Someone's got to take care of you James, it might as well be me.

 This from Vinny who several hours prior I had called when I learned that the bridge Authority could not and would not provide an escort for me over the bridge. That was quite an unpleasant surprise but there it is. At the point he contacted Vinnie, but tow truck company, there was still some possibility that the bridge Authority would provide an escort as they did two weeks ago, but it looks efficiently unlikely based on the phone conversation with the authority, that James began to explore options. The first place he called was Vinnie's tow truck place was only a mile and a half from where he was sitting at a gas station eating a microwaved breakfast sandwich and sipping some coffee. It'll be a hundred bucks with my large truck which looks like it what it will take for your rig, Vinny said, and that seems like a fair price to James, but a horrible amount of money. Within 20 minutes James decided to take the pressure off the bridge Authority and called me back and said let's do it. Two weeks ago when they did ask or James, two events happened that had nothing to do with that ex escort, but may have clamp things down. There was a motorcycle rally and two different drivers were killed on the bridge. May have had nothing to do with them tightening things up, but may have. They also mentioned the fog today and construction that had all but one lane each way closed down.

After dealing with another Bridge customer after a phone call, he met me at his place and within 20 minutes we had the vehicle up on the back of his flatbed, and I was pleased to find that with Khanh's wonderful cyclone motor system we could easily climb up without even needing to be pulled.

We were together in the cab for probably 20 minutes crossing the bridge. The toll folks knew him and they saw saw on the back of his rig and remembered that, gave a big smiling thumbs up.

I shared with him as much about the mission as he seem to want to hear. He mentioned how lots of folks are moving from the cities up to this area after I said what a beautiful area I thought it was. People have had it. The world is really imploding he said, because we've taken God out of our culture. I told him I desperately wished I could agree but I cannot. The problem is we've taken God out of our churches and replaced it with them being Social Clubs, clubs to beat up on other cultures, clubs to beat up on people, economic clubs. He immediately agreed though I'm not sure he had thought about it before. And I shared with him other similar things and he did not respond much but again my reading was he didn't mind hearing it and I thought I owed it to him to share. 

Upon arriving at our destination I offered my the credit card, let's get it off the truck first he said. We did, uneventfully. Then I offered him the card asking him, please remind me what did we agree on? It'll be $50 he said, no no no no no no no I said. It'll be 65 or 70 okay? Someone's got to take care of you James, it might as well be me he smiled. I don't know why he said that. But it was definitely said out of respect, warmth, support, maybe even appreciation for what he had heard this mission was about.