A Dark Night in Lodi Again!

Quality time spent in California.

Day 7:  I had only planned to read in the book about the Legend of Little Black Bear for a little while, then turn in for the night.  Mary Heart had checked it out for me to read after I finished my research at the Sioux Nation Library about 6:00 p.m. the night before.  The book was on reserve and wasn’t allowed out of the Museum Library, except by certain members of the staff, of which I was not one.  But, she had not only checked it out, but had given it to me for the night, and made me swear to protect it with my life.  I found myself deeply involved in the story about the young Lakota Prince, and had stopped reading only about 4:45 a.m. and realized that it had become morning much sooner than I had expected. I decided to continue reading until about 6:30 a.m. but the next thing I knew I was having the worst dream I had ever had in my life.  The dream was so physical and emotional.  I remember at one point just dropping to my knees in pain and in tears, only to have my attacker assault me again and again.  Then, the last thing I remember was that my attacker had screamed at me like, well, like a banshee. 

As soon as I was awake, I got up off the floor, then hurriedly got ready for the new day.  That being done, I packed up everything, put it in the car, and had left the Sioux-Quality Inn just down the road from the Museum.  I entered the Library just after 8:00 a.m., and had a few things I wanted to check out before I left the Library for Mary Heart’s place to return the book.  I left the Library just about 8:45 a.m. and headed to Mary Heart’s house just a little further into the Park.  As soon as I got to her house, I told her about the bad dream I had and asked her if I had really had an encounter with Mato Sapa Cincala.  She said that I must have dreamed about him after reading the book.  He would not have been allowed, under Sioux beliefs, to return to his family after one hundred year.  It has been longer than that time now, so he could not have come back to my home.

I told her how much I had appreciated her hospitality.  I thanked her for allowing me to read that book.  It was an incredible story that I shall never forget.  With that I got back in my car, and turned on the radio, so I could get Robin set up with calculating our destination’s miles and the travel time to get there.  I wondered if I would ever see Little Black Bear, the Teton Sioux Prince, again.  My departure would be from the area of Fort Bridger, Wyoming, and the destination would be Reno, NV.  Reno was 629 miles away, and would take nine and three-fourth hours to traverse.  It was a little after 9:20 a.m. local time and the travel time should put me into Reno by 7:30 p.m.   The entire trip would be via I-80, and it would pass near the Bonneville’s Salt Flats and fairly close to the Great Salt Lake. 

I had stopped for lunch and gas five hours later about 1:00 p.m., and was off the I-80 for about forty minutes.  I also stopped to get gas again at 3:30 p.m. local time after I had been traveling for over 8 ½ hours.  I was very tired and had driven off the road taking a mini-nap just 20 minutes before, which was why I decided to get off the I-80 about 80 miles from Reno, NV.  I stayed out of the car for nearly an hour before I decided to return to the car and drive into Reno.  I would wait a few hour before I would get back into the car and drive on to my next destination of Lodi, California. 

   

 

Although, Robin never came right out and ask the question, she did make several comments within a matter of just a few minutes.  Her first question was: “just to make sure there are no misunderstandings in regard to current destination information, please enter Destination module and using the keypad, re-enter current destination information.  When information entry is complete, tap ‘DONE.’  Navigation will re-calculate.  When prompted, return to map by tapping ‘Navigation.’  That was Robin’s first effort to force me to reconsider the destination as valid.

Her next question was a bit more pointed! 

“Do you have friends or relatives in Lodi?” 

Her third question was more to the point! 

“Are you not concerned that we will be stuck in Lodi again?”

Now, just about anyone would recognize the reference to the 1969 Creedence Clearwater Revival song by John Fogarty, a tremendous recording artist, and instrumentalist.  Stuck in Lodi again was a lament in a refrain from the song, in which an artist comes into Lodi, and not doing as well as hoped reached a point where he was not capable of leaving for lack of money.  He further laments that if he only had a dollar for every song he had sung, he wouldn’t be able to leave Lodi by bus he would have to walk out. 

“OK, Robin, I get your point.  But we aren’t going to be staying to perform in a band.  We are just visiting for just a few hours to take a few pictures and do a tour of Lodi, then we will find a place for the night, and head out for Portland, Oregon the next morning.  And, oh by the way, that’s the last time I will explain to you why we are stopping in any specific town, so keep your snide remarks to yourself.”

Then, it occurred to me I could have a little fun with my nosey navigator, so I ask her, “Robin, I am entering our next destination, go ahead and calculate distance and time to get there.”  So, I enter ‘Destination’ and when the keypad comes up I enter:  N-J, then tapping ‘city name’ I entered L-O-D-I.” 

Robin’s wheels began to whir, her gears began to spin and her relays started clicking rapidly.  I knew she was having a fit.  She was, in fact, fit to be tied.  She finally, asked, “Please, tap ‘Destination’ and reenter data for next destination!”  I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself.  Robin, didn’t ask me any more questions regarding my destinations for the rest of the trip.”

We were coming up on the first exit to Reno, Nevada and coming up over a hill, I saw what looked like about one hundred flashing blue lights on the top of police and ambulance vehicles.  Emergency vehicles were routing travelers off of I-80 as they approached the accident scene.  There was no way through on the freeway.  As we exited the freeway, I knew the Navigator would have to be tasked to find an Alternate route.  Hundreds of cars had already been routed off the freeway, and although most would seek an alternate route and return to the interstate on the other side of Reno.  Instead of doing that, I looked at the time and decided that since we needed gas and I was in need of a break and some dinner, I would just stay off the interstate, and would interrogate the Navigator for the Alternate Route information.  I found a motel about a mile off the freeway.  I got on the smartphone and Binged Up the motel to see if there were any rooms available and what the price was.  It was just a few minutes later and I had a reservation for a single room with a queen bed for $49.95.  When I went inside, the clerk asked me if I needed a room and I responded in the affirmative.  He told me he had only four doubles left and they were all upstairs and were $119.99 plus fees and taxes.  I said:  “No thanks, I have a reservation for a single room with queen bed, and here’s my confirmation number.  I had just written it down on a piece of paper, but I had the screen available on the smartphone so I could show it to him if my note was not good enough. 

He excused himself, and went into the back room.  I heard him say that he had someone in who claimed to have a reservation at $49.95 for a queen room.  Then, he came back around and began checking into the computer reservation system and said, “I am sorry sir, but I don’t have a reservation for you.”

I said, “If I get on your reservation line and file a complaint against you, I just bet you’ll get told that you are obligated to honor the reservation.” And, then I added, “It is not my fault you did not adjust your reservation limitations before my reservation went through.  You either refund my money right now or you honor my valid reservation.  I have a RESERVATION NUMBER here, and it is valid.”

He again disappeared out of sight behind a partition wall, and I could hear him telling someone that the reservation number was valid, and he could not rightfully ignore that.  Then, I heard him say, he would not do that and he would resign right now if he were forced to deny the customer that reservation.  I could not hear what the other person on the line said, but I heard him say, “Then I am resigning immediately, and I will leave the check in desk immediately.”  At that point, the young man re-emerged from behind the partition and said to me, “Sir, I am not able to accept your reservation at the demand of my general manager.  As a result, I am resigning effective immediately.”  And, with that he walked out of the building, throwing his company jacket on the floor by the door. 

I decided to wait to see who would show up.  Several people came into the lobby while I was there and if they asked me I would tell them that there was no one back there because the clerk had quit and left the building, and if there were any rooms available I didn’t know, but I had a reservation.  And, that they had more than doubled the price on their rooms because of the accident out on the freeway.  And, I told them I had already called the 800 number to complain, several times.  I was the only one in the lobby when a clerk-type person showed up, and picking up the jacket off the floor walked to the office door.  When he was behind the counter, I told him that I had a reservation and I expected him to honor it, or I would get on the reservation line and file another bad report on his motel.  When he refused, I told him I would do everything I could using social media to report the motel and the chain.  He did nothing.  So, I called the reservation line and filed a complaint and demanded a refund, and a penalty of $100 refund for my inconvenience.  The man on the reservation line, told me he was very sorry that I had run into that problem, and that the hotel I was at would be losing its franchise at the end of the month because of the many complaints they had.  A few hours later, I checked my credit card activity and saw that the reservation amount for the room had disappeared and there was a credit on my account for $250.00. 

Moral of this Little Story:  “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

I went to a restaurant, had a few cups of coffee, ate breakfast and got back on the road.  I made it to Lodi, California by 8:30 p.m.  It was at Lodi that I ran into the problem that would that would ruin my trip.   

I was very tired after the drive.  So, I got on my smart phone and googled the Landmark Inn in Lodi, California and made a reservation for the night.  It took me another forty minutes of driving to get to the exit, and drive the additional seven tenths of a mile to the Inn.  When I arrived I got out and went into the lobby to the front desk and told the clerk I had a reservation.  He asked for my name, and then checked his reservation system.  Finding my reservation, he said, “Yes, we have that reservation and your room has been readied for you.  You will be in 514, and he pointed on the floor layout chart where that was and where I should park.”  I enquired of the clerk about things to do in Lodi and how much time I should allow to see at least a nice complement of things so I would get a flavor for the city. 

He said that any reasonable foray into Lodi should allow at least one full day.  He said you could spend a day just going through some of the wineries in the area.  Another day he said I would need to see the Museums, and a third day would be necessary to visit all the great little shops in the “Village of Lodi.”  The Village is a great way to spend a nice sunny day in the area.  He said I would be amazed and enthralled by the Village.  He said if I don’t see anything else, I had to go to at least two museums, go wine tasting and visit the Village.  There’s no way you can stay here and not see these things.  And, he hand wrote out information about a dozen things I absolutely had to see before I left.  He said you will need to extend your stay by one night.  He gave me a rather large map of the city, and be began to mark the sites that I absolutely had to see.  The next morning I was up and ready to go on a field trip into the fabled city of Lodi, California.  I drove into town, only planning to see as many things as I could in what was left of this day.  I started with the museums for the rest of the morning until about 2:30 p.m., then I went to the Village area, parked and began to go into the shops that lined the street named “Arbaught Street.”  It was indeed a neat place to wonder around.

During the day I found out some other things about the area I had not heard before, not even from the clerk at the Landmark Inn.  I found out that Lodi is in California’s Central Valley.  It is 25 miles east of Sacramento, about 60 miles east of Oakland and about 100 miles west of Reno, Nevada.  Although it is not the Napa Valley, which is known for its vineyards and wineries, Lodi has nearly ninety wineries.  It also has a snake terrarium called a Serpentarium.  There is a place called the Micke Grove Zoo.  I was told I should go see the World of Wonders Science Museum, and then go see fine works of art at the art galleries nearby on the quaint little streets of Lodi.  If you are the adventurous type, you can go kayaking on the Mokelumne River, play golf, and even go to the Isenberg Crane Reserve, where resides about a million Sandhill cranes.  And, if you are visiting in late fall you can go the Sandhill Crane Festival in the first week of November.  And, by all means go see the San Joaquin County Historical Society and Museum. 

I had seen many of those wineries, the Serpentarium, two museums,

 the Isenberg Crane Reserve, and finished with San Joaquin County

Historical Society and Museum.  It was an interesting day in Lodi,

but the getting stuck part was yet to come.  It had been an interesting

day, I had taken about two hundred pictures and grabbed all the

brochures and got all the postcards I could for the scrapbooks

I planned to put together for the grandkids.  So far, in seven days on the road, I had taken over one thousand pictures with my cell phone, I had bought more than one hundred postcards, and I had endeavored to find as many brochures and other things that I could find to embellish the scrapbook.  It would be a scrapbook worth thousands and thousands of dollars.  And, it would take about two hundred scrapbook filler pages to complete.

 What was about to go into the scrapbook to finish Day 7 on the road would best be described as a Landmark Inn Inferno.  I had no idea about the history of the area I was about to spend the night in.  And, I would not find out until the next day.  The Landmark Inn was sitting on High Street’s Northwest side, against the San Juaquin ridge which was an uplifted area about twenty feet above the rest of the terrain to the southeast of it.  At the point where the Hotel sat, the ridge moved eastward toward the city, and the entry to the Lobby and parking required that cars be driven up the ridge to the front of the Hotel which set back about forty feet from the ridge face.  It had never been associated with any unusual activity, but for some reason fate chose this night to change all that history of peace and calm.  And, I had chosen this night, to have a reservation at this Inn.  The irony was almost brutal.  I had not even originally planned to be in California at all, but had decided to head due west across the great salt flats instead of continuing on my way through Utah and Idaho.  I had been through there before, but I had not been through the desert, never seen the salt flats, or seen the sites in Reno.

It seemed like it was a very quiet night in Lodi.  The sky was broken with a few fluffy clouds back toward the western horizon.  I just walked around the area until it about dusk, and then returned through the lobby to the elevator and up to my room on the fourth floor.  I was extremely tired after that long day of walking around, especially through the Villages of Lodi.  I fell in love with the Lodi Villages.  The clerk asked me if I was going to be spending a third night in Lodi, and said that I didn’t think so.  He said that I could have a third night for half off the price for the first two nights.  I really would have liked to have taken him up on that offer.  So, I said that I really had to be on my way in the morning and that I had not planned to spend a second night in Lodi. 

I went to bed at 10:30 p.m. and was ready for a long winter’s

night in the middle of the summer.  Oh well, it was winter in

the southern hemisphere.  I was sleeping really well that night. 

At 3:49 a. m., the entire trip would be turned upside down,

and so would the southern wing of the Landmark Hotel. 

Unfortunately, for me, that was the wing of the Hotel that I was lodging in for the night.

I felt the rumblings that caused the Hotel wing to begin to shake as the earthquakes Alpha Primary Long Shock Waves swept over the Hotel.  After fifty-four seconds, the vibrations became even more violent as the Beta Secondary Short Shock Waves began to roll through the ground and dissipate into the structures in the area.  Structures that should have been designed for such ground shakers was apparently not designed appropriately for the western most wing of the Landmark Hotel.  It was apparent that this building had collapsed on top of itself, and had just pancaked down.  Now, this wing rose only fourteen feet into the air.  Before the quake, this wing of the facility had risen 69 feet above the ground level.  It was registered 4.7 on the Richter Scale.  It should not have dropped the west wing of the hotel to the ground so efficiently.  

It wasn’t just one wing of the hotel that had been leveled.  More than a hundred buildings on the western edge of Lodi had collapsed.  In fact, more than ninety percent of the multi-story building that had been constructed along the San Juaquin Ridge had been either destroyed or significantly damaged.  The San Juaquin Ridge was a local barrier ridge that ran from the north-northeast of the county to the south-southwest of the county.  The elevation of the ridge through the county ranged from over seven hundred feet in the northeastern corner of the county down to a more regular height of seventy feet up to about two hundred feet.  Where the Landmark Hotel had been built, a fronting ridge with an average elevation of thirty-five feet ran along the face of the higher ridges in the background, which had an average elevation of about one hundred and fifty feet above the town below.  It made for a very nice building location as it allowed visitors a great view of Lodi.   

My problem was in the fact that I had been on the top floor and had been trapped when the upper two floors seemed to pass through the lower three floors as the process of liquefaction had turned the ground underneath the western wing of the hotel into not much more than slush.  The entire hotel had been full as there was at least three conventions in town for the week.   The convention that had most intrigued me was the Annual Australian Members of the El Cocodrillo Conservation Organization was in emergency session as their pet concern had been losing ground and was apparently bordering on extinction.  However, it was of grave concern that the Members of that organization might just had become extinct.  I was more than thirty feet underground pinned against a steel girder and several enormous lumps of concrete debris that most likely had been the floor to my room.  The only thing I could see was the nightstand with several things still on its surface.  There was the telephone, the lamp and some of my personal items.  What excited me the most was that I could see the landline and then right in front of it was my smartphone.  If I could only get to them, I might have a chance of getting out of this hole.  On the surface, thirty feet above me, flames roared, and firefighters were sending hundreds of gallons of water down into the hole.  I could feel the misty spray hitting me and increasingly drenching me and my clothes.  It was also starting to fill up the hole I was in.  After about an hour the flames had been doused but the heat was still finding its way down into my hole.  Several hours went by, as rescuers up above waited until the rubble cooled enough so that they could check for survivors.

It began to get daylight outside and within an hour the sun’s light was finding itself entering the chamber I was in.  I kept hearing the voices of rescuers up above, but they could not hear me.  I was unable to scream as my chest was being compressed by a ceiling beam.  I kept trying to reach my phone or the house phone.  As I had given it thought, I had decided that my phone would be more likely to work, since it was also likely that the house phone wiring had been severed when the building collapsed.  After hours of searching around me, I finally found a piece of metal from the wall.  It was probably a metal wall stud that had been ripped asunder when the collapse occurred.  After more than a ten hours, I finally managed to pull my smartphone close enough that I could reach it my right hand.  At 4:12 p.m. I managed to gain control of my phone.  As it lay beneath my right hand I found the ‘on’ button, and gave it a few seconds before swiping across the phone’s screen with my index finger.  I then picked it up and located the ‘phone’ button, then the keypad button.  It was a struggle but I then tapped in ‘9-1-1, and after a few long seconds the phone began ringing.  It was then that I was able to tell someone where I was.  It took them another three hours, but they were able to finally get down into the hole my hotel room was now in, and get me out just as the sun was setting over the San Juaquin Ridge behind me. 

All I can say is this: “that eighty foot ride from the top floor down to thirty foot below ground, and that additional overnight stay was terrible.  I told them that the ride was NO ‘E’ ride and that last night’s accommodations was not up to the high standards of the Landmark Inn, and I also would not be paying for either of them.”

The night manager, who had just come to the hotel indicated to me that I would not have to pay for any part of my stay. 

“Really,” I spoke with a certain degree of incredulity in my voice,

“I would like to know why my side of the motel was completely

destroyed by the earthquake and why the east wing was unharmed?”

“We don’t have any idea at the moment,” he said unflinching, “But

you can bet the chief engineer involved in the construction will be

having that question and more directed at him in the near future. 

We will know before reconstruction can begin.”

“Let me know, when you find out,” I said.  “Then I’ll consider coming back for another visit.  I don’t know about you but I have a very high standard in regard to the stability of the hotels I stay in.  I’ve been here for two nights, one intentionally and the one last night.  Right now you hotel has only a fifty percent stability factor.  One night it was good all night, and the second night it all fell to the ground.  I don’t mean to be facetious, but, I require at least 96.2% stability factor.  You are going to have to improve on nights I am here, 50% just doesn’t cut it for me.  But, let me know when you are rebuilt.  I’d like to come back and spend more time in Lodi.  It is truly nice here, and I just loved the Village.”

The most unfortunate thing about the whole incident was the loss of my red Malibu and Robin was gone.  When the façade of the hotel’s east wall fell, it came down on the Malibu and crushed it flat.  It took me hours to overcome my grief.  I had not believed them when they told me about my car, but after I returned to the scene the next day, they took me out to the front of what use to be the western building of the hotel.  It was gone now, and so was my Malibu.  I could just see a splotch of that beautiful crimson red metallic paint under all the rubble. 

I asked the hotel’s general manager, “How am I to get

on my way out of Lodi, I have no means of conveyance.”

The General Manager said, “Well, sir that is not our concern,

it is your car and you have it insured.  We do not take responsibility

for anyone’s vehicle that is on the lot.  The loss of any personal

property is the responsibility of the owner, including a car.”

I said to the GM, “Sir, it is abundantly clear that the fall of your west building is the proximate cause of the loss of my car.  Your east building did not fall, so it is clear also that it was your engineer’s fault that the building failed, not the fault, nor the liability of the car’s owner.  Under normal circumstances, I might agree with you, sir.  But, in this case, your building contractor is at fault here, and if you will contact your home office for legal assistance, I think you will find out that the engineer is responsible, and since you hired him, you are also responsible for him.  And, sir, that makes your company responsible for my losses.  Which are total sir, and I would estimate the loss of my personal property to be on the order of $35,000 to $38,000.  I need you to do something about that today, sir.  I don’t care if you have to call corporate headquarters, or your attorney, but I need my car replaced and I don’t mean to contact my insurance carrier about it.  This is your problem not mine.”

“Well, sir,” he said, “you are going to have to wait for a while,

until I can get a response from our legal team.  You can stay

here until we have your situation figured out, as a guest of

the Landmark Hotel, of course.” 

Three days later, I was back on the Road Again with a new Malibu in the same red metallic paint as my original Malibu.  Only this Malibu, was brand new, with less than eight miles on it.  It had everything my Malibu had and much more.  It was a fantastic development.  I had a new ride, a ride fresher by fifty-one thousand miles.  The sticker price on it was $42,578 plus taxes and fees, and in California they were significant.  An eight percent surcharge was added by law payable to the Secretary of the Treasury of the State of California.  A nice little tax of $3,406 in addition to local taxes and fees.  Just about every department in state and local government got a check with the sale of each new car.  Altogether, state and local taxes added up to a hefty 11.15% of the total sticker price before any credits, discounts or rebates were applied, or in this case $4747.47.  It took a lot of money to run the California state government, and all the municipalities.

As soon as I entered the new Malibu for the first time, I turned on the radio and then powered up the Navigator.  Her voice was somehow different but she said all the same things as Robin had ever said to me.  I decided to call her Ginger, not for the Gilligan’s Island grand lady, but for famous partner of Fred Astaire.  The greatest pair of modern dancers in the twentieth century, Gene Kelly and his companion notwithstanding.  Ginger Rogers was forever in lockstep with Fred Astaire, and they never failed to be in unison, total and complete unison.  And that is exactly what I needed from my new Navigator.

Ginger and I would successfully navigate the Interstate system until we reached our destination eight days later.  Never a single misstep.  Now that doesn’t mean there weren’t problems off the road, but it just means that together we did not miss a single turn, off ramp or on ramp for the remainder of the trip.  Yep, Ginger and I, would be in lockstep the rest of the way for eight days of driving.  However, for this day, Lodi was behind us.  And, although we had been ‘Stuck in Lodi Again’ for three full nights and for three full days, unable to go anywhere, we were stranded, but now we were on the road again.  And, we were happy as pair of clams.

 

 

 

 

Well that is all for this little story,

And, now it’s time for the moral of the story.

                In life it doesn’t matter what may fall on top of our heads,

                It doesn’t matter how many feet of clay may mire our way,

                It only matters that there remains a strong will to achieve,

                It only matters that we overcome until the end of our last day.