Last week I won the auctions for the complete Bluth trilogy of games (DL, DL2 and SA) from ebay.
The machines were 450 miles away in Rochester, NY.
Not too bad I thought, I can rent a trailer and pick them up myself and save a lot of money on shipping costs. It would be like getting one of the games for free.
Well, I had never used a trailer before and my truck did not have the wiring harness for this.
Again, no problem, I ordered it online and installed it myself (it took me a while and some cuts and bruises but I did it!)
I ask for friday as a day off from work and plan my trip for that day.
I get the trailer on thursday afternoon:
I want to leave my house at 5am on friday morning but I oversleep and end up leaving at 6am. I may get hit by bad traffic. Like Bruno does, here's a photo of my odometer at start (in miles):
Here I am driving on the New York Thruway (still some snow on the ground):
Got to take a break:
At 3pm I am almost there (9 hours on the road!):
At 3:40pm I arrive at the seller's house and see my new babies!
Vance, the seller, is a collector and a player of games. I play a few games of Star Wars in his game room. (that's Vance next to the pinball machines).
By 5:30pm I have paid Vance for his games and he wraps up the games and helps me load them into the trailer (he is a big guy, so he does most of heavy lifting! Thanks Vance!)
Once I get on the New York Thruway I see this sign (keep in mind, I have another 65 miles to go past New York City!)
I am driving a bit slower because I am very nervous about the machines falling over or getting banged up badly. It gets dark and I have to take one of many breaks for food, coffee and to check the straps on the trailer:
Parts of the road are empty and very dark. It reminds me of the game Night Driver!
I got home at 4am. I was really tired and decided to take a nap and unload the trailer later.
At 7:30am I get a call from the rental place telling me that someone else needs to pick up the trailer and if it's not back to them by 8am they will charge me $500 and $250 per half hour I am late after that!
I unload the machines really quick (no fun to do by myself):
I start to bring the machines inside, except the DL2, it doesn't fit through the door!!
I have the DL2 in my garage while I figure out how I am going to get it inside.
Saturday I spend an hour playing the games!!
I learned a lot during this trip.
Here's the bad:
1) New York State is a really big state, 450 miles is a lot more than it appears on a map.
2) Going through New York City with a trailer full of arcade games stinks! There are potholes bigger than a tire waiting to swallow up your entire car, trailer and games!
3) Going by yourself on a 22 hour trip stinks. Bring a friend or spouse to keep you company.
Here's the good:
1) I really love arcade games. I will have to get more!
2) I got used to driving with a trailer so I can now get more games.
3) My daughter likes games too so I will have to get even more games!
Thanks to Bruno and all you guys on this forum for getting me excited once again about collecting arcade games.
Extra special thanks again to Bruno and Mr. Jason Finn. Hopefully one day I can achieve such a great collection as you guys.
Talk to you all soon.
Alex
