Yesterday was crazy!
Things actually went mostly according to plan.
I slept from 6pm to midnight the night before in anticipation for yesterday. I then drove from Indianapolis to Baltimore for the next 13 hours including breaks. The worst part was around 5am, when I caught myself nodding off on the road. I then pulled over and slept for an hour in Saraton, West Virginia. I've never heard of it either and I couldn't even find it on the map! The Garmin was extremely helpful once I got into Baltimore. There are a lot of bridges over the port and the exit I needed (which was also a bridge) was hidden right behind a large toll booth.
Here is a picture of a little springtime n Saraton.
I finally got there at 1:30pm. Getting all the paperwork organized truly paid off. All I needed to do was get the car washed and get the fuel at or below 1/4 tank. I found a place that hand washed cars (not too common anymore). They offered a wash inside and out and a full car vacuum too. For $20, I'd say that's a deal. The actual cost was that it took around 30 minutes, but they did a really good job. I tipped the guy because he did such a thorough job.
Then came the fuel fiasco. Everywhere on the paperwork and when I arrived there, they specifically state 1/4 or less of fuel must be in the tank before it can be processed. I had an extra 1/8th of a tank. The office lady said, "Oh, you can just drive that off." "Um, yeah. Is there a place I can siphon it out instead?" "Well, I don't know. You can check in the nearby neighborhood (she gave more specific directions than this)." The first place I check, "Oh, W's will do it." I check W's, "Oh, AT's will do it." I check AT's, "Oh, we have to do it totally different from the way we used to. You have a VW, so the only way to do it is to remove the tank which takes 3 hours (time which neither I nor they had)."
I proceed to attempt to "drive it off," knowing full well that the high fuel efficiency of the car combined with the larger than usual gas tank meant I would have to drive the car around 100 miles before getting the fuel where I needed it to be. Hence, why I opted to siphon it if I could. After about 30 minutes of driving, I started to worry. It was almost 3pm, and it was either 3:30pm or 4pm when they would accept the last vehicles for the day. I really did not want to have to spend the night if I could have avoided it. In desperation, with an extra 1/16th of a tank, I checked in again to see if they would cut me a break. The security guard asked (mind you, this is the second time I had seen her), "Well, is it a diesel?" "Yes." "Oh, well then the 1/4 rule doesn't apply."
Ok. While I understand why that would be, being that diesel is not nearly as combustible as gasoline...seriously? That was not in writing ANYWHERE! It was nice to get that break, but I just wasted probably 90 minutes by that point trying to take care of something I didn't need to worry about.
Processing the vehicle went smoothly, but wow. I question the security there. They do have barbed wire fencing and security guards, but the waterfront was not fenced in, and they left car keys in the driver's side doors in the open air lot. Clearly, this is not a security concern, but man, I could see quite a few opportunities if I was in the car stealing business. By the way, they take the license plates off the cars too.
Inspecting the car, there were a few odd scuffs and one or two small scratches, but otherwise it was in pretty good shape. I'll have to change the oil once we get it back in Germany. The dealership said to change it every 10,000 miles! I'm sorry, but I'll stick to my routine 3,000...unless it's illegal, but even then, how could they enforce it? They took the license plates off, which I found odd, but I read a flyer on the wall about how they don't even want the plates shipped with the car if the tranportation is to Bahrain. In that country, they apparently will harass Americans if they can I'd you as such...even with your license plate simply being in your possession!
One customer two places in front of me was being crazy weird. There was a whole team of inspectors around his car, and he was fussing about any smudge on the car, even from opening the doors. He yelled at one of the inspectors when he mistook a comment about the vehicle as a slight against his "client." After about 20 minutes, he started playing nice. Don't know what his problem was.
My inspector (yes, I only had one) was very nice, professional, easy to talk to, and patient. I took pictures of the car again, making sure to take pictures of the existing scratches and scuffs. I felt he was very respectful of the car. Makes sense, considering each one is like worth $20,000 and up. Lots of personalized plates in the lot where plates were still on the cars. Lot of nice cars too. Most were SUV's. The one in front of me looked like a 2011 or 2012 Lexus in really good shape.
The VPC (vehicle processing center) hailed me a cab to the airport. I set out around 4:30pm. Holy smokes! $50 and 30 minutes on average to the airport! Looking on the map, it does not look like it should take that long. It did end up taking that long and costing that much.
Baltimore definitely strikes me as an industrial city. None of the buildings looked that pretty, and the harbor was seriously the size of the city...it was HUGE! They had lots of cars, coal, and limestone for cement lined up for transport. Semi-trucks are everywhere. They supposedly have their share of steel too, which is now owned by the Russians. The port is so big, and the need to maneuver around it so great, that they have several tunnels under the bay and tons of bridges over it. Interestingly, many of the houses are built of brick, much like Charlottesville, except way more downscale. Clay must just be very readily available in that region of the country.
I scheduled a flight with Delta for cost reasons at the Baltimore airport to Indianapolis via Detroit. The flight was supposedly boarding right when I got my ticket, so I got through security only to get pulled aside because I forgot I packet my Leatherman in my bag. They were actually very nice and brief about it and I paid $12 to ship it back to my house...which will hopefully get forwarded to Indiana in about 4 weeks. Amazingly, the flight was late in arriving, so I made it to the gate with about 15 minutes to spare before boarding.
During the flight to Detroit at 7:30pm, I realized that I hadn't eaten anything since 9am that morning. I was so busy moving things around that I didn't think about food. Upon arrival in Detroit, the flight attendent had the wrong time zone and announce the local time as 8:50pm...the exact time for boarding my next flight. Getting in the airport, I double-checked to find that it was actually 7:55pm. I had an hour for dinner!
I ate a lot: a breaded chicken tender appetizer, a large gyro (which was marginal), a serving of french fries, a rueben sandwich (which was crazy good), and several large servings of diet pepsi. I was quite full, but very happy.
The flight to Indianapolis was neat in that we flew parallel to the storm system that I was supposed to have driven through earlier that morning but somehow completely avoided. Lots of lightning, but it was on the side of the plane opposite of me, so I couldn't get pictures.
Upon arrival, I needed to help Rodney bring back a car from the repair shop. I find it only fitting that I ended the journey the way I began: driving. I got back at 11:15pm, 23 hours after I left. All that with only 1 hour of sleep in between isn't too bad. The real price I paid was a lot of pain in my hip and a very stiff back. It all goes back to the hip injury I sustained years ago combined with sitting not perfectly ergonomical seats for such a long period of time. A handful of days of exercise will get it back in line. Boy, I was stiff and in pain this morning.
I woke up this morning to beautiful foggy day. I very slowly walked the dog, saw a few neat things (shown below), and then got back to the farm.
On the Georgia Front, more paperwork today. I'll update this post if there is more than that tonight.
1 comment:
We're glad it all worked out. Love the picture of the spider web.
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