trip to pick up van!
SO, boss and I fly to Homer yest. We arrive 1 hour late because the plane was late and they had to substitute another plane (which we're both used to, due to living in remote areas in the past). We get a cab immediately to the ferry terminal, because as we drive down "the spit", we see the ferry Tustamena coming in. It was the weirdest ferry I've ever seen, cars can't drive off the ferry by a ramp, they are lifted with this crane thing- so anyway, we had to get on the ferry and find the minivan, which we both had never seen, but we found it and got in the van and drove onto a platform inside the ferry, which lifted us up to ground level and we drove off the boat via ramp. So strange.
We were happy and chattin' away. We stopped at the bank and when I got back to the van I noticed it had no front license plate. I went to the back of the van and it didn't have one either. I told the boss and we had to go to DMV, where she was verbally bitch-slapped by this horrible woman there. You know, DMV workers are supposed to be mean, I suppose- this lady @ Homer DMV was classic- just plain ol' mean! I could see she'd REALLY pissed off my boss, but by some miracle we got a "one way trip" piece of paper that was supposed to substitute for a license, which we pathetically taped in the back window, hoping we wouldn't get pulled over TOO many times on the drive back.
We left Homer after having lunch, and got gas outside of town. I went in to get my free Root Beer (for a fillup of gas), and boss looked upset when I got back- she had noticed all four tires had studs on them. oh, God. We called her boss, who said to get the studs pulled out, because if we get pulled over with them, it goes on the driver's record and the company can't do anything about it. SO, we called all over Homer- no one could get us in till next Wed. We decided to keep driving. We found a garage further up the road in Ninilchik that could get us in ASAP, and we had the studs pulled out of all 4 tires. While we waited, boss took me to the bar and I had beer. Then we left again and stopped a couple more times. We decided to make the drive in a day instead of staying the night somewhere- got home 8:30PM. It was fun, and I'm glad I'm not such a nervous person anymore, I was just happy to be along for the ride.