When I first got into caving, I couldn't figure out the difference between OTR and other caving conventions, all of which have similar acronyms like NRO, MAR, VAR, and one other convention that's confusingly just called Convention. All I knew was OTR was every Labor Day in Dailey, West Virginia, and Dailey, West Virginia was eight hours away. I didn't yet know about the curse.
OTR 1999:
I was brand new to caving. I had done exactly one cave with my grotto, Surprise, back in May. There weren't many beginner trips that summer, and I couldn't make those that were available.
It seemed like the macho thing to drive down there in my car, a Dodge Shadow. Hell yeah, I was a caver now, this is what we did. Better yet, I'd drive down there with a stranger. A guy named Alan was looking for a ride, so I'd ferry him down. He'd pay for gas, so I was essentially making this trip for free (minus wear and tear I put on the car).
What followed was an 11 hour hell trip. Two hours was cutting into the city to pick up Alan, since he had so much gear it took three trips from his apartment door.
I had never driven so long before. My longest car rides were 6-hour trips to Boston in college, and I wasn't driving for those. Driving 11 hours with no radio stations (my car didn't have a tape deck) was a study in how long a conversation could be stretched.
I had never been to West Virginia before. All I knew were big caves and 'Deliverance'. Turns out most of the state is very rural, the people friendly, and the land covered in cows. The OTR site looked like a miniature Woodstock, or at least Woodstock 99, the one I'd been to. Only without the entire place on fire.
My first taste of West Virginia caving, and my second cave as an adult, was the Simmons-Mingo through trip. A two mile burrow through tight rock that ended up taking another 11 hours. Long story short, I left determined to never cave again.
Saturday I stayed aboveground, thinking every cave trip would be similar to that. Sunday I dared to venture on a trip to Sharps, which was much better. Actually pleasant.
Coming back on Route 219 on Monday, I got into an accident right outside Accident, MD. 219 was a two-lane road, but not divided, so as I went around a curve I found a little red car at a dead stop waiting to make a left. I braked, but it was raining, so my brakes locked up. I smashed into the other car at about 40 MPH. No one was hurt, and both cars were still driveable. I prayed my car would make it home OK.
My car somehow made it home OK, even through dropping Alan and his stuff off in the city. I had many horror stories to tell at work Tuesday. Wednesday I got laid off.
OTR has cursed me.
OTR 2000:
Somehow that week had not completely killed my desire to cave (or live, for that matter).
My Dodge Shadow died a month after the accident. My new car was a sometimes-unreliable Mercury Topaz. I took it on several day trips, to J4, Leigh and Surprise.
I dared to return to West Virginia, several times in fact, but arranged rides with other people. I happily paid for gas and the odd toll, and took turns behind the wheel whenever it was needed (although people who knew my 0 for 1 driving record usually decided they weren't too tired to drive).
I'd meet up with everyone going on a trip in the Holiday Inn parking lot in Clinton, and drop my tub of cave gear in whatever car we were taking. I bummed rides off Bob Scull's hatchback, Scott Sedlock's Jeep, and Andrew Foord's big Suburban.
Most of the trips I had been on were with just a few grotto members, so there was always some discussion about where to meet to squeeze everyone in as few cars as possible. OTR was different, as it assumed everyone was going. So everyone would drive themselves, unless they took that individual initiative to call and ask for a ride. Which I didn't do.
My new job (which I had coincidentally made an interview appointment for the day I got laid off) was a magazine covering the private label industry. It paid for mileage on trips to buy store brand items, and the biggest supermarket chain in the country, Kroger, didn't have any stores in the northeast. I could get paid for driving to OTR.
I didn't want to burden someone with a 16-hour return trip because I'd spend 45 minutes in every supermarket I saw. So I drove down by myself. I got the book on tape version of the Hunt for Red October, which my car's tape deck (this car had one) would only play at a whisper. I listened to five tapes driving southwest, and five tapes driving northeast.
Coming back over the Appalachians, a car zoomed past me going 85 MPH. I kept on my 65-70 mode, about as fast as my car could go before it started shaking. A few miles up the road, there were two wrecked cars, one of them the speed freak that zipped by me. Someone was fated to crash during this trip, it seemed, and he stumbled into my OTR curse. Thanks, sucker.
OTR 2001:
I kept wary of the curse this year and never brought my car to West Virginia. I bummed rides from Becky Cerbone's Honda Civic and Francois' Subaru. I passed through West Virginia to the Kentucky NSS Convention in Ed Sira's truck.
I didn't make it to OTR. In July my Topaz got in a collision with a car in my blind spot. Ironically, it was a tow truck.
The freshly gashed Topaz was breaking down constantly, and was in no shape to go 900 miles. (A hundred miles of normal driving after the skipped OTR, it outright died, so good thing I didn't attempt the trip.) I didn't even trust it as far as Clinton. It died just a few days after Labor Day. Was the OTR curse responsible for me missing OTR?
OTR 2002:
My new car was a Toyota Camry. I heard nothing but good things about Camrys, and the desire to buy American became dimmer and dimmer as the Camry went longer and longer without a problem. I had never had a truly reliable car before. My experience from a lifetime of crappy cars was that ALL cars perpetually broke down, so why pay more than $1500 for one? I paid a lot more for the Camry, but it was earning its keep.
I made trips to Surprise, the Schoharie cabin and Clarksville with the Camry. West Virginia trips, however, were still avoided. I grabbed rides with Bubbles' new Saturn Vue and Mark Skove's enormous blue van.
You'll notice most of the cars on this bummed ride list are of the humungous category. My cars all only seat five, and with a weekend's worth of gear only fit two or three. That made my car automatically written off when it was in Clinton, especially when the rest of the grotto has a truck, SUV or van.
For OTR 2002, Andrew Foord was planning on taking his new van down, and wanted as many riders as he could fit. He was going to set up a TV/VCR in the center console, so we�d be watching movies in luxury the whole trip down. Sweet.
Thursday, I called Andrew to confirm that the ride's still happening. It is, he said, but it'll just be the two of us heading down. Neither one of us could get Friday off, so every other caver in the tri-state area was already at the OTR site. It'd probably make more sense to take my car down, he said.
Uh oh. My caving life had revolved around never taking my car there. I had a full on curse to heed. I didn�t quite believe in it, but acting so kept my Camry healthy.
Logically, it made no sense for me to not drive down. We were just two people, my car was more fuel-efficient than a van, my car was (so far) reliable, and it hadn�t taken the routine punishment that cavers� cars do.
My only argument was that I didn't want the mileage or the chance of a crash. And that wasn't an argument, just sticking it on another car. (In my defense, usually there was someone who liked the freedom of their own car in West Virginia.) If I owned both cars, I'd take the Camry in a second.
I bit the bullet and drove Friday night. I'd drive the best I could, and the curse could fire at will. Hell, there was no curse, just wet brakes three years ago.
My nodding off point comes early, around 10:30 or so. Once I make it over that hump, I can drive all night. A 44 oz. Mountain Dew from Sheetz helped. Andrew and I spotted at least 20 deer on the road, so the last few hours of driving were with the brights on.
I pulled into the OTR site on a single tank of gas, my fuel light still dark. 440 miles and the car was ready for more.
I did a Simmons-Mingo through trip on Saturday, but not the through trip. This was the Stan�s Blowing Hole to Zarathustra trip, a zip down a 70 foot vertical shaft and a walk/climb out. The entrances are all of 30 feet from each other, so that feeling of accomplishment after doing a through trip wasn't quite there.
Sunday I passed on virtually the entire grotto's trip to Carpenter-Swago, since I had just done a Carpenter-Swago trip in July. I entertained the notion of doing Sites, a 70-foot vertical cave, but never did it. That's probably for the best, because the A+ team of cavers I was a part of couldn't even FIND Sites, much less rig it correctly. We did find Trout, Hamilton and New Trout caves, though, and did those safe horizontal caves for two hours.
Coming back Monday, I did another 440 miles without the light going on. I managed to push it past 500 before gassing up. I didn't see an accident the whole way.
The next day, I saw my landlord in the parking lot. His car had been broken into Friday night, and his radio ripped out. He parks in the same six-car lot as I do, and would have on that Friday if I weren't West Virginia bound. My car's got both a CD player and tape deck, and Camrys are routinely among the list of most stolen cars.
All things in moderation. My stinginess in driving my car has probably saved the earth a lot of burnt fossil fuels, and funded the driving for many fellow grotto members. But there are circumstances where it's best for me to drive, and I'll happily do those from now on. To avoid the curse of OTR.