Veteran’s Day Weekend got off to a good start when Paul bruised his ribs while trying to slide up a railing. Our adventure racing team was going to do a 24-hr race in the western Sierra Foothills, a ways up from Oakdale. We were excited because Paul, Daniel and I felt like we’d make a strong team (even now, with Paul’s painful ribs), and in years past this race, the Gold Rush, has had excellent courses. Paul and Daniel drove up to UCSC Thursday night, so Friday we loaded up Daniel’s mini-van and drove to Oakdale for the pre-race meeting. Katharine and Nic, who also go to UCSC, came along to crew for our team.

We arrived in Oakdale for the meeting early, which has never happened before. Usually our team scurries in and catches the last five minutes or so. With so much time we didn’t really know how to handle ourselves – we lounged around carbo-loading on lasagna and bread, we filled up the van with gas, we took time and put the canoe we were borrowing on the van carefully, and we organized gear. All of which normally happens at a lightning-quick speed that doesn’t allow any of it to get done correctly. I was enjoying this new, stress-free sort of pre-race.

When we got our maps and plotted the checkpoints we realized this race was going to be amazing. It had a killer paddling leg that included a spot where you had to ferry your bikes across the lake, not to mention extensive trekking and biking legs. Looking at the maps we were psyched and ready to race.

So we left the race meeting feeling good, especially since the race directors assured us that it was only an hour and a half drive to the race start area, and we wouldn’t get lost. That’s what happened last year at this race – we got lost trying to find the start in the middle of the night. But this year would be different, we could feel it.

About ten minutes outside of Oakdale Katharine remembered that we needed batteries. We didn’t think we’d be able to buy them anywhere else in the next nine hours, so we turned around and headed back to the Save-Mart in Oakdale. While Daniel, Paul and I bought large-quantities of batteries and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Nic decided he and Katharine should re-tie the canoe, just to make sure it was secure. Ten minutes later, everyone was happily munching on Reeses and we were headed for the race start again.

Daniel, Paul and I were stretched out in the backseat, and Katharine was driving. All of a sudden Daniel yelled, “Watch out, babe!” and we all saw a red Chevy truck in front of our van. Of course Katharine slammed on the brakes, but so did the driver of the other vehicle when she realized there was about to be a accident. Since we were driving perpendicular, her stopping resulted in us T-boning the truck straight-on. As we headed for it, time slowed down and all I noticed was that there was a little boy in the passenger side of the truck staring at us in horror. “Oh please, don’t let the canoe shoot off the roof and kill the kid, please don’t,” I prayed.

The impact wasn’t as bad as I expected, although Nic says it was a lot worse in the front seat. But in the back it didn’t feel serious at all, and I figured we’d exchange insurance info, check to make sure everything was okay with the people in the truck and then keep on heading for the race start. Sure, it was a bummer to have this happen, but Daniel’s van is a POS car anyway and another little dent wouldn’t be so bad. All this was running through my head when I saw Katharine, who had gotten out of the van and walked around to check out the front end, mouth the words “Oh shit!” We couldn’t hear her, but it was clear as day what she’d said.

Now, Katharine may exaggerate sometimes, but I had an unfortunate feeling that this wasn’t one of those times. The rest of us got out and noticed that not only was the van smashed in the front, it was also leaking fluid all over and steaming. Not good. Even worse, the other driver was an unlicensed girl who looked like she was about fifteen, and the only other passenger was her brother, who must have been about six years old. Luckily, the girl’s cousin appeared out of nowhere and helped straighten the situation out. We spent about forty-five minutes talking to the cousin, the girl’s mom and, later, her dad before we finally called the police. The cousin was nice, the mom didn’t really speak English, and the dad was a bit of a jerk. All he’d say was, “You gonna fix my truck? Huh?” When the only damage to the truck was a slight dent in the door (which didn’t prevent the door from opening), and when it was his unlicensed daughter who had run a red light and caused the accident. Meanwhile our van was definitely not driving anywhere in the near future and we had a race to get to.

Once the police came it was a lot easier. In Oakdale there doesn’t seem to be much for the cops to do, because we had a succession of four or five squad cars roll by in addition to the two that were there actually taking care of the situation. After half an hour or so talking to the cops, the girl and her family left. We, on the other hand, had no means of leaving so we hung around making small talk with Officers Wyatt and Johnson. Daniel told them about our race, and how we still wanted to make it somehow. Paul jokingly suggested the police officers lend us their SUV, or better yet, crew for us in the SUV. They thought that was pretty funny, but not funny enough to say yes, especially after one of them spotted the “John Kerry” bumper sticker on the van and pegged us for liberals (“Gotta be careful out here, kids, “ he told us, eyes narrowed).

Eventually one of the cops got around to asking where we were going to spend the night. “Dunno,” I said. “In the park,” Paul said, pointing across the street. “Ha ha, well that’ll get you arrested – sleeping in the park,” Officer Johnson said. He thought we were still joking, even though we weren’t. “I can give you guys a voucher for a motel room if you want,” he offered. Well, of course we wanted a free hotel room. So we gathered some stuff and the cops gave us a ride back to the station, while Austin the tow truck driver took the van to the local Ford dealership for the night.

Despite the fact that our van was wrecked and we probably wouldn’t be doing this race after all, riding in the back of a squad car was fun. The Officer Johnson also gave us junior officer stickers, which were even more fun. Then he drove us over to a place named Jerry’s Motel. “All right kids,” he told us before he let us out of the car, “First, don’t judge Oakdale by Jerry’s. Second, don’t leave your room tonight, just stay inside and you’ll be good.” With these comforting words he drove off and we were left outside of Jerry’s office door.

Jerry was an Indian man who did not say a single word to us. Paul walked in and told him the cops gave us this voucher. Jerry motioned for Paul to pass it to him under the glass, then he passed Paul a slip of paper for Paul to write some information on. Paul passed the paper back, Jerry passed a key out, we left, Jerry began to laugh maniacally as we did so. When we heard him laughing we hurried very quickly over to room 6 and bolted ourselves inside.

By this time it was 1:30 in the morning. We were all tired and bummed about our race situation. You invest a lot in doing an adventure race. Not just in terms of the entry fee, but also in training and mental preparation. To come so close and not be able to do the race kind of sucked. We’d called the race directors numerous times, but they were apparently out of cell phone range, so we left them numerous messages. In the mean time, we figured we may as well get some sleep.

Jerry’s was not especially conducive to sleep, or anything else for that matter. It was quite possibly the sketchiest motel I have ever spent the night in, including the one next to a nuclear power plant that my parents and I stayed in. There were stains all over the floor, holes in the walls, dead flies and a shower in the kitchen. Luckily we had sleeping bags, and no one needed to shower. So we all got a few hours of sleep before Katharine woke us up at five and told me to try calling the race directors again. I did. They still didn’t answer. At eight o’clock we cheered for the race start from the skanky kitchen of Jerry’s motel while eating Reeses for breakfast. Kind of a bummer.

At nine we walked down the street to Enterprise Rent-A-Car, the only place in town, and found out that there was no way we could get a car to get back to Santa Cruz since we’re all under 21 years old. Then we went to the Ford Dealership and affirmed that the van wasn’t going to get us home anytime soon. Since it was a holiday weekend, we couldn’t even get the van looked at until Monday, when we all needed to be back at school. While we figured out what to do, we hung out at Haidlen Ford with Austin the tow truck driver and Robert the Ford Salesman.

Nic turned out to be our savior. He’s from East Bay, and his parents offered to drive down to Oakdale and take us back to Santa Cruz – an offer we were grateful to accept. The only catch was that Nic’s dad, who picked us up, wanted to watch the NCAA water polo championship game that Nic’s high school team was playing in, and the game was Saturday afternoon. So we made a detour to East Bay on the way back to UCSC and watched the water polo game. Funnily enough, it was Daniel and my first real high school sporting event. I guess going to a school like High Tech High can do that to you.

Anyway, we got back to Santa Cruz fine, but Daniel and Paul still needed to get to Santa Barbara. It would’ve been easy if they didn’t have mountain bikes and gear, but they did. For about five hours we entertained the idea of riding to Santa Barbara, then driving back up to collect gear. That was a little extreme though, considering we all had lots of schoolwork to take care of. So in the end we put Daniel’s and Paul’s bikes in some cardboard boxes that we scavenged from the dumpster and duct-taped the hell out of, and Sunday morning we hauled the bike boxes and their gear down to the bus stop.

We figured we’d have to take the city bus downtown to the Greyhound station, but then Katharine, Nic and my geology professor, Casey Moore, drove by. He stopped at the stop sign by our bus stop, saw us, kept going, did a double-take and rolled back to where we were standing. “Hey kids, where’re you headed?” We told him we were off to the Greyhound station and Casey Moore offered to give us a lift, “I just need to pick something up from my office and then I’ll come back and give you kids a ride, okay?” Yes, that was definitely okay. Thanks to the ride from Casey Moore, getting to the Greyhound was easy, and we had time for Jamba Juice while waiting for the bus. Which was an hour and a half late. But that’s another story…