one was outside but the door was open so I knocked, said “hola” and promptly interrupted the mechanic and his family having lunch.

Apologizing for doing so I explained my problem with hope in my heart and a smile on my face.

They were all quite gracious and he came out and assessed my situation. He told me that, yes, I could go to Santiago but since I wanted to make it to San Pancho there was a much closer solution.

He said at the crucero, which was another 7 kilometers, turn left and I would see a mechanic on the right and that he could fix my issue! I was very excited by this prospect and, at this point, I was only about an hour behind my schedule!

So right at 7 kilometers I saw the crucero and turned left. I saw a mechanic immediately on the right and it was a big shop with lots of trucks sitting around in it. I was quite happy to see this right where the last mechanic had said it would be. I pulled my truck in, parked and found the mechanic who proceeded to tell me he couldn’t take care of my issue. 

I was much less happy at this point. Actually, I was desperate and I was working on a non-existent Plan-B. I am certain all this was clearly evident on my face.

All I could think of was that I was either going to have to tempt fate trying to make it to San Blas or backtrack to Santiago.

He looked at me, told me to wait and said he needed to make a phone call. He came out with his phone in hand, told me to get in my Rodeo and follow him.

We proceeded, fortunately southward again, and he stops in front of a sign that states “MUELLES”.

Yeah!

He told me to go in and talk to the guy there. I offered to buy him a beer or soda and he smiled, said no, gracias and waved goodbye.

Besides the barking dogs and chickens and naked kids running around the yard I was very happy to see two men working on the leaf springs of a truck! Woohoo! I could not have been happier. I was now only two hours behind schedule and I had plenty of daylight to make it into San Pancho!

My Plan-B had been that I was going to have to pay somebody to let me store my boat and its contents in their yard but now here was a real spring mechanic right in front of me!

My heart-rate decreased, my sense of well-being returned and I knew all would be right in the world again.

Well, after about 45 minutes they finished the truck in front of me and we chatted about my issue and they got to work. During this time I had the privilege of hearing the story of how the grandpa had gone to Los Angeles because he was nearly blind and used another man’s name, ID and insurance to have an $8000.00 dollar corrective surgery and now, gracias a dios, he could see perfectly! 

I was duly impressed at his resourcefulness, especially since he was working and welding on my trailer!

It was really quite amazing to see these two men cut my leaf springs off, fabricate completely out of other springs by dismantling two brand new ones and then install leaf springs that fit my boat trailer exactly. 

They fabricated new mounting bolts and brackets all while using equipment that was powered by one of them holding two wires into an outlet when they needed power for their saws, presses and welders. 

To have been more grateful to these guys when they were finally done would not have been possible, at least outside of prison, and I was only 4 hours behind my schedule!

The moment of payment was another interesting cultural exchange.

In a country where bargaining is a mainstay I knew this was going to be a process and I really wanted to just hit the road.

When the work was all done, my trailer hooked back up and my thirst at a maximum I asked how much I owed them.

It was at this point that I got to hear how bad the economy was(I knew this) business had been very slow(clearly) he has a new baby(also evident) and times are just plain tough.
I got it.

He lit a cigarette and we talked about kids and dogs and having a cold beer at the end of the day and work and he smoked that thing about half-way down and, finally, paused.

I knew it was coming and I couldn't have been more relieved! 

He looked me straight in the eye and then told me in a questioning voice “2500 pesos”?  Clearly he was ready to bargain and the questioning in his voice told me he felt his price was high.

I did some quick math in my head and figured somewhere close to $200USD was what he was asking.

This man and his dad had just saved my bacon. They completely fabricated brand new leaf-springs for me, made new brackets and installed them and they wanted $200. I know I could have bargained them down easily.

I paused and looked around, looked in my wallet (where a mere 3000 pesos resided at the time) and handed him what he wanted with a mil gracias senores to top it off.

I knew I was running low on fuel and asked where a Pemex and an ATM was. They told me both were on the way to San Pancho so I took a leap of faith and headed south again.

Their instructions to me were to just keep going straight and I would run into both the Pemex and ATM.  As I came to a fork in the road I realized, clearly, they had no idea what they were talking about…… so, I took the fork that looked straightest (I was trying to apply logic outside of my own to this dilemma) and ended up finding both the Pemex and ATM. Their directions were impeccable.

This 4 hour detour had taken me well north of my original route so I had time to make up. It was 45 minutes later that I found the Pemex and, fortunately, and ATM right next door.

Money in hand and fuel in the tank I headed out with the knowledge that I had a lot of time to make up and not a whole lot of sunlight to do it in.

In somewhat of a bit of poetic irony, immediately after I got fuel and pesos, I went through a very long town north of San Blas and there were very professional looking shops everywhere that had signs for “meulles”. I must have passed ten leaf spring shops! 

I probably could have gotten the work done for half of what I paid previously and probably more quickly. 

I laughed out loud as I passed through the town with every mechanical service available that I might have ever needed. It occurred to me that there must be something about road conditions here that create a great need for leaf springs!

I was looking at this experience (which someday I’ll refer to as an adventure) in kind of a divine intervention way, though. 

That family was clearly in need and I filled it and I felt fine about it.

New baby, other hungry kids running around and they looked the kind of poor you can't fake.

My troubles were a perfect solution for all of us.

After that my travels were completely uneventful and I ticked off the landmarks. San Blas, the crocodile sanctuaries north of Matachen Bay, Las Varas and, then, lifting my spirits mightily, La Penita and then Lo de Marcos which meant in 10 minutes I would be entering San Pancho!

I pulled up to my house right as the sun set, let Seamus happily out of the Rodeo and proceeded to unload our belongings and get them stowed so I could pick my family up from the airport the next day.

Just like I planned……….