In April of 1995 I, along
with two friends, hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
Roger and I drove
cross country to meet with Darren in Las Vegas. On the way
to Vegas we drove through Memphis Tenessee, Little Rock Arkansas, the Painted
Desert and the Petrified Forrest, and we crossed the Hoover Dam.
As we were approaching
along the sidewinding road to the Dam, in a line a traffic, suddenly the
car in front of us stopped and a man jumped out yelling that the truck
in front of him was on fire! Not seeing any fire I pulled around
the man and his car figuring him for some kind of lunatic but sure enough,
just around the next curve, the truckdriver had found space to pull to
the side of the road and was attempting to put out a fire! Apparently
his brakes had cought fire (which I understand is not unusual for an 18
wheeler going downhill in traffic). Unfortunately his small fire
extinguisher was not up to the task. We could still see the
smoke coming from his rig as we crossed the Dam and listening on the CB-radio
heard another trucker asking for more fire extinguishers.
Fortunately, as
we got across the dam I noticed a couple of police cruisers on the side
of the road! As the traffic was still backed up and going less than
5mph I told Roger to scream out the window to let the police know about
the fire. Here's were the story gets a little funny.
Realizing that
the police were engrossed in conversation about the weather and would not
likely hear him, Roger instead of yelling to them, gets out of the truck!
The police then noticed that I had stopped and yelled at me to continue
moving over their p.a. system. Not wanting to cause a scene with
the police OR get a ticket I take off stranding Roger on the Hoover Dam!
I went up around the next bend in the road and pulled to the side of the
road but realized that there was no way for Roger to reach me as there
was at the time some major construction as the visitor center was being
renovated and there was no sidewalk between me and were I had left Roger!
I ended up making an illegal U-turn with a blind corner behind me and another
in front of me!
Meanwhile back
at the police cruisers, Roger was having trouble even getting the police
officers attention. The police had parked their cruisers drivers'
window to drivers' window to have their conversation and were completely
ignoring Roger as he banged on their hood to get their attention.
Finally, Roger squeezed in between the cruisers and yelled, "Hey! There's
a truck on fire on the other side of the Dam!" To which the police replied
"Yeah right...where?" Roger replied while pointing "That one up there!
You know, with THE SMOKE COMING FROM IT!!!"
Poor Roger, after
being stranded by me he was almost run over by the police when they finally
rushed into action not giving him the time to get out of the way!
Now Roger, not
knowing that I had managed to turn around had to try to get by the construction
zone in order to catch up with me. He described to me walking along
the sidewalk until it came to a very sudden and steep stop. He then
got into the road and was running in traffic hoping not to get hit as I
passed him by on my way to get back to him! Not being able to stop
at the point I saw him I had to go back to an overview parking area on
the other side of the construction that Roger had just managed to get past!
He did manage to get back across the construction safely and we were then
able to continue on to Vegas.
Wow! This is taking longer
to type up than I imagined. (It takes about 10 minutes to tell the
whole adventure and I've already been typing for over 20! And I only about
a third done!)...Well, here are pictures I took with, if you can believe
it, some disposable cameras (It was before I bought my SLR) at the bottom
of the Grand Canyon. As I find the time I will add the rest of the
story.
Later! Hope you enjoy the pics!
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