Crazy? A bit. Fun? You know it! Worth the drive? You better believe it.
Now some guys would cringe at the idea of bringing their wife with them to go look at a potential project car. And I really feel bad for them! It was an absolute blast to have my wife and best friend along for the ride. The voice of reason when "disaster" struck and a good sounding board as I struggled with important decisions and backwoods exploration.
We set out Friday night after I got home from work. And let me tell you, driving through the Kentucky country land (Or should I just say Kentucky?) at dusk in the autumn is pretty breathtaking when you're from a place where the only example of you have of green are the fresh tumbleweeds growing on the sides of the road. We were pretty smitten with it all and road in relative quiet aside from the occasional gasp and "oh my that's pretty" as we pointed out houses and pastures that the average passerby could probably care less about. Does this single us out as major tourists? You betcha. Did we care? Not a bit!
But then the sun set, and we were cloaked into almost suffocating darkness. There were no lights for miles in places, and when I say no lights, I mean NONE. Now I'm from Southern California originally, and the only way I can get somewhere with "No lights" is to close myself up in a closet. It was amazing, for about ten minutes, and then it was really boring. We only had three hours worth of driving to do this first night since we were just making the jump down to Knoxville, TN. But the last hour and a half or so was in complete darkness. We needed coffee and we needed it badly. Enough so that we settled for McDonalds coffee during one of our bathroom stops.
It was a mistake.
Really.
Big mistake.
Now I've had bad coffee before, and at times it's my own fault. Don't even get me started on the stuff that I drink at work on most days. Now I've never had something to drink that not only didn't taste like anything approaching coffee, but was, in my opinion, what liquid plastic would taste like. It was horrid. Why they call is a "Caramel Latte" and not "Brown plastic in a cup" I don't know. But avoid if at all possible. I prefer truck stop coffee over this stuff, at least it tastes like coffee.
I pushed through it though, mostly because I desperately needed caffeine like a fish needs water. And I'm still here to write this post so it didn't kill me. Looking back on it now, it didn't feel like three hours in the moment, but it also didn't feel like 3 minutes either.
We arrived at the hotel, and after just a touch of waiting we were all checked in. A short walk, an elevator ride, and another short walk brought us to a humble little room with the basic accouterments. We settled in for the night and did our best to get to sleep.
The universe had other plans.
Sometime around 2AM in the morning we were both jerked from sleep by the sound of wailing klaxons. Fire, tornado, rampaging squirrels?! I had no idea what was going on but jumped out of bed and made for the door. Just as my hand touched the handle, the noise stopped. A tense moment of silence passed and... Nothing. Silence, Blissful, peaceful silence. I looked back towards bed. Had I imagined it all? Was this a dream? Nope, A quick query to the wife shows she heard it as well.
Hmm. Odd. Back to bed I guess.
45 minutes later. It happened again. But the tone was faster (at least that's how I remember it) and this time I only managed to crack my eyes open before it stopped and I was out again.
The morning finally came, time to throw some clothes on and head to the lobby for that promised free hot breakfast.
One word. Salt.
I'm not sure how you make pastries salty, but I think they managed it. If you could make apple juice salty they probably would have done that too. Now I know I shouldn't complain about a free meal, but afterwards I think I would have been better off just not eating. The dead was done though, now it's back upstairs for a quick shower before looking up the first destination of the day.
Oh no... Are you kidding me?!
(... to be continued)
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