Road Trippin'

Rhode to Nowhere: Part II
I know you’re getting on in years, so let me refresh your memory … Last we spoke, I was engaging in the adventure of a life time (Gulliver’s Travels, Huckleberry Finn and Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures all rolled into one), hitchhiking with two traveling musicians from North Carolina, to Massachusetts’ shriveled and deformed cousin, Rhode Island.
Sadly, Kerouac, I am not. The hitchhiking experiment was a failure. As it turns out, people are less likely to pick up three random strangers off of the side of a busy highway than I’d first suspected (shoulda left my murderous glint at home). So, I decided it was time to take the good old fashioned route - motorized vehicle … just like the pilgrims.
Initially I thought my musician friends, Stephens Waters (drummer, banjo player, man-beast) and Manquillan Minniefee (guitarist, silent film star, lothario), would appreciate my volunteering the use of my 1993 Toyota Corolla for the trip, but they looked at her as an uninvited pooper on the party that is their lives.
“Man, if you’d just kept walking a few more miles, we’d be having a real adventure,” complained Minniefee.
“Yeah James, you’re a wussy,” said Waters, only, he didn’t say “wussy.”
But once the boys saw what great time we were making, all complaints subsided, I.e., they fell asleep.

Alone On the Road (with two other guys)
After a couple of hours on the road, I too was dreaming of adventure on the interstate, unfortunately, I was driving on the interstate at the time. Having tried everything to keep awake, including opening a window, switching on the radio and punching myself in the face (had opposite effect), I decided a rest stop was more than called for …
Sleeping, driving, more driving, a lil’ driving and even more driving … You’ve got the gist.
What was amazing about the whole trip was the total lack of interesting things that happened during the drive. In fact, we only had to stop for gas twice!
It did get kind of interesting once we reached New York. See, driving through the Big Apple took skill, agility and cat like reflexes for those instances in which you would need to cut another driver off while simultaneously flipping the bird to some guy beside you. This was Stephen Waters’ domain (so said Stephen Waters).
What followed was a rollercoaster of tunnels, bridges and heart pounding speed - I’m pretty sure we almost died, like six different times.
Finally after an entire night and half a day of driving, we arrived in the Ocean City, Providence Rhode Island, now all we’d need was a place to stay.