San Francisco and El Sobrante, California – June 14-15 – Perhaps the darkest moment of the 22-day trip happened in a self-service car wash outside of San Francisco in a town called El Sobrante. It was the third day in a row of eight hours in a car and quite honestly I was just frazzled and spent – in part because I thought the drive from Reno to San Fran was going to be at least a few hours less.

Instead, the first few hours were basically white-knuckle NASCAR style driving with cars in every lane and full attention required.

I was also reeling from the Reno roller coaster of emotions, from winning $1,000 the night before to learning that morning that Matt Congdon had died.

The 75-80 mph highway stress then gave way to a totally different and perhaps worse stress of bumper-to-bumper barely moving traffic trying to get into the city to park and shop for birthday gifts for Sarah.

I had been to San Francisco twice, once before we had kids and once when we went as a family in 2014.

I love the city.

I love the architecture, the history, the food, and Alcatraz, which I visited twice.

But this trip was different and rushed. Again, we’d been in the van for about 24 hours in the past three days – one full day in the van. We were questioning whether we even should have gone there – basically just to shop in the Haight-Ashbury district.

We’d been there before too and I remember it as much more joyful than it was this day. Despite my love for the Grateful Dead and my intrigue with the ‘60s culture, The Haight seemed a little forced, and it was made worse by a loud, boisterous millennial hippie poser who used the word fuck like you and I use the word “the.”

I use it too, but this was just obnoxious.

Perhaps I was just too spent, but Kirsti was annoyed too. We shopped, got Sarah a cool ring that she loves and what I thought was a cool knit top thing that she hasn’t worn. I guess it’s itchy.

We got a coffee after shopping and headed toward the Airbnb 20 minutes away in El Sobrante.

It felt good to be out of the congestion of San Francisco and out of the van. The Airbnb cottage on a hill was another perfect oasis for us. It was clean, the hosts were super nice and it was relaxing and calming, which I surely needed. After getting settled, we needed dinner and decided to just go to the supermarket and get something to cook at the Airbnb.

While we were out, I decided to get the van washed, because the next morning I had to get up and meet the guy who responded to the Craigslist ad to buy the van. It had been almost 5,000 miles without one, and I wanted it to look its best.

The car wash was one of those automatic ones. You slide your card into the machine by the door, it records the payment, and you drive in and let it do its thing.

Except it didn’t.

It wouldn’t take my card.

After multiple attempts, I stormed into the store side of the business, waited in line and somewhat politely asked what the deal was with the car wash. 

“Oh yeah, the card reader doesn’t work. You have to pay in here,” the man said.

A sign on the machine would be nice, I thought to myself.  

I paid, walked back around to the van and jumped in, prepaid and ready for a quick wash and some dinner and some needed chill time in the cozy Airbnb.

I pulled forward into the wash bay.

And waited.

Nothing.

I’m pissed. I’m swearing.

I decide to back out a little and hear a crunching noise.

Really pissed now!

I’m not going to write what I said in that outburst, but it was loud and profane and it ended with me punching the wheel.

I was out of my mind!

Kirsti cowered and looked away in the passenger seat.

I was just so done.

So over it.

So tired.

So pissed.

I got out and noticed the channels to drive in had ripped off the wheel cover – hence the crunching. I smashed it back on, jumped back in and drove forward again.

This time, the water started and the van was being washed.

I hadn’t driven far enough ahead apparently.

Kirsti was mortified by my behavior.

I was too spent and angry to be too embarrassed, but I should have been. My really inappropriate nonsensical verbal tirade was beyond embarrassing.

With the van clean, we silently drove the five minutes back to the Airbnb and cooked up our only frozen meals of the entire trip.

As the minutes ticked away and we settled in for some needed downtime, the insanity dripped away.

And it was about then that our decision to go to San Francisco and stay in El Sobrante before the final destination the next day started to become a good one – all because of our Airbnb hosts.

Through short conversations with Ramon and Flora, I learned that they were from the Philippines, and coincidentally, I had just written a feature story about a colleague at Castleton University who retired after decades as a custodian to return to the Philippines to reunite with her adopted son she left when he was little to make sure he had a good life.

I told Ramon I’d share the story with him, and I did minutes later using a Rutland Herald link.

He responded almost immediately, and said the sacrifice for her son made him cry. But he said he understood it and explained that many Filipinos see it as a necessary sacrifice to leave home to earn money and provide for the family – despite the countless missed milestones in their lives.

He asked if he could share it on Facebook among his Filipino community and I obviously agreed.

When we were leaving after literally being there for only about 18 hours, he met us in the driveway and presented me with a deck of “Authors Card Game” playing cards – with Mark Twain on the box cover, that he said he used to play with in the Philippines. He said he used the cards as a jump starter to read the works of American authors from Twain and Dickins to Longfellow and Poe.

And he seemed so happy to give me this gift and was so interested in our trip and future. We bonded, and I’m not sure he realizes how much that bond meant to me at a brief relatively dark place on the trip.

The smile and spirit of both he and Flora was inspiring. He even emailed me a day or so later saying he found a pink earplug we had left behind and he was asking how we were doing. Ramon and Flora were further evidence of the kindness of people we encountered.