Fleetmack.com - Just Another Drive In The Country

Logo

"I wrote my friend a letter with a highlighting pen, but he could not read it, he thought I was trying to show him certain parts of a piece of paper." --Mitch Hedberg

An atypical voyage from Carroll to Denver
12-30-03

disclaimer: this is a waste of your time, I will not tolerate being blamed for you wasting your time to read this garbage.

I can't tell you how many times I've been asked to document an actual drive back to Denver from Iowa. Well, maybe if I thought about it incredibly hard I could estimate it. Ok, thats a blatent lie, nobody in their right mind would ever ask me to do this. However, my newfound love of my self timer on my digital camera has allowed me to document a recent 650 mile excursion across a stretch of the country which I travel frequently. The stretch from Carroll, Iowa to Westminster, Colorado. This will fill you in on one of the greatest thrills of my life. In all actuality, this is one of the most boring 9.5 hour stretches of time you can spend in the Milky Way galaxy, so I am forced to entertain myself. After reading this, you will think, if you don't already, I am one of the biggest dumbasses on the planet and have way too much time on my hands. If you are just figuring this out, go jump off a bridge, preferably one only a few feet high so you don't hurt yourself. But I hope you stub your toe.

Anyways, as I begin my voyage down HWY 71 in Carroll, Iowa, you can almost see the excitement on my face as I look forward to the journey. The first step of my self entertainment is music. I have an MP3 cd player in my Accord (which is named Laetitia, after Laetitia Casta) so I am usually able to get away with listening to one cd the entire way as it has roughly 150 songs on it, but the music is very diverse, as you will soon discover. As you will also discover, I sing along to my music. Early in the trip, I was listening to Bushwick Bill, so I have my rap face on. Not really sure what I chose to sing next, but I was in aggressive-driver mode, this means that I'm very awake. And why wouldn't I be? There's so much to see. Note: extreme sarcasm. Since the drive out of Iowa is very boring, I get sleepy pretty fast. I wasn't even 30 miles out of Carroll when exhaustion kicked in. Yup, I was tired - time to revive. You see, that's the cool thing about me, if you know me well, you're aware that I don't put caffeine in my body. No chocolate, no soda, no caffeine - so when I do take caffeine, wow, I get wired. This one red bull will keep me awake for 2 days on most occasions. This wasn't one of the occasions. When all you have to look at is scenery like this, you get tired easily. It seems like it's been an eternity, but I finally reached Audobon, where I was able to look at Albert the Bull - pretty exciting.

Well, as you would expect, the extreme excitement of seeing Albert the Bull put me in a techno mood, so I pumped in some techno and pretended 2 pens were glow sticks and danced in my car for awhile. Realizing that my birthday was a mere 2 weeks away, and that I had my gift from Mom still wrapped in the backseat, my curiosity was itched. I just had to peek and try to see what she got me. Hopefully it's a life, because I obviously need one if I'm actually typing this. Well, no luck, I guess I'll just have to wait until January 7th to open it. Suddenly, for some reason, I'm reminded of Buck. (for those of you who don't know, Buck's real name is Brayton). Well, it's time to go back to the hotel. (that's a joke, I hope you got it, nobody ever gets my jokes except Nic, Smith, Lloyd, Cori, and Josh)

Now we're on the interstate. The interstate in Iowa sucks, the speed limit is only 65 and it's about 60 miles to get out. I speed a little, but not too much until I cross the border into Nebraska.

Ut oh, I'm now listening to Ice-T's Midnight. Yup, got the rap face on. I think I'm pointing to the right because he says "(turned) right on Hoover, 'E, where we goin'?' " at this point in the song.

Now Alabama Roll On is playing. Have you ever played the Roll On drinking game? You listen to the song and drink each time they say "Roll On" - which is about 70 times over the course of the 4 minute song, you can usually drain about 3 beers in 4 minutes. Well, I was dehydrated so I played the Roll On game with my gatorade as I listened to some good 'ol country music. As I said, with this drive, you must find a way to entertain yourself. The sun was shining through the clouds, this picture doesn't do it much justice, but listening to country music while having pretty country scenery is pretty surreal sometimes.

Woo Hoo!! Omaha is in view! I just need to cross the Missouri River and I'll be out of Iowa, and in Nebraska. Do you know how much ass Nebraska's license plates suck? Well, I have 4.5 hours of looking at them ahead of me. I hate Nebraska, everything about it sucks from their college football program to the lack of existance anywhere west of Lincoln. Now I will REALLY need to find ways to entertain myself. I decided to prep myself by pumping up and getting some energy in me - let's blast some Chimaira and scream along. I love screaming with Chimaira, "YOU TAKE MY HEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAART! AND USE IT AS A TOOL!!!!!!!!!" They pump me up. After some Chimaira, I'm ready to slow it down a bit, so I pump in my new unscratched copy of Adrenaline and listen to it.

I'm getting close to Lincoln, Nebraska by now. You can't tell from this picture, but I assure you, the black & yellow sign is for a porn shop. Pretty exciting huh? I should stop at that sometime to check it out, never been in a porn shop before. I need to experience all life has to offer. Blah. My phone is ringing, WOO HOO!! Someone wants to entertain me for awhile! It's Tiff, I very gladly talk to her for awhile. I get a few calls from Bob giving me updates on some sports calls too, but my phone only works until Kearney, Nebraska -- then it's out of commission until I get back to Denver. But I was happy to be on the phone for once.

Laetitia has a fault lately, her moonroof doesn't like to close all the way after I open it. I accidentally bumped the open button (don't ask) and cracked the moonroof open a bit, it was cold and loud and wouldn't close. I was very cold for the next 100 miles, I shivered. The sun started to set, this sucks because I don't so much enjoy driving in the dark. After the sun set, I was freezing, so I decided to bite the bullet and pull over at a rest stop right quick. If I turn my car off, the moonroof closes on its own. Pulled over, thumbs up, the moonroof closed - I was warm again. Time to merge back onto I80. However, I was sorta pissed. I set all sorts of goals for myself when I'm driving home -- por ejemplo, one goal is always to stop just one time in the 650 miles. I also usually set a goal as to the exact minute I will cross the Iowa/Nebraska border. Some think it's amusing that I actually slow down just so I can meet my goal, but what can I say - I'm a man of my word and I'm always right, it's rough being me. A man who is right all the time and not at all cynical.

I'm through Lincoln and now en route to my next landmark at Kearney. About halfway there I pass a flaming gay rainbow water tower in the town of York. But I get a bit hungry, since Mom packed me a huge bag of chex mix, I thought I'd have some. I worked up some energy while eating and had a fantastic idea. Since Toni Braxton came on the MP3 player next, I turned the stereo on full blast, called up Yort Dawg, and sang Unbreak My Heart to his voice mail. I thought that'd be a grand idea. Just as soon as I got done with voice mail, I got some EXCELLENT NEWS! You may have noticed that I was wearing my Seahawks jersey and hat this trip, well, we needed either the Cowboys, Packers, or Vikings to lose to make the playoffs - I received word the Vikings and Cowboys lost, so we were in the playoffs - I was very happy! But suddenly a stench overtook the car, yes, between York and Kearney there is a hog lot - it smells rancid, I could barely stand it this time!

Since my sense of smell was basically ruined by hog manure in the lot, I decided to cheer myself up by listening to some Bloodhound Gang, they crack me up as I sing along.

Now's where you're about to be scared, and I'm not sure which reason should scare you the most. Is it because I actually have these songs on an MP3 cd? Is it becuase I actually do this by myself? Or is it becuase I don't have the song, don't know how to do the dance, but completely pretended to do these things just so I could take a picture of me doing them? Decide for yourself. To occupy some of my time, I decided to do the Macarena. And just when you think I couldn't possibly have any more fun, I decided to do the chicken dance.

Laetitia was thirsty, so I treated her to 15 gallons of gas in Lexington, Nebraska. On a normal Carroll/Denver trip - this would be my only stop, but not this trip my friends. You probably don't know this about me, but I have every mile I've put on Laeitia tracked and know the gas mileage I got on each tank. I keep track of the mileage and how it does on different octanes of gas and highway vs. city vs. mountain driving in summer vs. winter. I wrote up a spreadsheet that calculates some stuff for me, computers aren't just for music you know! So here ya go, me writing down the vital stats of Laetitia's past tank of gas.

On the way out of Lexington, I realized the chex mix just wasn't cutting it. I broke my fast food vow (that gets broken about every other day) and pulled into McDonalds. Mmmmmm, fries and lemonade! Mmmmm ... Royale with cheese (Pulp Fiction). After dinner, I kind of went into a daze. I really start acting goofy after about 7 hour on the road, so as I neared the Colorado border, I decided to try and balance an empty red bull can on my head. It turns out, I was successful, but the red bull can fell shortly after taking this picture.

I'm so wired on red bull at this point I really dont' know what's going on. I'm in the middle of nowhere, my cell phone is dead with no charger in sight, I've been driving for 7 1/2 hours and just want to get home. I was feeling lightheaded, so I decided to check the air pressure in my brain. It was kosher at 30 pounds. Realizing my head was in check, I was feeling kinda lonely and really felt like making out with Laetitia Casta - so I did for awhile. I tried to say "No, Laetitia magazine, I need to focus on driving, stop trying to make out with me.", but her beauty was too powerful and I had to kiss her some more. I tried to get my mind out of the gutter. What to do, what to do. I know! I'll count my fingers! Whew, 5 on each hand, I got lucky there.

Well, I got off I80 and headed the downword tread to I76 and into the barren wasteland we like to call Eastern Colorado. The cool thing about this drive is, as aforementioned, that I don't have to switch cd's very often. Man I love my CD player. It finally got to track #69. hahahahhah, 69, get it? Pretty funny huh? I'll shut up now. A slow song came on, I fell asleep. When I woke up, I took a look at the gas gauge. As Kramer would say "It broke off, baby!" That's about as empty as my car has ever been on gas, seeing how I had none left. My car shut off as there was no fuel left, I was shocked. This isn't a joke - this really did happen and I got so pissed off I forgot to take any more pictures. I pulled to the side of the road, not knowing my gas tank was empty as the "low gas" light never came on, I thought Laetitia had passed on into Accord Heaven for awhile. I pulled over, checked the oil, put the hazards on, and waited for someone to stop. No exit in sight, no cell phone service, and my triple A membership expired at the end of November. Nobody stopped for 20 minutes and I attempted to restart my car, good 'ol Laetitia started right up! I drove about 4 miles before she went unconscious on me again, after which I pulled over, put hazards on for 10 more minutes. Nobody stopped, I tried to start her again - and she again lived up to her expectations. Laetitia, running on fumes, drove me 4 more miles to the next exit as I rolled into the gas station. This gas station, near Commerce City, Colorado (30 miles from Denver) was closing and didn't have pay at the pump. I had to have the lady go turn the pumps back on and give me some gas. I did, I got home, I wrote this, and the most pathetic part of all - you actually fucking read this, don't you have anything better to do with your time?!?!??!?!