This weekend turned out to be more busy than I thought. I drove to Turlock Friday after work because the weather was nice. I figured I could go there and relax rather than have my parents wake me up at 6am on Saturday to ask when I was coming over.
It was the first time really driving my Corvette since I got it back. One good thing was that the "Check Engine" light wasn't on. It wasn't totally ok though. Every time I would accelerate smoke would pour out of the exhaust. That wasn't a good sign. When i got to Turlock I asked my dad if there was any possible reason for that to be happening. We went round and round and he insisted that he didn't even drive the car so he coudln't have done anything.
Eventually after a lot of questioning I found out that my dad had filled the tank with regular gaa instead of the premium gas that it requires. That could definitely be the cause of the "Check Engine" light and the smoke from the exhuast. My car does not react well to the lowest octane regular gas at all. I don't know how many tanks of regular gas my car had to put up with and I doubt I ever will.
The next morning I got a call from The Funk. He was taking his girlfriend, Mokee, and Jenn on a day trip out to the foothills and wanted me to come along since I was familiar with the area. I met them at a Lyons just off of the freeway in Manteca and we all ate breakfast. Unfortunately both of my parents had left early so I had to drive the Vette.
Mokee joined me in the Vette when we left Lyons. Unfortunately my "Check Engine" light came on when we left Lyons and the smoke was pouring out of the exhaust. I was gettting really pissed off. We only went a few minutes down the road and stopped at a fruit stand to pick some stuff up. When we got back in the car the "Check Engine" light didn't come on.
From there we headed out towards Sonora. Our destination was Moaning Cavern. I had gone there way back during sixth grade camp and I had mentioned it to The Funk as a cool place to visit. It is definitely not the place to go if you are clausterphobic or afraid of heights. The beginning staircase takes you through what is essentially just a crack in the rock just big enough to squeeze through. That goes down about 65 feet. The clausterphobic people were freaking out, Mokee included. I had kind of a hard time going down the stairs because they were so tiny and my feet were so big. I walk sideways to get down the stairs.
At the end of the first staircase you reach a platform overlooking the main cavern. This thing is pretty big. They say that you can fit the Statue of Liberty inside the cavern. Many people were freaking out on this platform. From the platform to the bottom of the cavern you have to walk down this rusty World War One era spiral staircase that was taken out of a battleship. This thing is totally freaky if you have a fear of heights. It has a metal cagelike surrounding but the openings are very large and you can see all the way down to the bottom of the cavern as you walk down it. A few people refused to go down and stayed on the platform.
The Funk went down it even though he is afraid of heights but he kept saying that his knees were getting weak. He would also let out loud yelps and grab the outer metal surrounding which would cause the staircase to shake and scare everyone including himself. Mokee's legs were trembling the whole way down. I was getting freaked out because I thought The Funk was going to bring down the whole damn thing with his shaking.
We eventually made it down to the bottom. The tour guide told us a bunch of stories about the cavern. They apparently found lots of human and animal remains down there. They turned out all the lights to show how dark it is.
We saw two people rappel down into the cavern. One person was a first timer and the next person worked there and did it ever day. The Funk was talking hella smack about how he was going to rappel down the cavern when we were in the gift shop. I told him he didn't know just how big that thing was. It would have been funny to see him rappel down and then freak out when he reached the main cavern section. He probably would have fainted.
Going back up the stairs wasn't as eventfull. A few people went up the stairs while the presentation was still going on because they didn't want to be stuck going up with everyone else. The Funk and Kim were two of them, which I was actually happy about. Mokee, Jen, and I went up almost last. We had a few older people in front of us that were having a really hard time going up the stairs. There are a total of 234 stairs each way. My legs were a bit sore yesterday from all the stair walking.
After Moaning Cavern we headed down to Columbia. That's where I separated from the group. I had to go back to Turlock for my best friend's son's birthday party. I jammed down the mountain road as fast as I could, smelling unburnt fuel all the way.
I got to the party after the birthday cake had already been cut and the gifts had already been opened. A bit of a bummer but otherwise ok. We all kicked it there and BBQ'd later in the evening. We started reminiscing about our youth. They were some pretty happy times.
Late in the night we went over to my friend's Sister In Law's house to jump in the hot tub. I was informed that there would be no nakedness allowed since I didn't bring a girl with me. Oh well.
Sunday I just came back to Fremont and then had dinner at Kim's house. After dinner I sat on the couch in a half coma from all the food I ate. Mokee fell asleep on the couch with her feet on me; The Funk and Kim fell asleep on the floor. After the movie we were "watching" was over I went home and fell right to sleep.
8:35 a.m. - 2004-04-12
Recent entries:
Oklahoma - 2005-11-07
Obey! - 2005-11-03
Back From Boston - 2005-10-27
Lots of Updates - 2005-10-24
Back to Work - 2005-10-10
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