This summer, to 'break in' my new car, I plan on driving from Toronto ON to Vancouver BC. Yknow, just for fun. I'm hoping I can finally start having some decent road trip stories to tell. That said, you guys have got to have some already, or at least some advice Focus 1: Share funny or interesting road trip stories. Focus 2: Share does/don'ts and general advice for road trips.
Don't be surprised to see the confederate flag flying above the American Flag (If there is one) out front of a gas station when you drive through the south. Also, definitely don't be surprised when aforementioned treasonous gas station has a whole aisle of black-face merchandise. However, you will be surprised when you see a $1.50 can of Red Bull, 12 different brands of pork rinds, 24 brands of jerky, and red velvet twinkies. Hicks sure know how to snack.
There's no way I could fit the stories into the maximum allotment of TiB's post space. If you want what, for me, was a typical, some-funny-moments North American roadtrip, then go here. If you'd like to contrast that with the gong show that is an African roadtrip, complete with hippos, lions and tse tse flies, then read this.
I've been road trippin since I was born. Every year from Chicago to Miami Florida. I've also done the Highway 70 from Cincinnati to LA. But my favorite Road trip was definitely from my college to Panama City Beach, FL for spring break. We piled 7 kids into this tank of an SUV. We all fit kind of comfortably, even with our luggage so we already started off on a good note. We ended up stopping in every major city on the way there, just to see the sights for a few minutes. And at every city, we stopped for food. At the Taco Bell in Louisville, I ordered a "Wiggy Waggy with cheese". To which I got the reply, "In a soft shell or hard shell?" When I asked what the difference was, out of the speaker came "What shell do you want my spit and shit to go in you little prick!"... We drove away. Another fascinating thing was some cars decided to paint their windows with "PCB 08" and shit like that. If it was a car of girls, we'd have a notebook and sharpie out to have conversations/exchange phone numbers. Surprisingly, these conversations happened with four different cars. If it was a car full of dudes, we'd give them the hairy ass out the window. When we were driving through Alabama, we needed to meet up with the other cars. We decided that we'll all stop at exit 222, which turned out to be Hoover, Alabama. Naturally, because of the MTV show "2 a days", we had to find the school. After asking all the townies where it was, and not getting a response from anyone (Either they didn't go to any school-Highly likely, or they were just assholes), we finally found it. Then proceeded to relieve ourselves on the 50-yard line of the football field. We averaged 94 MPH for the trip, the GPS said. Which was a bad idea, considering the open containers and other highly illegal things happing in the car.
I used to be a traveling contractor so life was one big road trip for me for 3 years. I spent the week after 9/11 in NYC, and it was the Strangest thing I ever seen. I've been to NYC 3 times, but this time the city was like a Ghost Town. Times Square had less than 100 people in it. That was a very strange place to end up that week. I was in Palm beach/ Dade County the morning of the 2000 presidential elections when there was all the miscounted votes in that county, and the presidential elections were held up as a result. We went to bed in the Days Inn we were staying in around 5am and there were no cars except ours in the parking lot. When we woke up EVERY parking space was filled with news vans from all over the country. The guy in the room next to us was a reporter from Amsterdam, who had flown in on a private jet to cover the mess...... But the craziest thing I ever seen was on 9/11/2001. I was in Davenport Iowa remodeling a Gas Station Canopy when the Terrorist Attacks happened. Some asshole at a gas station across town posted his gas at like $5.00 a gallon, and created a feeding frenzy unlike anything I had ever seen. Within 10 minutes all the streets in the city became parking lots. There was a line of cars down the street to get gas so far down the street that I couldn't see the end. Couple that with all the other crazy shit going on that day, and It was by far the most bizzarre thing I ever seen. I know these stories don't seem like "road trip" stories, but I was on a road trip when all this stuff happened (I'm from Montana and was living there at the time, so I was a LONG way from home).
I used to take road trips all the time. That is until I discovered the miracle that is the airplane. You get to places in a couple of hours rather than days. It makes vacation ten times easier. Seriously, driving is for poor people and minorities the TSA won't allow on planes. You guys are either stupid, poor, or have way more time than I do.
I drove from Texas to Oregon with all of my worldly possessions packed into a Honda Fit. Not wanting to pay for hotels I just curled up in my driver's seat in rest stops to sleep. I'd been planning on bypassing the gigantic clusterfuck that is SoCal (not to mention I had a few guns squirreled away) so I opted to drive through Nevada. I never planned on stopping in Vegas, I'd juis skirt around the event horizon and continue on my merry way. Then fate interevened, my dad called while I was crossing the Hoover Dam to inform me that my mother was in Vegas and wanted to see me. It sounded like a good plan; get some free dinner, take a shower,stretch the legs a bit, and after dinner I'd roll out again. At no point would I drink or gamble. My last solid thought of the evening was at 5am when the club shut down and I was wondering, "Why, it's only 2am? I though shit in Vegas stayed open till late?". When I walked outside to see the sunrise it hit me that I was utterly fucked. Right about that time I blacked out (thankfully). I woke up at 9am in my car it must have been 110 degrees in there, I had no water, and at some point in the evening I'd spilled booze all over my pants and shirt. I escaped from Vegas as quickly as I could and headed north. I could tell when I made a gas stop that I must have looked like shit. I was still covered in booze, with a few days beard growth, and bloodshot eyes. People were just staring at me while I stumbled around trying to find water and the crapper. Crazy thing is over the course of the night I only spent $100 and never paid cover at the clubs I went to, and I was just wearing jeans and a white tee. Focus 2 It's impossible to make a "pitstop" in Vegas, YOU WILL get drunk and you will gamble. When in Vegas, get a hotel room.
Working as a truck driver gave me plenty of experiences as far as weird shit happening on the highways, but I always had to get somewhere in a hurry so I had to curb my curious nature and just continue on my way. However, when I was twenty, three buddies and I decided to go spend a weekend in Las Vegas. It was Thursday night about 9PM when we decided this. Vegas was 1200 miles away and we were already drunk. Not a problem, we'd all split the driving. What could possibly go wrong with this plan? We made it down there Friday afternoon and checked into The Sahara. There were only two beds, bu fuck it we didn't go to Vegas to sleep, if worst came to worst we'd sleep in shifts. We drank ourselves silly until Sunday morning and it was time to head back to Idaho, and all of us had to go to work the next morning. None of us we're very happy about this apparently sudden development that we had forgotten about. We piled into the truck and headed north. Now, picture 4 guys that have been drinking heavily for days on end without showering crammed in a Blazer farting, sweating, and burping. I have a feeling that poor thing was hovering from all the gas trapped inside of it. But that wasn't the worst of it. We were headed up I-90 which goes straight through Utah and southern Idaho on a Sunday. Mormon country. Just before we hit Utah we stopped to buy some beer at a little out of the way place and I was the only one stable enough to go in and purchase it. The only problem was I wasn't old enough to buy booze . Fuck it...I'll deal with it....and I fell out of the Blazer. Nice start to being cool and collected. I placed a case of beer on the counter and the young girl behind the counter informed me she wasn't old enough to sell it. Not one to be deterred from my mission I told her I wasn't from around those parts and I wouldn't tell anyone. She finally relented, but she wanted to see my ID. I figured I'd come this far so I may as well see how the game plays out. I pulled out my ID which clearly said I was only 20 and she studied it for a bit and then sold me the beer. All was good again. And then about halfway across Utah we ran out of beer. We stopped a number of times only to find the store beer cooler locked up with chains and a padlock before some clerk finally informed us that we couldn't buy beer anywhere in Utah on a Sunday. For four drunk and quickly sobering young men this was the hell we'd been warned about in Sunday School. We started counting the miles until we hit Idaho and could refuel. Finally after an eternity of driving we were in Idaho and pulled off at the first exit with services, pulled into a store, and the god damn beer was padlocked. Fucking Mormons. The helpful clerk pointed us westbound on a two lane road and said she thought they sold beer in that county on Sunday. We had no choice, we were fucking dying by that time. Off we went. Thankfully they did sell beer on Sunday and it was only a 60 or so mile detour. We bought 4 fucking cases even though we were only about 700 miles from home now. We weren't going to risk that whole ordeal happening again. The rest of the trip there were usually only one or two people awake while the others funked up the interior with body odors. By the end we were switching off drivers every 20-30 minutes because someone was either hallucinating or doing something really fucking stupid. We finally rolled into town about 3AM and crashed. Somehow we all managed to wake up at 7AM and go to work. The Blazer was sold about a year later and it still smelled like funk.
I drove 1500 miles this break to get away to Florida. We managed to do it from Minnesota in 25 hours. Only two of us could drive because the other guy is 20 and somehow still only has his permit. I only slept two hours the whole time, but I think that was a blessing. My friend did the same and it kept the conversation going, which helps you stay awake more than each getting 8 hours and having no one talking to you(the guy with the permit is also kind of quiet). By the way, for anyone planning a trip to Miami just know that South Beach is the most decadent crime ridden area in America. I was out of my hotel room less than 30 seconds before people started offering me coke and hookers. Do not go to Madonna's and if you're buying drugs be cautious. When I was 16 I did a two week road trip around the west coast. We were on the road about 5 hours a day and stayed in a different hotel room pretty much every night. It was a lot of fun, but going back I'd rather have just selected 3-5 of the best spots.
Here's the story of how I found and obtained my dream car. http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=32028129&blogId=244316296
A while back, my dad, brother and I did a roadtrip out into the middle of Australia to go to a yearly race carnival. From where I live, the place is due west about 23 hours drive, most of it through desert and on unpaved roads. Dad had decided that we didn't need anything sissy like a tent, so we were sleeping in swags. A swag is like a heavy duty, partially waterproof sleeping bag that covers your whole body. The first night we camp in a ditch on the side of the highway. Unseasonally, it decides to rain buckets. See my comment about "partially waterproof". All night we're subjected to road trains passing by about 6 feet froom us. A road train is where you get a big prime mover and attach anywhere up to 10 trailers on the back of it. Then, you usually fill them with livestock. They're loud, smelly and the vibrations will shake your fillings out. We woke in appropriate moods. My brother and I shared the driving in dad's Ford Explorer. Somewhere, he'd gotten some advice that he should overinflate the tires for the roads we were taking. Unfortunately, that was the opposite of what he should do and the little razor sharp stones dug their way through the treads and we ended up with three flats on the way out. Which was great, because we only had two spares. We had to limp into the "town" on the rims for the last few miles. Before the last flat, I did get the opportunity to drift a fully laden four wheel drive at 70 miles per hour into a sweeping left hand corner. It wasn't on purpose, but I sure woke up fast. So did everyone else. Luckily, there was a wheel and tire store in the town when we got there, as long as you didn't mind waiting in a line of about 100 people getting the same thing done. After the races, on the way home, we managed to get one more flat. We stopped in a little one horse town at the mechanics to get it repaired. The guy looked about 70 and was completely blind. He managed to repair the tire completely by sound and feel, and it was amazing to watch him work. So what does dad do? He talks to him the whole time he's trying to fix it, completely putting him off and making the whole process take five times as long.
Really? Black face? That's absurd. I've been in the south for 30 years and have never seen black face items in any gas station. Oh, and white people are the minority down here. FOCUS: If you meet a driver in the road who happens to be yawning, pretend they are screaming. Seriously, try it. It's hilarious.
Not a roadtrip story, but this guys "Hitchhiking: The Greatest Game I've Ever Played" from somethingawful was one of the funniest things I read on the internet back then. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.somethingawful.com/d/comedy-goldmine/hitchhiking-greatest-game.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.somethingawful.com/d/comedy- ... t-game.php</a>
I know what blackface is. But Lil Romeo is black. And his face is on it. It's 2010... real blackface is probably illegal.
Sorry if I'm derailing the thread, so I will put my question in spoiler tags. Spoiler So using black people to advertise any products at all is offensive? Does this apply to other races too? I don't hear many people getting their shorts in a knot over Wendy, Colonel Sanders , or even Flo, the Progressive insurance girl. Focus: Travelling by car is fun! As long as you are in a reliable car. Or it could be fun in an unreliable car if you are mechanically inclined and the weather is fair.
I've done a few road trips including one that lasted a little over 3 months and took me all over the country. Every time I went I had a Jeep Wrangler which I feel made the trip much more enjoyable. Dropping the top and popping off the doors while traveling through the desert or mountains is amazing. You feel like you're right in the middle of everything. Plus it was a rarity that I'd encounter a road that I couldn't take which came in handy when I was trekking through NM/CO/WY. Here are the best tips I can think of off the top of my head. - Carry a 3-5 gallon spare gas can. Some areas of the country have severely outdated signs that promise a gas station in 20 miles that has been closed since the 60's. - Carry a 3-5 gallon container of emergency water as well. You never know when the car might overheat a little or you'll get stuck somewhere. Losing two tires on some back country road in NM in the middle of summer taught me the importance of this. - Take the road less traveled. Sounds cliche but it's true. Sure you can reach "X" city or town in 3 hours if you take the highway that cuts through the mountains but the 5 hour path that brings you up and over those mountains will provide you with amazing scenery and the likelihood of finding a throwback roadside diner that has the best turkey club you've ever had. - Keep your schedule flexible. If you're traveling with companions make sure they know that they better not be setting hard plans to be anywhere at a specific time. You never know what you'll stumble across and it's better to enjoy it and relax rather than staying for a quick 10 minutes and then hitting the road because someone needs to be somewhere that night. - Along the same vein as above, don't make hotel reservations in advance. There are so many places to stay out there that I don't even book in advance for my weekly business trips. - Multitask. Head to the laundry across the street from the diner before you order breakfast. That way you'll be ready to go when your clothes are or stay at a motel that has washers.