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“You know . . . I contemplated putting a fake snake by your RV.”
This is what one of my four cousins confessed to Andy and I as we were working on our 1965 Clark Cortez motorhome. Jeremy’s comment came a few weeks after our spark plug work was complete and after we took off on a test drive. It was on this test drive that Andy found a snake looking at him from inside our motorhome. If you haven’t seen our reaction yet, I’ll try to type a summary: We literally bounced from our seats—Andy took off towards the back of our RV while I barely threw the Cortez into park as I leapt out of the vehicle. My move landed our Cortez precisely both in the the middle of my aunt and uncle’s rocky farm path and feet from the roadway, meaning Andy and I were prohibiting anyone from turning into the farm while also showcasing our extreme snake antics to people driving past.
Normally, this would not have been that big of a deal because this is a backcountry farm where a maximum of ten cars pass during the day. However, Jeremey was one of those people who drove past right then and there . . . because, of course, fate works like that. And, of course, my cousin likes to remind us of this.
“I’m pretty sure I was driving by when I saw you both act like—” and here his words were cut off by his laughter. “So I’ve been wanting to f*** with y’all ever since and put a fake snake under or near your RV.”
You should know I have grown up with this type of “brotherly” love due to my sister and I being close in age and friendships to our four male cousins. Andy, however, was an only child, which means in marrying me, he now kinda sorta has four brother-in-laws; and this also means he kinda sorta has to amble through the same a rite of passage that my sister and I blundered through growing up.
“Oh yeah?” Andy responded, feigning interest in a conversation that mocked his and my reptile dance moves as we beat, ran, and hollered at our RV to encourage the snake to leave that day.
“Well, as kind as that gesture would have been . . . ” I told Jeremy.
Our lack of delight only seemed to amuse my cousin more as he found himself compelled to go into great detail describing the type of rubber snake he wanted to buy and the specific plan he had for that said rubber snake. “Anyway,” he said as he turned to go, finally realizing Andy and I were a poor comedy audience, “if you need advice or help keeping snakes out, I do know what you can do. You just —” and here Jeremy went on discussing, I’ll be honest, who knows what because all I could think at the time was, “If we need advice or help keeping snakes out?! What an absurd comment. This was a one-time fluke. There’s no way we would have another snake in our RV. How absolutely ridiculous!”
I admit (to Jeremy’s delight, I can imagine) I reflect upon this past conversation with my cousin often because, of course, as fate would have it, Andy and I did find a second snake in our motorhome . . .
Back in April 2021, we headed to our Clark Cortez to investigate our exhaust smoke issue. This has been a problem since we first got our steel beast in 2019, but the smoke has slowly and steadily become more of a concern as it grows in both thickness and size.
Unfortunately (on many accounts), we did not get a moment to investigate our smog problem because when Andy lowered himself onto the shed’s cement floor to look up at our exhaust manifolds, a snake was once again looking back at him.
The speed in which Andy thrust himself from the floor and into me was one I will be unable to describe, along with his scream of terror too, which caused me to shriek in fear of the unknown.
“What are you doing?!” I yelled at him as he pushed himself into me in an effort to get away from the Cortez.
“THERE’S ANOTHER BLOODY SNAKE!” he yelled as if it was my fault.
“A WHAT?!” I yelled back either in shock at what he said or in feeling that I needed to communicate through roars too.
“I SAID, ‘THERE’S ANOTHER BLOODY SNAKE IN OUR RV!’”
I cannot remember if I wrote this last time, but it is important to tell you that both Andy and I are not afraid of snakes. However, when a snake’s face appears inches from your own face—or when you hear about a snake’s face appearing inches from your love’s face—there is a certain consuming reaction of horror and panic.
What was equally troubling, too, is that it seemed our snake had the same reaction because it immediately disappeared, prompting Andy to search for—and find—it under our dashboard . . .
though I say he found it under our dash, but the thick black seemingly-scaly sheath around our wires caused second doubts many times.
“It looks so much like a snake—It is actually ridiculous,” Andy told me as he analyzed the hoses that were not snakes and then the snake that was a snake, which continued to slither away and disappear once more.
By now, I felt sorry for the poor reptile who clearly was terrified to learn it was in the wrong place (at any time), and I say this because it tucked itself into the tightest little ball behind our driver’s side headlight.
Yet, we couldn’t hope for the best and simply let the snake stay there, so we took a moment to talk out a plan . . .
Andy would start our engine because we learned snakes do not like noise. Then Andy would move to the front of our RV to disassemble our light . . .
From there, I would use our “snake stick” (courtesy our first snake rodeo) to pull our reptile from our Cortez essentially with my bare hands—because, in my mind, I am a badass in that way. Plus, having control of the situation would allow me to guarantee no animal would be harmed in the removal process.
What was upsetting was that I quickly learned I neither have the stamina nor guts to continue to attempt to pluck a snake out using an eight-foot pole so after having a near panic attack trying, Andy took over. Thank everything holy for heroes . . .
Once more, though, our snake was on the move before we could snatch it, so Andy and I were left merely watching as its long black body glided out of view.
“It might be longer than the first one,” Andy said as the snake’s body then tail then tail tip moved past. No doubt he verbalizing my thoughts because—not that anyone but ourselves are keeping track—our first common black snake was about four feet long, and we both estimate this sucker to be around five feet.
Yet, we will never know that exact measurement because this time our snake truly did disappear . . .
We (and, um, I mean Andy) hunted behind our radiator and in our engine bay, and ‘we’ removed our dash panels and engine panels off, and ‘we’ searched in the battery box and between the ceiling ribs. All places were snake-less.
“It looks clear to me,” Andy confirmed neither giving me hope or faith that he was correct due to him supposedly performing our routine “snake check” before working on the Cortez at the start of this day.
“But that’s what you said before, and there was actually a snake inside!” I told him.
His immediate answer: “Well, nobody’s perfect.”
Touché, Englishman.
This thought was quickly derailed, though, as our V8 engine was left running so—in a hot attempt to grab attention—it backfired . . . and backfired again . . . and again . . . and—
“You should get a video of that with the flames!” Andy hollered over the gunshot backfiring sounds and my loud exhales from being startled each time.
“The what?!” I yelled over the explosions.
“The FLAMES!” Andy said to me . . . and he was smiling.
I want to point out that there are few times I see Andy genuinely proud of our Cortez, and—go figure—when our fifty-six-year-old antique RV was shooting fire like a modified rally car—well, this was one of them.
“The FLAMES?!” I repeated only to watch the end of our exhaust confirm bright orange flames shooting from the tip.
“FLAMES!” I said again—not because I was questioning it this time. In fact, I was not questioning it, and in my mind that was more disturbing. By now though, I had learned to expect the most unexpected situations when restoring an old vehicle because the more absurd, the more logical . . . as illogical as that sounds.
“We’ve amplified the problem,” I confessed to Andy with a hand over my pounding heart. “Between the snake and the flames—Maybe I need to step away—Maybe this isn’t for me.” At the time, my mind was racing, I felt like I couldn’t take a big enough breath, and my heart was beating so forcefully that Andy was sure to see my body pulsing. When I envisioned restoring an old vehicle, the feeling of panic so overwhelming that I felt on the brink of dying was not what I had in mind.
“The snakes and the flames make it sound like an 80s rock-band T-shirt,” Andy said, ignoring my hysteria. “And I’m all on board for that.”
To prove exactly how on board Andy was, he later illustrated a T-shirt to remember this crazy ‘rock’-y and ‘roll’-ing event. Here, we have our The Snakes and the Flames (Cortez Limited Edition) T-shirt.
This link will take you the first shirt we have ever done, which we are excited to put out as it is also the first big step Andy has taken in his illustrating passion.
If you enjoy our Cortez content or find the information helpful, consider purchasing a shirt. Admittedly, I said in our video that proceeds would go towards our Cortez restoration, but the truth is not even a penny is left over for that—The amount is simply to cover a shirt that Andy designed as a way to say thank you for sharing this crazy moment.
Back to our story: After I was able to calm down, Andy later managed to convince me to go on a test drive, saying I needed to get behind the wheel so that he could investigate why we suddenly had fire shooting from our exhaust. Here, I weighed pros and cons: Did I want to decline the ride because I was scared of a snake . . . or was I able to cast our reptile from my mind, hop int the driver’s seat, and help find a solution to the backfiring and flames? Immediately I had my answer, which was the second option; so I gladly took put my hands on the wheel and drove out of the shed.
By the way, I mentioned earlier that it was unfortunate we did not get a chance to investigate our exhaust smoke situation—This much is true because it was not only our snake . . . then our exhaust flames that prohibited this . . . but it was also our carburetor.
“What’s that?!” Andy exhaled loudly with a fixed gaze on our engine as I drove around the farm.
“A WHAT?!” I shrieked back. By this time, I was well versed in exiting the Cortez mid-drive if the word “snake” left his mouth again.
“That,” he said before giving a hefty groan and pointing an accusing finger to none-other-than our carburetor. “A fuel leak.”
I confess half of me wanted to cheer because there was no reptile; yet, the other half knew our arch nemesis arrived again to create mischief in our mechanical overhaul.
“That’s a problem,” Andy told me even though I already knew and had already started to steer our Cortez back for its overnight(s) in the shed again.
“Now what?” I asked him . . .
and his answer is our next job, which will hopefully put to rest our leaking carburetor, smoke, backfiring, and exhaust flames all in one, but that’s our next story . . .
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