LAX - home

Day 40: Friday Dec 17th (SJO - PYN - LAX)

Free Food!

We were up early to avoid the traffic so we weren't stressing out. Upon checking in, it turns out to get back into the US, I needed to once again fill out some paper work. Luckily our plane was delayed so I had time to go to COPA head quaters and fill it out online. After leaving Lisa sitting at the check in counter, she was not too impressed when I appeared an hour later. 

Our flight ended up being rescheduled for 940, which if on time left us 15 minutes to catch out connector. We were assured there was plenty of time. COPA was once again further delayed and we arrived at the same time as the connector, ran through the airport to find that COPA's only on time flight was the one we were supposed to be on. We scammed food vouchers for the day at the airport as well as a free hotel upon arriving in LA. This took a little more arguing, we were told that a COPA representative would meet us upon arrival and it'd be all sorted. We had a 7 hour wait in the airport, which when we finally left at 7pm Panama City time, we would arrive in LA, 330AM Panama time. Before boarding the flight in Panama, they took my bottle of expensive rum that I bought at duty free because I apparently wasn't allowed it on the plane... which made no sense to me. I got angry so they said they would put it down below and I could to claim it on the other side... never to be seen again!


We were extremly tired and worn out when arriving in LA, we made it through customs without any major problems. As we feared there was no COPA representative. We made our way to the COPA desk, only to deal with regular joe's. We were promised to be able to speak to the manager, who took forever. Apparently Panama forgot to write anything down, so we were told to get a room and they'd reimburse us for the cost (fat chance!).  After a long day of traveling, we had arrived, back in the US finally. 


Don't ever fly COPA, they are the hugest joke ever!


-Jason

Day 41: Saturday Dec 18th (LAX - Palmdale - Redding)

We stayed in the fancy Holiday Inn last night, and figured that since we didn't make it in till about 3am we would get our moneys worth and stay in the hotel until it was check out time.  We slowly made our way down to the reception to check out and decided to ask the guy at the front desk the best way to make it to Palmdale. For the same price as taking a shuttle from the airport, we could take a town car from our hotel straight to where we needed to go. The choice was simple and we even got to watch a great American film, Chronicles of Riddick. Once we got to the storage place we tried to start the van, and just as we predicted we needed to get the front desk lady to give us a boost. But after that Andy was back on the road! We drove back through LA traffic and headed out onto the I-5 for a night of driving. The rest of the night was spent getting as far as we could make it until Jason was too tired to drive. We ended up making it to a very exotic Home Depot parking lot just outside of Redding California and called it a night.

-Lisa

Day 42: Sunday Dec 19th (Redding - Albany)

Andy likes the right lane

Waking up in Home Depot was wonderful. We got away at a decent time, using Central American time to our advantage. After teaching those pesky American's a thing or two about driving in the snow we pulled over at a grocery store in Ashland up in the mountains. Jokes on us... the van wouldn't start. A quick call the BCAA to get a jump and we were on our way. After BCAA's lack of assistance when we got stuck in the desert, I was happy to call them whenever possible (opinion has now changed, Thank you). After driving another couple of hours, we pulled over for gas... and the van wouldn't start again, so we got a nice local to give us a jump. We then proceeded to get backed up in traffic waiting for the pass the open. Not knowing how the roads were going to be, we were pleasantly surprised when we got to drive through, the roads were fine. Another couple of hours down the road, when we were through the passes, a tire blew out at full speed. This time it exploded and we were riding on the rim. It was pouring with rain and getting dark, with traffic blasting by a few feet away it was sketchy to say the least. Luckily, the state trooper showed up after I finished driving andy up onto a log so I could get the tiny jack under the van. Once again, our horrible jack burns us... we needed leverage. The state trooper convinced me just to call BCAA... this was kind of pointless because I had the tire off but why not get your money's worth. I wasn't about to argue with him. After an hours wait, the tow truck showed up to tighten my lug nuts and laugh at my jack. Once on our way, we drove until we were just about our of gas, in Albany. We figured the battery had enough time to charge and was safe to stop... Turns out that we were wrong. We filled up and then couldn't jump the van to get it going. God bless to locals for helping us late on a Sunday night... but they were driving a tiny ford escort which didn't have the power for a jump. We called it a night and pushed the van into a parking spot and slept. We were starting to get a little frustrated with out position, 800km's to the border.

-Jason

Day 43: Monday Dec 20th (Albany - Langley)


We didn't get too much sleep last night because the gas station we were parked in was open all night with their big flood lights glaring into the van. We got up early this morning and tired to call a mechanic that one of the workers last night suggested but their was no answer so we went to our fall back plan of BCAA. It took them over an hour to get to us but the guy that came specialized in batteries and knew what he was talking about. He did a few tests, figured out that it couldn't be the alternator or the starter and that it had to be a battery issue. The guy ended up having family in Terrace, so Jason and him ended up being homies and he didn't even try to sell us a battery once he sent us on our way.  We  had a full tank of gas from last night so we just keep driving the whole time, only stopping for burger king and to go to walmart to pick up a jerry can, one of us staying with the turned on car the whole time. The tank of gas took us all the way to Mount Vernon where it was now time for us to use our tricky operation of filling up the jerry can, leaving the van on and filling it with gas. We did this twice and it was probably one of the more sketchy things that we could do in the dark. If people saw us they must have thought that we had just siphoned gas out of some other car. Dodgy operation, but it worked out for us. Just when we thought that we had made it home clear of problems we arrived at the border. Let's just say that they had a few questions for us. And of course we were bringing over Jason's weapon, his machete, and we weren't willing to turn off the engine while we were at the booth. They gave us a yellow slip and sent us on our way, to the border room so they could have a bit longer of a conversation. We emptied out our pockets, had a little chit chat about our trip, what we were doing down in Central America, how we made enough money to go down, how we knew  each other, have we been arrested...just the regular questions. They swabbed our passports and told us to drive safely. We were on our way home finally! The only problem was starting up the van. We called BCAA for what we hoped would be the last time, waited for a while in the building which wasn't too bad for Jason because Sports Centre was on and it was heated. The BCAA man jumped us and told us good luck getting home. 10 minutes later we got to my parents house, with a home cooked meal waiting for us. They were pretty relieved that we made it home in one piece after not hearing from us all day and after a very vague email I had sent the night before quickly explaining our car problems. Its good to have a hot shower and not worry about anyone waiting to get in there right after you.  

-Lisa




Day 44: Tuesday Dec 21st (THE END) 

Finally arriving back in Canada was a relief. We could finally take the battery in and get a working one. It turned out that was the only problem, one of the cells of the battery wasn't working so the battery couldn't hold a charge. So the van once again runs like a top. With a few phone calls, I found the cheapest place to park the van ($33/month) because the odds of making it over the Coquihalla were heavily stacked against me. It's the dirty dog (greyhound) tomorrow and I'll be back in Kelowna. Home comforts await... kind of excited! 

We made it! But the van died!

Van fixed and in storage! Battery unhooked, lesson learned.

-Jason