Road Trip part 2…. On the Road
The first leg of the trip started off without a lot of fanfare. I think we were all just happy to be on the road, and excited about the trip. One of the most important things to remember is the fact that as far as technology is concerned, 1991 didn’t have a whole lot to offer, as computers still weren’t the norm in every household, and ordinary cell phone usage, as we know it today, was still a good 5 to 6 years away. Communication between the two cars was non-existent, so we had to pull up next to each other and yell out the windows to each other if we were thinking about stopping somewhere to get gas or food.
It was Tripp; I believe who started the hi-jinx in Todd’s car by hitting the flash on his camera out the back window at Eagle, driving right behind. “AHHH! I can’t see!!!” Ed kept yelling. It was pitch-black outside, with the exception of an occasional light on the Interstate. “They need to stop that, they’re going to make me crash!” Tripp must have sensed the frustration he was causing Eagle, and continued to flash about every 5 to 10 seconds over the course of the next half hour or so. “AHHH!! AHHH!! I can’t see – I wish they’d stop!!! DAMMIT!!! I CAN’T SEE!!”
Somewhere during the night, it was time to pull off the Interstate to take on fuel. We pulled into a gas station and started to gas up. This gave Eagle the opportunity to tell Tripp that he needed to stop flashing the camera, as it kept temporarily blinding him while he was driving. While both cars were fueling and Ed was griping, I was inside the mini-mart, buying a Coke and a few packs of “Operation Desert Storm” trading cards. As I walked outside, I opened up the first pack of cards to reveal the Holy Grail of all Operation Desert Storm cards – similar to what Honus Wagner means to baseball cards. It was none other than a General H. Norman Schwarzkopf card. General Schwarzkopf was the commander of The Coalition Forces in the Gulf War, and this card was a rare find. I was so excited at this momentous occasion, and Todd took pictures of me holding my Schwarzkopf card outside the car at the gas station. This was going to be the best trip, EVER!
It was now probably 2 or so in the morning, and before we got back in the cars, we all decided that we should take turns driving the rental, and it was now my turn to drive. Anyone who has ever ridden with me knows that I like to add a little element of excitement when I drive. Point A to point B doesn’t cut it for me, unless there’s something at stake. That being said, we all took turns giving the rental a good swift kick in the doors and a yell, “It’s a RENTAL!!!” before getting back in the cars. Because there was a median separating the two lanes of traffic, to get back on the Interstate, we had to take a right turn out of the parking lot, and do a U-turn at the nearest light. Todd went first, but I decided that I wanted to make things interesting and beat Todd back to the Interstate. Instead of taking a right turn and following Todd, I headed straight out of the parking lot toward the median in the middle of the road. I gunned the car and smacked the curb head-on, throwing the car up onto the median. I had misjudged things a bit, and I didn’t realize until that first “Bump” that this was no ordinary median. This median was a good 8 to 10 inches high, with a solid, square concrete curb. I got the front wheels onto the median, and Bart was going hysterical, “Fuck yeah BIT!!! HA, HA, HA!!!” Eagle is yelling, “What the fuck, Bit?” I continued to drive across the grass median, which was about 20 feet wide, gunning the car again and launching it off the opposite curb, scraping the bottom of the car before the back tires hit the road again. “IT’S A RENTAL!!!” I yelled.
With that, we were back on the road again, with still over half of our road trip left to go. Todd got back in front of me, and before long, Tripp was back at it again with his camera flash. The next few hours were without incident, but the next stop in Princeton, Illinois in the pre-Dawn hours of June 12th, would be foreboding…
Stay tuned for Part 3…The Showdown