HELL’S WEIGH STATION
Originally written in 2001-ish.
Since I am writing this during the crappy winter month of February, allow me to share some thoughts on winter driving with you.
Winter driving sucks.
Granted, now that I live in the mild climes of Portland, Oregon, I generally don’t have to deal with the bowel-loosening terror of winter ice storms anymore.
However, my memory is not immune to the anxiety of snow-covered days gone by.
In fact, one of the most terrifying driving experiences I ever encountered was in Eastern Oregon.
The year was 2000, and I was driving from New Mexico to Oregon in mid-January.
That’s a two or three-day trek if you go about it alone, as I did, and the icy shitstorm that awaited me soon made its presence felt. I was right in the thick of it by the time I reached the creepy orange hue of Farmington, New Mexico.
The foreboding sounds of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising” set the trip’s tone appropriately. I began my voyage hearing John Fogerty’s swampboogie voice say:
“Don’t go out tonight!
It’s bound to take your life!”
Undeterred, I merged onto Albuquerque’s “Big-I” at the unGodly hour of 3 am. In no time at all, I was riding along New Mexico’s aptly named Highway 666 in the wintry void of America’s Four Corners region…
Soon enough I found myself on a lonesome Colorado highway that I don’t think I was supposed to be on and — boom! — I was teleported to Durango, Colorado, far away from my planned destination of Utah. (I guess I should expect some navigational confusion in the Four Corners area — it’s the inland equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle. And somehow it guided me into the unpopulated shit-void of the Rocky Mountains.)
I was soon trapped in area that knew nothing of time or space, and the few signs of life I saw were either eerie gas stations aglow in the perpetual winter netherscape or trucks being steered by phantom cowboys en route to Hell’s Weigh Station.
It was like a hallucination experienced within the parameters of a Red Sovine song. Had I seen a giant, roadside rabbit made of fiberglass (there is such a creature in Aloha, Oregon), I’m sure it would’ve engaged me in telepathic dialogue.
Deep into this trip, I was driving through Eastern Oregon in the black of night. There were plenty of scenic roadways that wrapped ’round the sides of mountains and sent motorists to impending doom if they lost command of the slippery conditions ahead. (All throughout this ordeal, I was gripping the steering wheel with a vice-like stranglehold, lest I be cast into a ditch like the cars around me).
Stubbornness and lack of funds prevented me from pulling over somewhere and getting a motel room.
Lack of common sense played a role too.
But eventually I made my way to my final destination, Portland, Oregon.
My 1991 Honda civic and I were no worse for the wear, and we eventually took up residence at a cozy, roach-nest apartment on East Burnside Avenue, kitty-korner from Union Jack’s strip club.
On a vaguely similar note, I recall Christmas 1997 in Madison, Wisconsin.
After parking my Chevy Cavalier atop my sister Betsy’s vertical-drop driveway, the car started to slide.
Its parking brake was no match for Betsy’s icy blacktop!
The car went spiraling down the hill, pinning me between its door and the (fast-moving) ground.
In my wake was a trail of half-drawn snow angels being pathetically dragged into oblivion.
The car eventually stopped, due to divine intervention, or perhaps gravity.
Again, strangely, I was no worse for the wear. No bones had been broken, no ligaments had been torn…
In some weird way, I will always fondly recall such journeys into the black void of winter…
