Days 1 and 2 – Omaha, NE to Sioux Falls, SD – September 11, 2010

I am starting out a road trip from Omaha to Seattle. My plan is to head north and stop in Sioux Falls, SD, and stay with my old buddy Jesse James Wilson. I met Jesse while I was working at Mckenna's BBQ around 2002, and we have stayed in contact ever since, even since he moved back to his home in Sioux Falls SD 6 years ago.
These past two weeks have been crazy stressful, as unplanned expenses have reared their ugly heads in last few months, so I have scheduled a lot of extra work time this month to make up for the lost money. Ugh! Money. Anyway, I won't get into that rant yet (maybe later). I had planned to get a lot of planning done for the details of the trip in the last week, but had a lot of work come up in addition to picking up extra shifts at the restaurant. I had a few impromptu fence jobs and I had three new projects for graphic design, including finishing a website for my friend Paddy's business he runs with his dad. So I didn't get as prepared as I would have liked to. In addition, my car had some recurring issues and I ended up taking it to 3 different mechanics before we finally diagnosed the problem correctly and after spending about $550 on the issue, still I am leaving town knowing that I need a new bearing knuckle in my car when I return.
So, in short, I am stressed. It doesn't happen to me very often, but I am. I need this vacation. And I am excited to leave. I wanted to leave about 12pm today, but was running here and there, packing, planning, getting provisions, gas, etc. and didn't get on the road until about 3pm. No big deal though.
I leave Council Bluffs, IA after picking up some stuff at Wal-Mart and filling up the tank. I immediately feel a great sense of relief to finally have nothing to do and worry about. Just head north on I-29 and three hours later you're in Sioux Falls. I am close to the interstate exits for Sioux Falls and notice that my check engine light is flashing. I continue on, and arrive at Jesse's house around 6 pm. He has a cute little one bedroom box of a house, probably about 600 square feet, but he lives alone and has enough space. I unload some of my stuff from the car, which by the way is pretty full and I am not sure how I am going to get MORE stuff in there and still have room for Tom and Paddy. Anyway, I unload some stuff and Jesse and I set off to see the city's namesake, the falls.
They were absolutely beautiful! It is like being at an awesome area in a National Park in the middle of this city/town of 200K people. There are beautiful natural quartzite red rocks and cascading water screaming through it. Gorgeous. Jesse and I were shootin the shit, catching up, and next thing I know, I had to sit down because I started feeling weird. I think I have had like one anxiety attack in my life, and this was what that felt like, I think. I got sweaty, felt kinda light-headed, couldn't concentrate. So I sat down on the rocks for a minute and just breathed, and it passed. I think it was just too much emotion building up and trying to get out. All the stress, relief, reunion, and natural beauty couldn't be contained anymore.
We decided we were both hungry and decided to go to a place called Minerva's downtown. It is a semi upscale place with a large, fresh salad bar, mostly steaks and chicken dinners, etc. We sat at the bar to have a drink and wait for a patio table to open up. As I drank my Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout I notice there is an item I am unfamiliar with...it's called chislic. Intrigued, when we sat at our table outside, I ordered the chislic appetizer and a Schell Dark, from Minnesota. Jesse fills me in on the history of chislic. He said traditionally it is made from lamb but chislic can refer to several meats, as it is more about the style of preparation. The chislic we ordered is steak, and basically what it is is cubed steak dropped in the deep fryer with no breading. Interesting, I thought it would probably be dried out, but it was delicious and not dry at all. After that we hit the salad bar, and I ordered the half duckling with a dark berry sauce and Jesse got the buffalo burger. Both were good. The duck was a bit more cooked than I normally like it, but not overdone.
We then decided that a quick driving tour of the city was in order. They have some great buildings with character and a beautiful cathedral. I snapped a few shots with my PAS(point and shoot camera. I will refer to PAS and SLR throughout this blog probably. These are my two cameras. SLR is my more expensive body with detachable lenses. SLR refers to “Single Lens Reflex” which means when you look through the viewfinder, with the help of a mirror, you look directly out the lens of the camera.) and we headed to a local bar called Nutty's, where there was going to be music that night. We were about an hour and fifteen minutes early for the show, so we decide to go to the other Nutty's, Nutty's South, and visit Jesse's friend. We have a couple drinks and notice the bar is absolutely full of women. There are like 3 bachelorette parties, annoying as usual, but all in all the bar was packed and fun. South Dakota has beautiful women. A bit like the style in Omaha, but different in a way I can't quite put my finger on. Anyway, we head to a place called Rookie's where another friend of Jesse's was working as a bouncer. Big J, I believe was his name. We just stayed long enough to say hi and marvel at the new phenomenon, the punching bag. You pay a dollar for one hit on a punching bag that then rates your strength of the hit 0-1000. J is a big man who used to be a DL for European league football and he can get a 994. There was a huge crowd around this thing to pay $1 a hit! Wish I would have invented that in this age of the youth that are into MMA and such. It rakes in thousands! We then head back to Nutty's North and enjoy some live music.
One band was a folk band with about 7 members and the other was a rockier band with 4. They took turns playing a few songs each, back and forth. I got a good buzz, mingled around, bought a $10 Sewer Rats(the second band) t-shirt, and Jesse and I went back home via a ride, as neither of us was in good shape to drive. Had a little wacky tobacky and listened to music for about three more hours before we finally hit the hay about 5:30am. Woke up around 11 and went to a diner Jesse had talked about being on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. We found out that it was planned to be in the show, but didn't actually happen. NBD. I ordered chicken and waffles, and Jesse got a hot roast beef sandwich covered in mashed potatoes with dark gravy. Mine totally hit the spot. Jesse had never had chicken and waffles and thought it was weird. This from the guy who introduced me to baked beans on top of cornbread. I made him try a bite with waffle, maple syrup, bacon, and the breaded fried chicken. He was instantly smitten.
We parted ways soon thereafter and I headed to Wal-Mart to get some food, ice and drink. I went back to the tire and lube area to see if they could check out my check engine light issue. They couldn't, but referred me to Tires Plus down the street. I noticed this was the best Wal-Mart I had ever been to as far as quality of customers. There were beautiful young women all over, successful looking people, all groomed properly, it was weird. I had to look around to be sure they hadn't snuck me into a GAP or something. So, I was ambivalent about whether or not to stop at the Tires Plus, so I sat outside Wal-Mart for awhile and did some internet research on my car symptoms. I checked the oil, looked around the engine for anything blatantly obvious, and decided to try and drive it a bit and see if the light would flash again. I got on the interstate and almost immediately it did it again. So I went back and pulled into Tires Plus. Went inside, and found out that they only had one mechanic on duty, and it was about 35 minutes til close. He said he couldn't fit it in. I explained my circumstances and talked him into hooking it up to the scanner to see what it said. The scan came back saying the knock sensor had an issue, which I was aware of, but was told not to worry about it. But it also came back with ALL FOUR cylinders misfiring. They had not really seen that before, and encouraged me to get it looked at more thoroughly at the Subaru dealer, where they have a more detailed scanner. They also thought I could have gotten a bad tank of gas and we sort of decided I should top off my tank with premium gas and a fuel inhector cleaner, drive a little more and see if the light continued to flash. At this point, I am obviously confused, it's 5 pm, I'm already way later than I wanted to be, and I decide to get on the interstate and see what happens.
The light would sometimes flash and sometimes not, and I drove with the radio off the whole time and didn't hear any weird noises or anything. I got about 35 miles outside of Sioux Falls and notice the battery light and the brake light also had come on. I was about ¼ mile from a rest area, so I pull in and as I am parking in a spot notice my power steering is out. At this point I am freaking out, frustrated, and sick of my f-ing car. I pop the hood and see if I can see anything. First thing I notice is a belt sitting in there. I look to find out where this had come from and see my crank pulley is hanging off the bolt at an angle. I decided to sit down in the grass, breathe, and make some phone calls. I talked to my friend and roommate Tom and we decide I very well could have blown a cylinder or more, and I should get a tow back to town and look for a used car in SF. I call my insurance company to line up a tow back to town, and find out I don't have roadside assistance and would pay for this out of pocket. But they lined up the tow for me. I told them to take it to a used car lot in town and sat and waited for the tow driver. About this time, an older man with the hairiest ears I had ever seen was trying to talk to me, but I was on the phone inside the car because of interstate noise and gave him the “wait a minute, I'm on the phone” finger gesture. I got off the call and went over to talk to him. He was delivering a new car to his daughter in Seattle and was also going through Portland, so we hit it off immediately. He was waiting for the sun to go down a bit more so he could see driving west. He had some car knowledge and took a look with me. He said it didn't look bad at all. He said if the pulley hadn't gotten a bit worn out in the center I could probably just tighten the bolt, re-string the belts and drive away! He said if I could go to a junk yard, I could fix it myself for about 50 bucks. This made me a bit optimistic, but having no tools, not much car knowledge, etc. I decided to take it to a mechanic just the same.
The tow driver got there, we looked at the car again, and I asked him for a good mechanic reference, since I had now decided to fix it instead of getting a new one. He said there was a Subaru dealer in town and the service manager was honest and fair. I said ok. So we hopped in the truck and headed back into town. We got to talking and Mark, the driver, is quite an interesting fellow. He enjoys photography as well, and had actually sold several pictures to the paper for like $8000 a piece! He had evidently been the first one on the scene a couple of times when some major shit happened and gotten photos. One time he found a dead police officer. I would have never thought about it, but after the tow leaves the scene of an accident, there are no more photos to take, so he is in a unique position. Anyway, he drops me off and Jesse picks me up from the dealership, I drop the key in the night dropbox and leave a note. Jesse and I get Taco Bell and go home, only about a mile away.
We overindulge on the tacos and watch a Broken Lizard movie, Puddle Cruiser, evidently their first, from 1996. It was pretty awful, but funny at times, so not a bad way to wind down my exciting day. I went to sleep and planned to get up at 7:20ish to go up and talk to someone at Subaru when they open at 7:30.