The next morning my friend went fishing while his wife and I got breakfast. After breakfast, we went shopping. She stopped by their friend's office to use the bathroom and she told him we were shopping. His response was, "well that would only take 5 minutes."
It took a little longer than 5 minutes, but there were literally only about 4 - 5 stores selling souvenirs. I picked up a pen made of a twig and a wooden carving of a bear. The bear is sort of lying on top of the twig. There was a black bear and a brown bear but the brown bear looked like some other kind of animal. In my profession we use pens a lot, and I lose them all the time. Many of my clients would sign something and accidentally/intentionally take my pens. I don't think they would be stealing this one. It's kind of big for them to steal and most guys wouldn't want it. I have my clients sign-in with the pen and they all wondered where it came from. I went to a different store to pick up a magnet with a trout on it. Not as cute but very appropriate for my experience here.
So in about 45 minutes or so...there was nothing else to look at so we sat and chilled until her husband came back. Then we headed home. It was a very short stay in June Lake but it was still fun. I'd love to come back one day.
On our way home their van started having some problems. The engine stopped all of a sudden and we couldn't figure out why. We pulled over and was able to start it up, but it stopped again after 10 minutes or so. We pulled over again and decided to call AAA. Either something was broken or we were out of gas. The gauge was showing 1/4 tank but old cars can be tricky.
AAA operator wanted to know exactly where we were. We told her that we pulled over on highway 14 just before Mojave. We saw an airport across the highway. She responds by saying there is no highway 14.
She then says that she's not finding Mojave! When she eventually found highway 14, she says, "I'm seeing that highway 14 is in either Washington or Texas. Are you sure you're in California?"
OK lady, we're having car problems but we ain't lost. We never left California. Mojave is in southern California. We headed south from where we were, not north.
She apparently has never heard of Mojave. She says she found Mojave airport, but not Mojave the city/town whatever it is. Well if the airport is called Mojave, then that area must be called Mojave, no??
I looked up my phone which comes with GPS (I signed up for free trial just so we could look up where we are to tell the lady exactly where we are). We were on 14 just past the 58. She then asks, are you north or west of it? or something weird like that. We couldn't understand her question.
We even gave her the EXACT COORDINATES as it appears on my GPS. My friend read it feet/inches instead of minutes/seconds but a normal person would have understood what he was trying to tell her. She asks, "huh? is that a number?"
We must have been on the phone for good 20 minutes before she finally found a local towing company. They came out in 15 minutes or so. All he had to do was put gas and we were on the road again. We filled up in MOJAVE, an imaginary place and headed back to LA.
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