What the fuck was I thinking?!? I must’ve been out of my damned mind.
When I was single and had the world by the balls, disposable income as well as disposable time, I would take road trips for my sanity breaks. I’d hop in my car and scoot. I’d go to the mountains, to the coast, to the swamp, just about anywhere. I’d usually just take off by myself, with my dog, of course, along with a total buttload of music to keep my head clear while I was driving. By the time I’d get back, I was as relaxed as if I’d had a week off.
One long July 4th weekend after work, a buddy from work, Joe, and I were at the pub having a few beers when I started detailing the road trips that I had taken. After several beers each, we shared an epiphany: “It’s Friday night. It’s a three-day weekend. We need to road-load. NOW! RIGHT NOW!”
We left the bar in my 1986 Mazda RX-7, went by the local BP, bought a case of beer, and filled up the tank.
“Which way?” Joe asked.
“Let’s go west,” I said.
So we cranked up and headed on our merry way.
Keep in mind that we started our magical journey in Georgia.
It was 11:45 p.m. Friday night. We didn’t have to be back at work until Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. We could take a BIG road trip!
Georgia + West = Alabama.
We drove nonstop until we were almost passing out around 5:30 Saturday morning. We stopped on a pier overlooking the Gulf of Mexico down around Mobile, Alabama. We sat in stunned silence for about a half hour, regrouped, then decided to continue on to New Orleans.
We got to New Orleans early, around 7-ish, I’d say. I’d been to the Big Easy before and had eaten at Café du Monde. I thought it’d be kind of cool to eat beignets, tank up on coffee, sober up, and then spend the rest of the weekend partying in N.O.
Joe had a “better idea.”
“Why don’t we make a marathon out of this, something to tell our grandkids about? Why don’t we see how far we can go?”
I thought about it for about six seconds and realized this was the most incredible idea I’d ever heard. Joe was a genius, or at least inspired. So we finished up our French doughnuts and coffee and decided to go north “’cause I’ve always wanted to go over that long fucking bridge.”
For those of you who suck at geography, Lake Pontchartrain is north of New Orleans, and the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is 20-something miles long. It truly is a “long fucking bridge.”
We got across the bridge and decided to keep our course north. We went back into Mississippi, through Jackson, then onward to Memphis, Tennessee. Remember, we had only stopped a couple of times so far: on the pier in Mobile, in New Orleans for coffee, and for umpteen dozen pee breaks.
We got into Memphis. We stopped to stretch our legs and look around the town. It was mid-to-late Saturday afternoon by now. We were out of the car about 30 minutes when we decided we wanted to see that arch. After all the miles we’d gone so far, that arch didn’t seem that far away.
It’s in St. Louis, Missouri.
In retrospect, we were out of our minds. We had gone from central Georgia southwest to New Orleans, and now we were heading north for St. Lou.
We got into St. Louis around 9–10 p.m. on Saturday night. We had that “been on the road too long” buzz ringing in our heads.
We were tired. We stank. And guess what? We gave no thought when we left to:
a. A change of clothes.
b. A change of underwear.
c. Hygiene tools, aka toothbrush, hairbrush, deodorant.
We figured, in our drunken stupor the night before, that when we got to a place we wanted to stay, we’d just buy what we needed then.
What we didn’t count on was that we would never get to where we were going.
Back to St. Louis. We were laid out on the grass under the arch like a couple of homeless guys. We fell asleep for a couple of minutes, then got our second wind.
It was roughly 11 p.m. on Saturday night. Our brilliant minds decided to head to Chicago.
We got to Bloomington, Illinois, and passed out in a rest stop. I’m not sure if you’ve ever had the opportunity to try to sleep in an RX-7. Basically, you don’t. The best analogy I can give is what I imagine trying to sleep in a Cambodian prison camp would be like.
We tried to snooze for a couple of hours without much luck.
Sunday morning, roughly 6 a.m.: on the road again. We were off to Chicago. We hit Chicago — scratch that, we breezed through Chicago’s South Side around 9:30–10 a.m. Onward. We went through Indiana and into Michigan.
On Sunday afternoon/early evening, we realized that not only did we smell, but we S.M.E.L.L.E.D. Somewhere west of Detroit, we came across a KOA campground that had a lake. We turned into that place, stripped down to our underwear, and took a bath in that lake.
God, that was a cold lake.
After the lake bath, we loaded back up, and off we went to Detroit.
We went through Detroit, heading east into Ontario, Canada. We continued east through Canada. We got over to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls and did 45 minutes of sightseeing.
Then we were off again, south.
Here we come, Buffalo, New York.
We went through Buffalo late. By this time, it was in the wee hours of Monday morning. We hit another rest area and slept.
We didn’t really sleep, but experienced deep unconsciousness. I’m not sure if I can relate to you how wasted tired I was. We came to around 7:30 a.m. Monday. Keep in mind, we had to be at work Tuesday morning at 8 a.m.
I’m going to try to make the rest of this story short. Try to keep up.
Buffalo => Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh => West Virginia
West Virginia => Virginia
Virginia => North Carolina
<<<< We got lost in North Carolina for several hours. >>>>
North Carolina => South Carolina
South Carolina => Atlanta
Atlanta => Warner Robins
Warner Robins, to drop off Joe => Macon, home
It was now 7:15 a.m. Tuesday morning.
I had to be at work in 45 minutes.
No call-ins. No sick days allowed.
Why?
Because, at the time, I worked for UPS.
<<<< IRONY ALERT >>>>
I had to drive a fucking truck 200 miles that day.