Devoid Zone se vre, or

Nov, 2007

Leaving Kalifornya after two years four months in Humboldt at Lakou Pamela. On the way to New Orleans, Louisiana; warmer, a city, transit and jobs. Some months after first deciding to move the trailer to the village of Trinidad so that Roxanne could walk to school and Lucienne could be away from the redwoods, we concluded that it was not feasible. The two trailer parks refused to rent to us. They don't like Haytians. The Trinidad Bay Trailer Court is a Kul little place right down town, a block from school and across the street from the market. There is a Spartan 34 foot trailer there, occupied by Kathy, and three Silver Streaks and one Streamline trailer. A couple of Airstreams as well. But, they didn't want two kids.

So, we are moving. Left Trinidad a week late on the day after Thanksgiving. A surprizing amount of stuff is at the local United Van Lines storage warehouse; the motorcycle, and a bunch of boxes. Boxes of books and LP records and clothes and two amplifiers and a guitar and banjo and bass. They will ship it to New Orleans when I request it.

Two days to Lake Havasu and Tanti Bernice's house with many error codes behind the check engine light. We have misfire on cylinder 8, O₂ sensor shorted to voltage and various injectors shouting. The shop says cylinder 8 is running at 75 pounds compression so it is off with the cylinder head for a valve job and new O₂ sensors.

Five days later, the head back from the machine shop and ready to be re-assembled but the Chrysler dealer does not have head bolts on the delivery. Four days and they cannot find a set of head bolts for this 4.7 litre engine; none in Phoenix, nor Las Vegas and Los Angles has only one. Hay Sus.

[23 jan, 2008] Continuing this moving story, the Dakota engine was reassembled with a rebuilt head. Then the whole thing froze up with a dissolving piston. $2000 into the repair job and now a complete new engine is required. So, we threw out all the work so far and bought a long block factory rebuilt engine. This required another two weeks or so of waiting and we were already more than a week into a stay at Auntie Bernice & Uncle Everettes house.

Donc, bought another truck. To get going. A 1999 F250 diesel. It was on a $9900 or less lot that I passed coming from the garage where the Dakota was being worked on. 185,000 miles, all towing a fifth wheel from the looks of it. Hardly used at all, in other words. I put the down payment on a credit card and signed for the rest. Haven't worked in seven years and they give me a car on my signature. Haven't these people heard about the collapsing financial markets?
As it turned out, the dealer had a lot more trouble selling this loan on than they expected. I got a lot of rejection notices from finance companies (including Chrysler finance) before Toyota took my loan. So, Toyota is financing my Ford bought at a Chrysler dealer.

The F250 tows like crazy. We ran much faster than in the Dakota, and climbed without any concerns at all and the temperature gauge never budged. It is not a lot of fun to drive in the city, however.
Down to Sonoita, Arizona to stay with Uncle Matt for two nights and show off Emile-Alexandre. Roxanne got to ride on his horse! She liked that. My cousine Sue in New Orleans is the daughter of Uncle Matt. We are off to search for a house close by cousine Sue's in Nouvelle Orleans.

From Sonoita I wanted to see the border road in New Mexico so thru Bisbee we went and across to Nuevo Mexico at Douglass. That lower Nuevo Mexico is deserted country and the changed state of the border patrol is really evident there. Every 30 miles or so there is an encampment of border patrol with strange new equipment to raise an observation platform way up in the air and search south with night vision equipment. We saw one group of expectant workers being rounded up by the road, many miles from any settlement. One little N.M. town had a beautiful Silver Streak trailer with the newer windows. It was probably built in the 1980's, compared to my 1975 model.

This road across the border lands is pretty deserted. Thru Hachita, across to Columbus, right on the border. Pancho Villa state park sits in the middle of town. A clean RV park is cheap. No TV over the air. Just south there are lots of lights from Mexico. Puerto Palomas, the port for Las Palomas. That seems to be a big city, lots of truck traffic thru here.

The next day finds us heading to El Paso on the surface roads and contemplating the river, and border, right in the middle of town. Doesn't look to hard to commute right across there. The fence is pretty non existant, but lots of green and white Blazers are parked by the road, looking for housekeepers trying to get to work. Or young men with trouble on their minds. This look at the southern border is pretty amazing to Lucienne. All these people walking across the desert seeking work; all these millions of dollars spent trying to stop them. The idea of getting a Mexican visa for our family in Haiti and picking them up in El Paso, or Columbus, New Mexico, or Laredo.

Driving across Texas on the interstate. Not a lot of RV parks. We stop at one campground by the river just east of San Antonio but there are no spaces. A real nice SqaureStream is parked here with the front door a few steps from the river. Miles down the road is a much more expensive chain park run and inhabited by Pennsylvania winter refugees. On thru Houston (why do New Yorkers say 'how ston'?) then in to the promised land, Louisiana. Camp just past Lake Charles with a lot of construction workers in FEMA style trailers. The gates are locked to keep vagabonds and drug dealers out. The local radio has rosary recitation for an hour or so. Next morning it is off the interstate at Lafayette, capital of Acadiana. KRVS has french language programming every morning. Took US 90 southeast from Lafayette. Got lost and wound up going down a bayou road where we asked for directions from some french speaking locals. Finally arrived in Nouvelle Orleans in the evening with the flares of refineries on the river signalling our arrival.