full tank-a gas
brett and i are takin' to the open road this weekend, road trippin' it down to North Carolina so that brett can walk his aunt down the aisle. we leave at 01600 today. the excitement i feel has conjured up some memories from road-trips past. if you care to know em', jump on in. the backseat's open.
1995-i'm on my way to Gulf Shores Alabama with my best friend's family. We're caravaning with her aunt and uncle and cousins. The windows are down, the excitement is up, and we were playing a continuous game of tag at each consecutive stop. It came time to re-fill the tanks and all the kids were poised to jump out of the vans and run as fast as they could away from the 'it' person, Katy's cousin Jeff. We stopped, the van door flew open, and out i ran, top speed, shoes barely hitting the pavement. i took the chance to look over my shoulder to guage the speed of my predator. when i turned around my head slammed, full force, into an advertisement posted between two pumps. I was knocked cold, flat onto my back, world dark. when i came to, my friend's entire family was huddled around me like they were waiting for me to make the next play. jeff then reached down, tagged me, and said "you're it."
1996-i'm on my way to Marco Island, Florida. It's my high school senior year spring break. i'm with all my best girlfriends. i have the chicken pox.
2000-i'm on my way to colorado. brett is in the seat next to me. we're off to spend a week in the mountains before saying goodbye for the next year. the trip is lovely. the air was warm, the music was michael jackson, and i was with my best friend who was singing "billy jean" at the top of his lungs. we hit nebraska and the weather took a turn for the worse. we actually saw parts of a roof blow in front of us. we decided to turn on the radio to see if we were going to die. the tornado warning signal was blaring as the announcer was listing counties where people should already be in their basements. i checked the map. "brett?" i said. "do you think we should pull into a ditch?"
when we get to colorado and set up camp i decide to call my parents, like a good daughter does, to let them know i'm ok. my dad answers the phone and I say, "dad, i'm here. we made it safe!" my dad says, "where are you? who's we?" apparently i had forgotten to tell my parents where i was going. my mom then got on the phone and reminded me to be careful "both in and out of the tent." i think i blushed the rest of the week.
2000-i'm on my way to texas. my friend hannah is in the seat next to me. we're off to catch a flight in Austin that will wisk us away to Honduras for a full year. "sin wagon" is painted on the top of our car for all the truck drivers to honk at. and we've got enough mixed tapes to make any child of the 80's proud. on the way we see a sign for BOOMLAND and decided that we could not pass up a place with a name like that. we picked ourselves up some straw cowgirl hats and diet cokes. if you've never been to boomland, i highly suggest it.
we make it all the way to memphis, home of the king, before we decide to stop...for a couple days. first on our list of 'musts' is Graceland. we had a hard time finding graceland. you see, i let the map get sucked out of the window. i didn't quite know how to break the news to hannah so we ended up getting more lost than need be. you wouldn't think that graceland would be that hard to find but remember we were in a car with "sin wagon" painted on it and i had just let the map fly out the window. when we finally reached graceland we found it to be less than gracious. they wouldn't let us in for free. all they allowed us to do was sign the graffitied cement wall surrounding the infamous pelvis's home. although, it did happen to be "elvis week" and we were able to see a lot of crazies dressed as elvis. oh, and we got two free american express t-shirts by applying for a credit card.
our first night we decided to check out Beal Street, the birth place of the blues. seeing as how hannah had already set off an alarm by touching a statue of bb king in the visitors centre, we decided that we should at least visit bb's bar. as luck would have it we met some young chaps who apparently knew everyone on beal street. we got into clubs for free...and we drank for free too! at least that is what we thought, but these boys had other ideas. when hannah and i came to this realization we excused ourselves to go 'freshen up' in the bathroom. we quickly found the back door to the joint and escaped. unfortunately we escaped into a fenced in area with the dumpsters. we were too afraid to go back in so we jumped the fence! if there was ever a movie moment in my life, it was then. it totally kicked ass.
we made it to texas and found that "sin wagon" had actually baked itself into the paint job of hannah's car. her dad was none too happy.
2001-i'm on my way home from the great west. my parents are in the front seat. they had picked me up in texas when i arrived back from honduras and we were taking a family trip "out west." we visited all the great land-marks and some of the not so great land-marks too. my mom had rented the book-on-tape "hannibal" which we intensely listened to the entire trip (it was 12 tapes long).
2002-i'm on my way across the country of ireland. my friend natalie is beside me. i had just spent a month working in England when I decided to call up natalie to ask her if she wanted to meet me for a guiness. she obliged. this was my first experience driving on the "wrong side of the road." i'm not very good at the stick shift, but we had decided to rent a stick to save some euros. i knew it was going to be trouble when, before even leaving the parking lot, i couldn't figure out how to put the car in reverse. i had to keep driving around and around in circles before natalie rolled down the window to ask someone. while leaving the lot i hit three curbs. in the round-abouts, that are so popular in europe, i often had problems manuevering my way out of them. you can imagine how dizzy we felt. but we made it across the entire country to the cliffs of mohr and the aaron islands. we drank in pubs with old irish men singing ballads about conner's pass. we rented bikes and rode in the ever-present drizzle. we slept in co-ed hostels with naked frenchmen. we even made it back to the airport safe and sound after i had driven the wrong way on a one-way in the middle of busy Dublin. i can still hear the crowds of dubliners screaming "you're goin' the wrrrong way! you're goin' the wrrrrong way!" cheers.
these are just a few of my road-trip memories. i'm sure that this little jaunt to North Carolina will be no less adventurous. we've borrowed a small fridge that plugs into the car's lighter. that, no doubt, will be filled with cokes and turkey sandwiches.
1995-i'm on my way to Gulf Shores Alabama with my best friend's family. We're caravaning with her aunt and uncle and cousins. The windows are down, the excitement is up, and we were playing a continuous game of tag at each consecutive stop. It came time to re-fill the tanks and all the kids were poised to jump out of the vans and run as fast as they could away from the 'it' person, Katy's cousin Jeff. We stopped, the van door flew open, and out i ran, top speed, shoes barely hitting the pavement. i took the chance to look over my shoulder to guage the speed of my predator. when i turned around my head slammed, full force, into an advertisement posted between two pumps. I was knocked cold, flat onto my back, world dark. when i came to, my friend's entire family was huddled around me like they were waiting for me to make the next play. jeff then reached down, tagged me, and said "you're it."
1996-i'm on my way to Marco Island, Florida. It's my high school senior year spring break. i'm with all my best girlfriends. i have the chicken pox.
2000-i'm on my way to colorado. brett is in the seat next to me. we're off to spend a week in the mountains before saying goodbye for the next year. the trip is lovely. the air was warm, the music was michael jackson, and i was with my best friend who was singing "billy jean" at the top of his lungs. we hit nebraska and the weather took a turn for the worse. we actually saw parts of a roof blow in front of us. we decided to turn on the radio to see if we were going to die. the tornado warning signal was blaring as the announcer was listing counties where people should already be in their basements. i checked the map. "brett?" i said. "do you think we should pull into a ditch?"
when we get to colorado and set up camp i decide to call my parents, like a good daughter does, to let them know i'm ok. my dad answers the phone and I say, "dad, i'm here. we made it safe!" my dad says, "where are you? who's we?" apparently i had forgotten to tell my parents where i was going. my mom then got on the phone and reminded me to be careful "both in and out of the tent." i think i blushed the rest of the week.
2000-i'm on my way to texas. my friend hannah is in the seat next to me. we're off to catch a flight in Austin that will wisk us away to Honduras for a full year. "sin wagon" is painted on the top of our car for all the truck drivers to honk at. and we've got enough mixed tapes to make any child of the 80's proud. on the way we see a sign for BOOMLAND and decided that we could not pass up a place with a name like that. we picked ourselves up some straw cowgirl hats and diet cokes. if you've never been to boomland, i highly suggest it.
we make it all the way to memphis, home of the king, before we decide to stop...for a couple days. first on our list of 'musts' is Graceland. we had a hard time finding graceland. you see, i let the map get sucked out of the window. i didn't quite know how to break the news to hannah so we ended up getting more lost than need be. you wouldn't think that graceland would be that hard to find but remember we were in a car with "sin wagon" painted on it and i had just let the map fly out the window. when we finally reached graceland we found it to be less than gracious. they wouldn't let us in for free. all they allowed us to do was sign the graffitied cement wall surrounding the infamous pelvis's home. although, it did happen to be "elvis week" and we were able to see a lot of crazies dressed as elvis. oh, and we got two free american express t-shirts by applying for a credit card.
our first night we decided to check out Beal Street, the birth place of the blues. seeing as how hannah had already set off an alarm by touching a statue of bb king in the visitors centre, we decided that we should at least visit bb's bar. as luck would have it we met some young chaps who apparently knew everyone on beal street. we got into clubs for free...and we drank for free too! at least that is what we thought, but these boys had other ideas. when hannah and i came to this realization we excused ourselves to go 'freshen up' in the bathroom. we quickly found the back door to the joint and escaped. unfortunately we escaped into a fenced in area with the dumpsters. we were too afraid to go back in so we jumped the fence! if there was ever a movie moment in my life, it was then. it totally kicked ass.
we made it to texas and found that "sin wagon" had actually baked itself into the paint job of hannah's car. her dad was none too happy.
2001-i'm on my way home from the great west. my parents are in the front seat. they had picked me up in texas when i arrived back from honduras and we were taking a family trip "out west." we visited all the great land-marks and some of the not so great land-marks too. my mom had rented the book-on-tape "hannibal" which we intensely listened to the entire trip (it was 12 tapes long).
2002-i'm on my way across the country of ireland. my friend natalie is beside me. i had just spent a month working in England when I decided to call up natalie to ask her if she wanted to meet me for a guiness. she obliged. this was my first experience driving on the "wrong side of the road." i'm not very good at the stick shift, but we had decided to rent a stick to save some euros. i knew it was going to be trouble when, before even leaving the parking lot, i couldn't figure out how to put the car in reverse. i had to keep driving around and around in circles before natalie rolled down the window to ask someone. while leaving the lot i hit three curbs. in the round-abouts, that are so popular in europe, i often had problems manuevering my way out of them. you can imagine how dizzy we felt. but we made it across the entire country to the cliffs of mohr and the aaron islands. we drank in pubs with old irish men singing ballads about conner's pass. we rented bikes and rode in the ever-present drizzle. we slept in co-ed hostels with naked frenchmen. we even made it back to the airport safe and sound after i had driven the wrong way on a one-way in the middle of busy Dublin. i can still hear the crowds of dubliners screaming "you're goin' the wrrrong way! you're goin' the wrrrrong way!" cheers.
these are just a few of my road-trip memories. i'm sure that this little jaunt to North Carolina will be no less adventurous. we've borrowed a small fridge that plugs into the car's lighter. that, no doubt, will be filled with cokes and turkey sandwiches.
posted by SN at 3:26 PM
1 Comments:
you can get refrigerators that plug into the lighter of your car?? that is quite possibly the coolest thing i've ever heard. ;) have fun.
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