Road Trip Stories....

[handy]

I was chatting with Jason on Facebook and it reminded me of a road trip I took with my dad. We traveled from Winston-Salem, NC to Modesto, CA. We took 3 and 1/2 days. We logged in some long days on that trip.

:D I had to laugh at the memory of my dad needing to explain to me exactly what "Rocky Mountain Oysters" were. We were traveling through Texas and this restaurant was serving them...I was interested in trying them out, but I wanted to know exactly how the "oysters" were prepared as friends of mine in Winston-Salem tried to get me to eat raw oysters once.

Dad was like 2. He really didn't want to tell me, but I told him I would just ask the waiter, who was a guy just a little younger than I was. I guess Dad figured he'd rather tell his little girl that particular "fact of life" rather than a good-lookin' Texan. (And yes, I am sooo glad he did...I would have died 1000 deaths had I found out from a cute guy! )

So anyway...share your "Road Trip" stories...or any story from a time you were on a vacation or away from home...

 

[Gazelle]

Handy that was a funny story!

Ok, well I've travelled a lot and probably will be able to continue with this thread until it's closed.

I was a teenager, travelling like an adult. It was in the South (the REAL south) and I was in a restaurant for breakfast. I could manage giving my order of northern type of over easy eggs with ketchup, but the read back floored me. The sweet lady asked (I could tell it was a question because her voice went up at the end, (whereas today that might not work)) "Would like you lye some hoe toe with that?" I had her repeat it 3 times before I had to ask another what she was saying.
:Would I like some hot toast with that?

 

[jasoncran]

Funny story!

Ok, well I've travelled a lot and probably will be able to continue with this thread until it's closed.

I was a teenager, travelling like an adult. It was in the South (the REAL south) and I was in a restaurant for breakfast. I could manage giving my order of northern type of over easy eggs with ketchup, but the read back floored me. The sweet lady asked (I could tell it was a question because her voice went up at the end, (whereas today that might not work)) "Would like you lye some hoe toe with that?" I had her repeat it 3 times before I had to ask another what she was saying.
:Would I like some hot toast with that?

lol. i said that out loud with my country accent imation.

i will have to think of those stories.

 

[Gazelle]

I wait with bated (baited?) breath. :yes

 

[Danus]

I don't like to think of my worst road trip, but it was a few years back involving Hurricane Ivan.

basically we head down to Destin FL just about every year for a week of powder sand beach life, great food, maybe some fishing or golf. Always fun.

This year ? 2004 I think, Ivan was planing on possibly hitting within 2 or 3 days of our arrival. I thought about eating my deposit to my condo owner and just letting it go this year, but she talked me into bringing my family down. On day two it was clear that Destin would need to evacuate.

Upon telling my wonderful wife this news she suggested we just move on down to The Red-Neck riviera, otherwise known as Orange beach AL. (You can smoke on that beach, bring your dog and count tattoos :p (OK kidding) But I looked at her cross eyed and explained; "You obviously have know idea of the girth of a hurricane do you Gracie? (Her name is not really Gracie, but that's the name I give her when she says something "cute". If that's over anyone's head look up George and Gracie Burns)

After finally getting the van packed up and leaving just as the workmen where about to board up the windows, my lovely wife suggested we stop at a couple of stores on the way out to do a little shopping. SHOPPING!? I said. "Do you realize everyone and their dog will be on this rout out of here? Traffic is going to be a nightmare! Everyone is leaving on a road not built for everyone at the same time!" ....so we stopped at a couple of gift shops and bought some wonderful brick-a-brack junk and then got on our way.

What should have been an 8 hr trip with bathroom breaks turned into a 16 hr nightmare, that only got us to Jackson MS where we have friends who lovingly opened their home to us at 02:00 AM to let us rest. Still had about 4 hours to get home.

 

[jasoncran]

I wait with bated (baited?) breath. :yes

lol. unless you want army convoy stories and me well having some poor timed bowel movments. sorry most of travels as a kid were at the most 300 miles. i have driven by my lonesome for the most part as an adult.

i cant recall any humurous things while i drove to report for army training.

 

[Gazelle]

Oh Danus! Well I am certainly glad that YOU did realize what danger lurked! Yes Ivan was in 2004. I, too evacuated up to Atlanta GA.

lol Jasoncran. Come on, I've heard lots of military stories. ;)

 

[Pizzaguy]

Well, maybe I"ll have a story after this weekend.

Since last weekend, I've changed the car's oil. Washed it with Dawn Dish soap. Clay Barred it. Polished it. Waxed it twice. Washed the air intakes in the dish washer. Vacuumed. Put in a 5 watt GMRS/FRS radio.

And I think we are ready! Tomorrow at 9:30, I will wait for four other Crossfires to go streaking by Exit 205 of I75, and take off and catch up with them. We will go the four and 1/2 hours from here (with some of these cars having left home yesterday in Florida) to Fontana Dam, NC.

It's the annual pilgrimage to the Mecca of sports cars: The Tail of the Dragon!!

We expect 74 Crossfires and a few Mercedes SLKs to join together for three days of driving, talking, eating, sightseeing and just great fellowship. It's the best weekend of my year, every year!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qmN0un98Fc

 

[Rhea]

One of my favorite road trips was when I flew to Boise Idaho to buy an old '74 Landcruiser from some friends and drove it back east to where I lived at the time. The truck was 16 years old at the time, and ran okay. I brought my tools, and extra fan belt, oil, hose and clamps - the kind of stuff you might need. I did not bring an extra alternator, I should have gotten one.

Off I left from Boise, tooling along. The truck had no radio, but I brought a boom-box and some cassettes. Now, the speedometer didn't work. The gas gauge didn't work, either. And the odometer was broken. But I enjoyed my ride across Montana stopping for gas every two hours (that seemed to work) and timing myself with the mile-markers and my Mickey MOuse watch to see how fast I was going. It turned out that the radio antenna (not hooked to anything) thwapped against the windshield at about 55mph, so that was my max speed, and prompted me to just take back roads since I couldn't speed anyway. I camped out each night at various spots and ate sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Lost the fan belt in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, right next to a convenient rest area. So I pulled over and changed it. Guy came up just as I finished and offered to help, but I was all done. Camped that night in the frost and got going the next day, but found out hours later that the fan belt had lodged in the alternator cooling fan when it went, cracking that and my alternator was overheating.

So I stopped a little longer at each gas stop to let it cool, and it made it home - barely.

Five days after leaving Boise, I pulled into the driveway with my "new" truck. Then spent the next year rebuilding the carb, replacing the clutch (outside, in the winter - brrrr!), putting on new brakes and enjoying the heck outa that thing.

 

[Rhea]

to Fontana Dam, NC.

Hey, we had a family reunion there once! Nice place.

 

[jasoncran]

Oh Danus! Well I am certainly glad that YOU did realize what danger lurked! Yes Ivan was in 2004. I, too evacuated up to Atlanta GA.

lol Jasoncran. Come on, I've heard lots of military stories. ;)

without getting too vulgar a few years ago, we had e-4 and well my platoon( at the time i wasnt where i am today in rank and i let the platoon daddy know my opinion)went along. he posted a sign that said show me your breasts.

well many of the ladies did oblidge. well it backfired as the wife of the brigade commander didnt like that and chewed out the co and it was squashed and while every time after that was tried. i made sure it was squashed

i was in afghanistan during the storms and on leave when jeane hit.

 

[handy]

Jason, your stories are something else...glad the CO's wife was on that one.

Danus, your wife is hereby nominated for the rank of "Sister of the Year"...for outstanding devotion to shopping during a hurricane.

...and I'll put in a good word for you as "Best Supportive Husband" for actually stopping. (The prize is a bowl of whipped Carnation Milk. ;) )

Rhea...:nod Brave, brave woman! I've done some road trips in my time, but to brave those roads through that country in a ... shall we say, "less than showroom condition" vehicle...

Gazelle, that's hilarious! I don't know, the greatest road trip stories always seem to happen in the South.

PizzaGuy...awaiting full report! You gotta pop in Tom Cochrane's "Life is a Highway" and blast it for me along the way. (Rascal Flatts is OK, I suppose, but Cochrane's is best.)

When I was traveling across Eastern Oregon with my niece on a road trip from Modesto, CA to Idaho, it was getting kind of boring. The roads out there are miles of miles of long, straight highway with nothing but sagebrush on either side. You pass another car about once an hour, maybe. Anyway, Cochrane's "Life is a Highway" came on and I stopped the car, cranked the radio full blast and my niece and I boogied out in the middle of the highway to it. Woke us up. ;)

 

[stovebolts]

Oh my goodness do I have stories lol! Funnest one was when I was 17 I think.. It was themed off a song by Billy Idol, eyes without a face. Part of the song goes, "Steal a car and go to Las Vegas, whoo xyz fool... I'm on a bus on a psychedelic trip reading burn out books, trying to stay hip.... (I think the bus was called the green tortoise and cost 25 bucks to go from SF to LA) :D man, we got really good at siphoning gas and Vegas.. wow! But...errrr.. ummm... That's a story best told elsewhere :o


So yeah.. was living in Florida and bought an old firebird and had to make a road trip to Washington State... Found out in Texas that the heater didn't work. What should have taken me 3 days took over a week. I'll never forget when I pulled into Boulder Colorado and it was minus 10 and was tinkering with something under the hood... Couldn't wait to get back inside the car where I had three sterno can's burning on the dashboard to keep the window from fogging up... and amazingly, it kept it just above freezing in the car... and no, I didn't have enough money for car repairs, let along a motel... It was all about sleeping in the car.

So I get into Idaho and somebody tells me to take the car to a car wash and use a high pressure wand to blow out the heater core... Worked great, but I wish I had known that a week earlier! So, that night I pull into a rest area just east of Cabbage to go to sleep... I can't describe how nice it was to have a warm car!... until the car died in the middle of the night and I woke up freezing, and it wouldn't start.. grrrr

So I pack my blankets and set up camp inside the rest area just below the hand dryer :D and every couple of minutes I'd give it a slap :yes

About 6 am some tough guys come in and see me sleeping and made the comment, "Look, the bums are moving in"... I swear, I got up so fast it made them jump as I said, "I'm not a bum, my car broke down, do you want to fix it!!!"

Ironically, I went back out to the car when the sun came up, and it was probably in the upper 20's and the darn car started right up.. Go figure :shocked!

About 20 miles later the heater went out again and I had to do a radiator repair with some J B weld and a spare bolt I found laying around... But that night I was in a nice warm bed

 

[Mike]

I have you all beat! One Dad asked us where we wanted to go, and we said Hawaii, but he convinced us Wally World was where we really wanted to go, then he got the wrong car, my mom's aunt died and we had to put her on the roof of the car, and when we got the Wally World, John Candy was the guard, and he said, "Sorry folks. Park's closed. The moose outside should'a told ya."

The good news is, I tried my first beer!

On the second thought, maybe I heard that somewhere else.

Holiday roooooad, holiday roooooaaaad! :guitar

Actually, as a kid, our vacations meant 4 days with me staring out the back window of our family station wagon (no seat belt) and 2 days at our destination. All I had to keep me occupied was one of those old books with the highlighter that would reveal answers. Back in MY day... But looking back, those are great memories!

When I was about 20, my friend and I flew down to Texas so we could drive a beater back to Michigan he bought for cheap from his brother. It broke down in Oklahoma when the wheel fell off the back, dragged sparks into the median, and started a fire! We were throwing luggage across the road 'cause we thought the car was a goner until a guy in a truck towed us away!

"Ya picked a fine time to leave me loose-wheel!" :sing

 

[handy]

:rolling Lovin' these stories. (I'm sick with the 'flu today, so I'm glad for any comic relief!)

All I had to keep me occupied was one of those old books with the highlighter that would reveal answers.

I'm going to have to show the kids this one....the fact that yes, back in the day, a kid could survive a trip for longer than 15 minutes without PSPs, DVDs, MP3s, or CD's.

We were, however, always exhorted to pack extra BVD's. ;)

 

[reba]

Ninety nine bottles of beer on the wall
Ninety nine bottles of beer
ya take one down and pass it around
Ninety eight bottles of beer on the wall
Ninety eight bottles of beer

Never in the family car only the school bus

 

[jasoncran]

when i went to sea load the hmmvs as we in the 2acr were moving ft.polk. the tree huggin, liberal types were protesting our moving(some) and others the entire army.

go figure. i thought i saw stovebolts in the crowd.

 

[stovebolts]

when i went to sea load the hmmvs as we in the 2acr were moving ft.polk. the tree huggin, liberal types were protesting our moving(some) and others the entire army.

go figure. i thought i saw stovebolts in the crowd.

What in the world did you just say? My goodness Jason, your in America now, speak English or we're gonna have to beat you with a rolling pin!

and... did you just call me a liberal?.... I think you better vent your garage a bit better next time you work on that import.. them fumes be getten to yer head

 

[stovebolts]

:rolling Lovin' these stories. (I'm sick with the 'flu today, so I'm glad for any comic relief!)



I'm going to have to show the kids this one....the fact that yes, back in the day, a kid could survive a trip for longer than 15 minutes without PSPs, DVDs, MP3s, or CD's.

We were, however, always exhorted to pack extra BVD's. ;)

Hope you get better! Talked to my Dad in your neck of the woods and he's sick too.. Must be all that warm weather you guys are having in the North West... Don't ya wish you were over here where it's low 40's, raining and windy!

When the kids were younger, each year we made our way down to Nashville Tn. for the Lads to Leaders convention each Easter. Thank goodness we had a full size van... they didn't have mp3's back then, but they had a bop it. man, that thing drove me nuts but they played that thing for hours and hours...

Believe it or not, the bop it is still in our newer van and my son decided to play with it. Can you believe that after 10 years, the batteries are still good! High score, Oh yeah!

Our last trip to Tn was me and the wife, our son and my mother in law.... and a week old baby lamb who's mother didn't make the delivery. When we called for hotel reservation we simply asked, "Do you allow pets" :D and boy did we get a lot of looks when we pulled into the rest area to let the lamb stretch it's legs. Him and my son would just romp in the grass and that lamb was never far from his side.

But one of the neatest things about that trip, was Nana was a great sunday school teacher, and the two of them would sit in the back and she'd tell him Bible stories and they just talk and he'd ask questions with big wide eyes. Nana's not with us anymore, but he still remembers that trip.

And of course, whenever we take a long road trip, it's tradition to stop at Cracker Barrel

 

[jasoncran]

What in the world did you just say? My goodness Jason, your in America now, speak English or we're gonna have to beat you with a rolling pin!

and... did you just call me a liberal?.... I think you better vent your garage a bit better next time you work on that import.. them fumes be getten to yer head

washingtonians in general are liberal. i know that is the only time i almost went left. and my nissan is one hundred percent assemblied in america. not all parts are made here some in china(my radio) and i cant say the same about Got Mechanic Coming aka GMC.:shocked!

i believe there is a way by the vin to tell where it was made. 1 one is america and 2 is canada and where i work we have plenty of "2"'s.