Defeating Murphy

Most of the times when I talk to someone from back home, there is usually one question they ask almost every time: “Are you guys still getting along alright?” There must be some common knowledge that when 3 best friends hit the road together for an extended period of time, personalities will clash. Well I have always been able to respond pretty positively to that question, but lately it might be a little different. Don’t be alarmed, we aren’t at each other’s throats with knives (yet), but after 33 days of constant contact…well I guess you could imagine. Like I said these arguments usually don’t consist of anything substantive, mainly just fighting about pointless things that we can’t even remember anymore. I’m pretty sure it was just arguing for the sake of arguing. I don’t even think it’s that I am annoyed with Luke and Myles; I think it is that I am annoyed with humanity. You see, I value alone time. I am a very social person, but I “recharge” during time alone. One negative thing about time on the road is the only alone you have is when you are asleep 2 inches from Myles—the worst possible person to sleep next to in human history (more info later). The thing is we are just tired. I am tired. I am not tired of travel but I am tired of filling my stomach with $.0.79 Beef Ravioli cans and dried Ramen Noodle packets. I’m not tired of seeing new sites, but I am a little tired of waking up every morning smelling like smoke and dead animals. So this is the tone that set the following story: I call it Murphy’s Law.

We pulled into Cody Wyoming after a long day of driving through the open Montana highways. After asking about the price for a hotel, the lady at the front desk kindly informed us that our rear tire was flat. All three of us trudged outside to take a look only to discover 2 other tires with mysterious gashes in their sides. After we put the spare on (that was extremely hard to find) we started calling around for prices. After getting a couple estimates of upwards of $400, we alarmingly starting calling our fathers for some clarification. My conversation went something like this:

Hey Dad…How much do 4 tires cost?

…Uh Why Son?

Well, we had a problem and these guys are trying to rip us off at like $105 a tire

Wow, if you can find it for that price, that is a pretty good deal

Silence

Son…you there?

Yeah…are you serious?

Yes. That is how much they cost.

Long Sigh. Alright man. Well thanks. We gotta go figure something out.

We definitely were not prepared for the “normal” prices of 4 new tires! The next morning at the tire store, the three of us wandering aimlessly around the lobby sipping coffee with the look of a New York Stock broker late in the afternoon of September 21, 1921. After the damage was done, Luke and Myles called into their bank accounts to find that they have a lot less money than they had expected.

That night we went to the local KOA campground with hopes for a cheap night’s sleep. A tent site here costs an amazing $34! Chocking back the vomit, Luke and I walked back to the car frustrated and angry. The nerve of these people to charge that kind of money for a piece of ground! Wow. We sat in the car for a couple of minutes before we just decided to forget about where we would sleep and just go to the local Laundromat and try to get the smoke smell out of some of our clothes with the quarters we could scrounge up from around the car. Jump to later that night. I have been reduced to beating driftwood with rocks by an abandoned lakeside to accumulate some kind of firewood. I felt like some kind of Neanderthal using the crudest of tolls…all to avoid buying firewood. I mean seriously…buying wood? I could never feel right doing that.

So maybe I am being a little melodramatic. But I’m in a mood and I deserve to be dramatic. No, but seriously. At what should have been the height of our financial distress, trip stress, and friendship strain, something else happened. Like Luke said, “At least when this happened, we weren’t mad at each other anymore!” So during the day and sitting around the fire we consciously decided to follow my mom’s advice: “Don’t let something like this ruin all the memories you have made so far.” Watching some of our videos and laughing about our stories we clung to all the good that happened so far. We could never forget the homeless drummer from San Diego named Dale Sullivan who first showed us heroine. Or how could we forget the Torres Family and our time in Madera California. Neither could I pass over the inspiration and beauty I experienced gazing at the snowcapped peaks at Glacier Park in Montana. We have so many stories and good times—I have even started to tell them all on this blog.

You are all familiar with Murphy’s Law: What can go wrong—will. Ever since the first time I heard about this “law,” I was fascinated because I thought it adequatly described different parts of my life. At one point Jamie Cummins and I almost named our mulch and lawn business, “Murphy’s Law Mulch.” We decided against it for obvious reasons. I named this post what I did because I think you can overcome the stress and pessimism of any situation. You can defeat Murphy. So we have a couple more days—we are actually getting home a little early (financial reasons.) Until then, however, we will be leaving it up—beef ravioli and all.