Broken Down in Winslow

I woke up Sunday morning at 5:30. Being so far east in AZ, the sun was already up. I rolled over, thinking I was going to sleep for another half hour, but Cosmo’s barking alerted me to something going on near the van.  I looked out the window and saw a fleet of white trucks with the orange BNSF logo on the side. (Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railroad).  I was parked in a vacant lot bordered by the Winslow Visitor’s Center on the east and 5 railroad tracks to the south. On the track closest to me was a train with two BNSF engines and about a mile of flatbed cars, each containing some sort of machinery.

 I thought at first, they might be farm equipment, or perhaps something for doing roadwork. But I noticed that they had no tires, only wheels for riding on the rails. It seemed that the 20 or so trucks, each containing a human clad in an orange safety vest were here to do something with or to them. The workers had all arrived at 5:30. They stood around in groups talking. A couple trucks and vans moved slightly down on RR property pulling up adjacent to the tracks. Everyone just sort of “hung out” until 8:00 and then the workers all started moving. I thought perhaps that the two engines may have broken down, but two of the workers jumped up, boarded the engines and eventually drove (Do you “drive” a train?) them off, leaving the long string of flatbed train cars stranded.  The other workers all hopped up on various cars and seemed to be unstrapping the yellow machines from the bed. They laid out little orange ladders next to each of the flatbed cars, and then gradually got in their vehicles and left. I was baffled.

 Monday (Memorial Day), Cosmo once again woke me up at 5:30 and I could hear voices outside of my van. The armada of white trucks had returned, and the occupants were once again standing around in groups chatting.  More and more BNFS trucks arrived, many with baskets on the back—the kind the phone company would use to hoist workers up to work on telephone wires. They were lined up neat as a pin, like they could have been on display at an Auto Mall. Just before 8:00, they all drove down the side of the tracks and spread out near each flatbed railroad car. The workers got out, placed the ladders against the flatbeds, and climbed up and got into the machines. I could see the flashing lights on top light up as they started each unit. Other men got onboard, and I realized that the machines were already sitting on railroad tracks built into the flatbed cars. They extended the rails in between each flatbed, and the parade started:  All the machines faced toward the back of the train and began their journey, driving from railroad car to railroad car. I was too far away to see the back of the train, but obviously the machine on the last car had to get off in order for the rest to keep moving.  Curiosity got the best of me, and after being stranded here for 3 days, I decided to take a walk down through the park along the tracks.  Sure enough, the last flatbed car had a ramp attached to it, with rails that led down and connected to the set of tracks closest to me.  The machines were heading down the real tracks, and apparently came to a switching station, because by the time I got down there, some were coming back on track #2. You can tell how bored I was for this to be my adventure of the day. As a kid, we often went to some Memorial Day Parade. This was the parade of one-armed, clawed railroad machines.  I have to admit, I found it quite fascinating.

 On the way back, I saw a man carrying a white dog. I’d seen them a couple times during our walks in the park. The dog was blind and had trouble walking, so the man carried him to the grass, put him down to pee and then picked him back up.  I decided to talk to the man who was also watching the parade of yellow railroad machines.  His name is Dave, and he too is a nomad. He was visiting a friend here in Winslow and parked his Class A on her front lawn down the street from the parking lot I was staying in. We talked and I told him my van broke down and I was going to be staying here through the holiday until I could get someone to repair it. We swapped stories about letting go of stuff, including our homes, and about life on the road.  We just really hit it off. He is from and mainly stays in Flagstaff. He told me if I was ever there and wanted to know where to stay, or shop or eat, not to hesitate to contact him for information.  I surely will when I return to Flagstaff.

 I watched the trains for the rest of the day, in between cooking, walking, watching YouTube, and a brief nap. I was totally awe-struck by there being 5 train tracks and trains moving in both directions on each of the tracks. I wondered how they kept track of which train was heading in which direction. How did they prevent head-on collisions?  The track closest to me had the claw machines running back and forth. By late afternoon, they “returned home” in a long, well-orchestrated caravan. The first one stopped far down the rails, but I could make out someone with a red flag exiting and guiding the claw machine behind him. A sudden wave of the flag, like the one at the finish line of a race, signaled the machine to stop. And then someone got out of that one and repeated the process until the last in line stopped in front of where I was parked, and turned his giant claw around to face backward before exiting. Soon, all the claw machine drivers were in their white trucks and left me and the claw machines to fend for ourselves. 

I watched trains out my back window most of the night. I couldn’t help wondering what role Winslow played in the grand scheme of train life. With 5 tracks out my back window, most of the time there were trains on at least three of them. Often one or two of the trains stopped, but I could still hear and see trains on the other tracks moving by. Sometimes trains were stopped on all tracks. They didn’t seem to be loading or unloading anything. They just stopped. Sometimes overnight. There were very few times when there were no trains on the tracks next to me. I can only recall two times when I could see across the tracks to the other side of town.

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 Wednesday morning, the ruckus started just before 4:00 a.m.  The first BNSF truck pulled in next to me and Cosmo began barking.  It only took a few minutes for the entire squadron to join him, and around 6:00 they all headed down the side of the tracks, got out and each driver hopped onto one of the great claw machines and they headed down in the opposite direction they had gone the day prior. I went back to sleep.

 The noise of the trains is constant. When they stop or start, there is a sound like thunder as the cars either bump into the one ahead of it or fall back until they catch the car ahead. The engines roar as they pass by, but fortunately they don’t blow their whistles. There is apparently a small airport on the other side of the tracks, and many small planes fly low and loud as they come in for a landing. I’ve heard several helicopters overhead as well.  I have never stayed in a noisier place, but over the week I grew quite immune to the noise. I could hear the engines pass by at night, but I was barely conscious enough to register them. I was stirred one night by a helicopter, but never became fully awake. The twenty or thirty white trucks that come at dawn (sometimes just before) rumble by my bedroom window.  I have become totally desensitized to noise.

After 5 days of watching the comings and goings of trains and yellow, caterpillar-like equipment, I think I’ve figured out a few things. I have to laugh at myself and my newfound obsessions with trains. Previously, trains have been just something blocking the road from time to time, keeping me from being on time to wherever I was going.  Or they were a way for me to get from Wilmington to New York.  I think Winslow is quite a rail hub. I apparently had parked adjacent to some sort of switching station; I discovered that there are at least 5 sets of tracks, maybe more. Often trains come in and “park,” maybe for half an hour, maybe overnight.  Most are carrying containers. Some are tanker cars and every night at 8:00 p.m. and each morning around 8:00 a.m. Amtrak comes through. At night it is on the way to Flagstaff and in the morning, it heads back east. I think in Winslow, all the tracks converge and are parallel to each other. I have come to believe that from here they can be routed onto any one of the tracks and then pull out and head in whichever direction they need to go.

 The yellow machines are replacing any damaged railroad ties. I saw them picking up the ties and putting them onto carts the other day, and the next morning, they were laying out new ties by the side of the rails, I’m assuming to replace the ones they took out the previous day. I left before I could see that process.

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 Wednesday morning, I was up by 5:00. I had an appointment the next block over at Dalton Motors. I had my coffee and walked Cosmo and headed over. I arrived early hoping if someone got there early, they might take a look at my van first.  The woman in the office arrived at 7:30 and told me “We’re not quite open, but I’ll take your keys.  I’ll get someone out to you as soon as I can.”  I sat in the van until nearly 10:30, then poked my head inside to see if I could get an ETA.  She said “Oh. I was just going to call you (I was sitting in her parking lot in my van for almost 4 hours, why would she need to phone me?) She said “We don’t work on RV’s. I didn’t realize that van was an RV.”  I said “What’s the difference?  It’s a Dodge 3500 van. It needs something done to the coolant system, not to the inside RV stuff.” She said “The mechanic says he won’t work on any RV’s.”  I just stared at her blankly. I’d waited in town for 5 days for my appointment (and in their parking lot for 4 hours). The mechanic saw me pull up last Friday. He brought me inside to make the appointment. How is it possible that they waited that long to tell me they wouldn’t work on it?  I was pissed, and she knew it. She suggested a place down the road that works on big rig trucks and RV’s.  She said “It looks like a salvage yard, but they do pretty good work.  I drove 2 miles down the road, keeping an eye on my van’s temperature. It seemed OK as I pulled into the junkiest, most run-down place I’ve seen in a long time.  I went in and after wandering around for a few minutes (no one in the office) a woman came out and asked if she could help. I explained my problem and she said “Well, I can’t help you. Neither of my mechanics showed up today.”  I asked the probability of them showing up tomorrow and she just shrugged.  She gave me her phone number and said “Call tomorrow and see if they showed up.  In the meantime, I’ll see if my nephew knows where you can go.”  It didn’t fill me with confidence.

 I went back to the Winslow Visitor Center Parking lot, my home for a week now, and got settled in for at least one more night.  I started searching through Google trying to find a mechanic. I called a mobile mechanic who a friend had used and said he was very good.  I know enough Spanish to translate the voicemail message that said the mailbox was full and I couldn’t leave a message, and then the automated voice just said “adios.”

 I called a half dozen places within a couple of miles of my new home in the Visitor’s Parking Lot. Most were very kind, but one said “Sorry, I can’t fit a van that heavy up on my lift.” Another said “Sorry, we only work on semis.”  Each one tried to think of an option, and several referred me to the place where the mechanics don’t show up. I finally got an appointment at an auto outlet, 5 minutes from where I was parked.

 Thursday morning I drove the couple of miles to the Auto center, keeping an eye on the temperature gauge. It barely moved, and when I got there, I parked and checked underneath the van. No leak. I’m sure this is a major clue about what is wrong and if I knew the slightest bit about car engines, I may have been able to figure it out. I waited for them to open and before I said a word the guy at the counter told the mechanic “This is the guy with the coolant leak.”  I took it as a good sign that he remembered our conversation yesterday and even though we’d never met, he remembered the specifics of my van. The mechanic got in, drove it around to a bay, opened the hood and then promptly disappeared. He was gone only a brief time and then came back and worked on it non-stop for 5 hours!  After he was done, I asked if it was a tough job and he said he had to remove all the air conditioning stuff to get to the water pump.  About that time, I heard a bunch of people singing Happy Birthday, and everyone came out of the office with a giant birthday cake with lots and lots of candles.  It was Robert’s (my mechanic) birthday.  They gave me a piece of cake and started up my van.  It was the total opposite experience of the place I went yesterday where they let me sit for 4 hours and then said the mechanic wouldn’t even look at it.  I pulled around to a different bay and they changed my oil. I think I did pretty good at not freaking out when I broke down in Winslow, but still, having everything fixed, I could feel my shoulders relaxing like a huge burden was lifted.

 I went back to the same railroad yard, got settled in and made a reservation for the following night at a campground with fresh water, trash disposal and HOT SHOWERS.

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 Friday morning, I woke up before sunrise again. I got coffee and Cosmo and I walked in the park. Back at the van I made breakfast of hash browns, fried eggs and a croissant. It was only 8:00 and my reservation at the campground said check-in was at 2:00.  I managed to fiddle around on my laptop until 10:00 and then headed over the short distance, hoping my site would be vacant.  It was, and I settled in by 10:30. I sat out in the sun at my picnic table, taking in the lack of train noise before heading around the loop to take a long, hot shower. The building could have used some upkeep, but the water was steaming hot, and the pressure was good.  It is such a treat to take a long shower, wash and condition my hair and beard and then just stand for a couple of minutes, appreciating the luxury.

 Lessons From The Road: When I was a kid, my dad often embarrassed me because he’d always strike up a conversation with strangers. He’d usually start with some corny joke– one that the stranger often didn’t get. But he’d always managed to recover, find a connection, and make a new friend. I guess I inherited that gene, because no matter where I go, I almost always find a stranger to connect with and more often than not they too live in a van or RV.  Meeting Dave this week and Leo last week, and James and Chelsea the week before were such important parts of my journey. No bullshit about who you voted for, or “which side” you are on. Just the connection and comfort of meeting another member of my tribe and being reminded that humans possess the capability of being kind to each other with only a tiny amount of effort.

{As I was sitting in the back of my van waiting for my water pump to be replaced, and later that day, Leo (met him last week in Two Guns), James (Met him a couple weeks ago in Flagstaff) and Dave (met him over the weekend while staying here in Winslow) all sent texts to see if I figured out what was wrong with my van and asked if I was going to be able to get it fixed.  I was so touched that they checked in to be sure I was OK.  Of course, a few of you reading this also checked in, and I do appreciate that, and never discount my longtime friends.  I was just so surprised that people I met on the road in the last month were checking in.  It makes me feel very taken care of.}

 As I prepared to leave Winslow, AZ, I had to stop and think about the week I’d just had. Several things came to mind:

First of all, I’m extremely proud of myself. One of my biggest fears since even before I started this journey was breaking down on the road. It was bound to happen at some point, just as certain as having to make home repairs was when I owned a house and a commercial property. My van’s water pump went out the Friday I arrived in Winslow. It was the beginning of a holiday weekend, so I settled in knowing there wasn’t much I could do until the following Tuesday. It took me a week to find someone who would even look at my van, but eventually I got the water pump and thermostat replaced.  (Shout out to Oxendale Auto for their competent mechanics, friendly service, and even a piece of Robert’s birthday cake.) Had this happened a year ago, I would have totally freaked out. I would have given up and thought about “going home” until I realized that I had no other home to return to. But this week, I just sort of let out a sigh, and then made lunch and went for a walk in the park. It was an annoyance to be sure, but in the grand scheme of things, it was a minor blip, and I went on about my life, enjoying my stay in Winslow.

I thought about the City of Winslow. The Visitor Center allows RV’s to park overnight when passing through. Due to my mechanical troubles, I stayed a week, and nobody bothered me. I suppose the police have better things to do than to harass an old man who is simply parked in a dirt lot.  Or perhaps the City of Winslow knows what a boost it is to their economy to make visitors, even those of us who live in vans, welcome. Including the cost of my van repairs, I spent over $1200 this week at local businesses. I was often joined in the visitor center’s parking lot, or the adjacent municipal dirt lot by other RV’s. Although I doubt many of them dropped $900 for automotive repairs, I bet most of them went downtown for dinner or breakfast or stopped into some of the tourist gift shops. Thank you, Winslow, for making me feel welcome.

I also thought a lot (probably too much) about trains this week. I was only a few feet from railroad property, and within spitting distance of a major railroad transfer/switching station. (I learned a lot about trains, but still have no idea what this sort of junction is called) with 5 (or more?) tracks outside my bedroom window. It was noisy at night. The trains came and went 24/7. Each night an Amtrak came through, but by and large, it was mostly cargo containers passing by. Although the trains stopped for minutes, or hours or overnight, the place where I stayed offered no place for the containers from Walmart, FedEx, Amazon, etc., to unload. I’m unsure where the containers were coming from or where they were going, but it was eye-opening to see how many commodities are transported by trains.

And of course, as is getting more common for me, I met some new people. Dave came down to the park each night, carrying his blind dog. Skipper is too old and impaired to walk far, but Dave brings him to the park and he wanders a bit and does his business (Skipper, not Dave.) Dave and I hit it off, and he even offered to take a look at my van over the weekend if I didn’t get the problem resolved. I also met a woman parked near me in a tiny, pull-behind trailer. We chatted for about half an hour one night. She was coming from Bisbee, AZ (a place I’ve wanted to go for two years) and she recommended I go this winter. She said it was being bought up and gentrified by wealthy folks, and they were ruining the charm of the small town.  I will go this winter.