There comes a time in every man’s life that he must set out into the world and try and conquer something. He must leave all that he is comfortable with, all that he finds near and dear to his heart, and set off for greener pastures. The reason does not matter. Where does not matter. Going is what really matters. I am not talking about packing up ship and heading off to some distant foreign land. Nor do I want you to be alone in the wilderness. Preferably this voyage should not even take place while alone. Soul searching? Most likely no. Getting lost? I would say yeah. A destination? Sometimes, but that’s totally up to you. This epic moment of life that I am describing, the one that all men, scrap that all Americans, man or woman should set foot upon , can affectionately be referred to as the ROAD TRIP! Please think of a large drum sound followed by some kick butt electric guitar each time after reading those words. ROAD TRIP! Boom, wa wa waa brrerererererreewawawa.

I hope most of you are still with me. I know for sure those of you that have experienced this coming of age adventure know exactly what I am talking about. Some of us have lent our spirit to the open road many times. Others maybe just once. Some of you out there have never partaken in this journey of the heavens.

You should be ashamed of yourselves. My friend Brandon and I went on such a journey. This is our story.

The year was 1999. I was nineteen years old at the time. I had met a woman on the internet a few months prior to the ROAD TRIP! Her name was Kodie. Yeah I know what your thinking, the internet? Yes the internet. To some of your younger readers this may seam normal, but at the time I was a trend setter. We began talking in the fall of 1998 and hit it off right away. She told me her name was Lexie (even then everyone lied online) and that she was a five-nine (another lie) brunette from the small town of Arkadelphia Arkansas. A small area about thirty miles from Hot Springs. We forged a friendship chatting online and talking on the phone into the wee hours of the morning. I worked afternoons at the time so our conversations usually did not start until rather late. After a few months of conversations I decided it was time to meet this woman who I barely knew, had never seen a picture of, and of course lied about her name. To think I was clean and sober. On New Years eve I set out to finally meet this mysterious woman. No this is not the ROAD TRIP! I took a plane, alone, arrived in the middle of the night, it was pretty uneventful. My vacation lasted five days. By the end of the trip I had fallen hard. No she was not at all what she had described to me. She was maybe five foot five inches tall. A little chubbier than described, and wore way to much make up. I was fine with the chubber, I am no little man myself. The next month or so seamed to fly by. We had given up chatting online and spent most of our time on the telephone. The cost of phone cards was killing me. I knew I had to do something. I did what any logical 19 year old man would do. I asked her to move to Michigan. Being that I am irresistible she of course thought that would be a great idea. The plan was set, I would arrive in Arkansas, something like 1050 miles from my house, and help her move across country. What could go wrong?

The first thing I did was to contact my best friend. Brandon was away at a local college in his freshman year. I never really explained to him the entire story of my whirlwind romance. Brandon has never had trouble meeting girls and I was afraid he would judge me for it. Truth be told I am sure he knew exactly what was going on. I guess the term “best friends” goes a long way in the judgment category.

Our plan was simple. Brandon and I would leave late Friday evening sometime after I had gotten off of work. Hopefully after a couple of hours of sleep. We would drive all night and arrive at Kodie’s place on Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning we would awaken bright and early. Kodie was to bring her car back with her to Michigan, a 1980’s Toyota. The three of us and the two vehicles would arrive safely back in Brighton Michigan late Sunday night. After all I had work Monday, and Brandon had to be back at school. This figured to be a easy trip for us. 2100 miles in a weekend. Yeah that’s doable. Brandon and I had already conquered many daunting passages through land and time. We once made it two hours a way to Sandusky Ohio to go to everyone’s favorite theme park. We were ready for our ROAD TRIP! I hope your not forgetting the Boom, wa wa waa brrerererererreewawawa. It makes for a better story.

Friday came and went like any other day at my boring job. I left work and arrived home around 12:45 am. Brandon was already there to meet up with me. Remember our plan was to get a few hours of sleep. I received a phone call from Kodie shortly after getting home. She was all freaked out. So far that night there had been something like 25 tornadoes in southern Missouri and throughout Arkansas. Most of them taking place directly on our path. Here in Michigan we do not really experience tornadoes like they do in that part of the country, so this meant nothing to us. A little wind I thought. She begged us not to go, said that we could come another weekend. That obviously was not a reasonable outcome for our planned adventure. We were going no matter what. Brandon had traveled some two hours from college for this trip and we were not going to let no 150 mile an hour winds threaten our ROAD TRIP! With two minds being better than one we made an informed decision based on the evidence we had. Brandon and I would forgo sleep and leave at once. Neither one of us had gotten more than a couple hours of sleep the previous night. We were going to be just fine.

At 1:45 am, now Saturday morning we threw a couple duffle bags into the back of my truck and headed out of town. At the time I had an image to uphold, with the truck of course. My S-10 was black in color. The shortened truck box was flanked by curves and covered by leather. The windows were tinted dark, and the headlights covered by fogged plastic. The truck was stealth I tell you. Everything was going as planned. We glided down the highway with ease and excitement. Brandon had made a mix tape for the trip. All great adventures need a sound track. Everything was fine, nothing could have gone wrong. Nothing did go wrong. Well until we reached Indianapolis Indiana.

The route was fairly simple we thought. Take I 69 south to Indianapolis. Merge onto the I 465, a sort of loop that circled the city, and then merge back onto another highway to continue the trip. Those are easy directions and I had printed off a map just in case. We made it to I 465, the loop. Did I mention the highway circled the city. By this time the weather had gone horribly bad. It had begun to down poor and the fog was so heavy I could not see more then three feet past my bumper. I knew this because at one moment I looked up and saw the tail lights of the tractor trailer I was unwittingly following. The trailer was three feet from my bumper. Come to find out those neat looking covers on my head lights made them pretty much useless in the rain and fog. Never the less they had to stay on, they looked so darn cool. We traveled on that loop for two hours before we came to our exit. Sounds like we made good time. Should have taken us twenty minutes. Till this day I do not know how we are not still driving in circles around Indianapolis.

The drive was pretty uneventful the next few hours. We went from Indiana to Illinois and then on to Missouri. Sometime early Saturday morning we did what no northern man ever wants to do alone. Brandon and I crossed the Mississippi River into Northern Missouri. This may not seam like a big deal but it is. The entire world changed with the short drive over that bridge. We stopped at local gas station to fill up the tank and to grab a bite to eat. The local folk stared at us like we were aliens. Everyone had an accent only a mother could love, and mine was the only truck not sporting a gun rack and or some horns on the hood. I thought it would be a good idea to let these people know the war had ended and the north had won. Brandon thought otherwise. Our ROAD TRIP! Has entered new territory. The SOUTH.

Most of Missouri and the north eastern half of Arkansas were devastated by the nights storms. I think in all some 35-40 tornadoes had touched down. None of those wimpy northern storms. These were throw trees through your house and level the town next store type of storms. I vividly remember seeing a tractor trailer at least 200 yards from the road demolished to pieces. I think that was a tractor trailer. Could have been a space ship for all I knew. I had never seen such destruction. Everything was destroyed. The roadside was a graveyard of cars and trucks that use to be cars and trucks. Now they were nothing more than bent metal and broken glass. We drove on and finally reached Kodie’s place that evening. We were half way done.

The three of us got into her little Toyota car and drove to Hot Springs. After all this was the former home of Bill Clinton. I asked Kodie if her car needed anything done to it before the next days driving. Like and oil change maybe? I even offered to pay for it to have a check up at one of those quick lube type places. NO NO NO she stated. Her uncle had already taken care of this for her. The car ran great. No problems. Might as well be brand new she told me. We decided to have dinner at a local restaurant named after some fruit and a bee. Dinner was nice. Brandon and I were worried that we did not fit in with the local folk, so we made a few adjustments. I thought our southern accents were very spot on. I used words like Ma, Pa, and I recon. He chewed on his straw and spoke with eloquence. OK he said Ma, Pa, and I recon also. At one point Kodie got all mad at us and yelled out “shut up your both sound like idiots” Actually we sounded just like every other person in the place. Everyone looked at her angrily. It was time to go. On the way home Brandon being himself decided to carve some lovely pictures into the roof of the Toyota. The headliner was missing so all that was left was that dry foamy substance. Great from carving into using a pencil. He made some wonderful pictures of man and he quest to mate with woman. Some of the drawings showed man’s desire for more than one friend in life. I thought he was a true artist, Kodie thought he was nuts.

We spent the night at Kodie’s mothers house. Her mom was quite the character. Us two guys were convinced she was interested in a performance of one of Brandon’s artistic renderings. After thinking about it long and hard we both decided sleep was a better way to go. A less getting beaten by Kodie choice. Now knowing the way things turned out maybe I should have gone all cave drawings with the misses and my best friend. We packed up both vehicles and made it to bed sometime before 2am. The next days journey would begin around 6 am. Six hours or so of sleep in three days. Sounded good to us.

We left Arkadelphia on time. Kodie road with me in my truck and Brandon followed behind in the Toyota. The sky was blue, not a cloud in sight. We figured to make it back home in record time. The trip was going as planned for the first few hours. Most of the wreckage we had witnessed the day prior was still there. Arkansas flew by in no time. Next up was Missouri. This part of our trip was not a problem. We had none of the issues that we had on our way there. Well other than the southerners wanting to taste our northern blood. Things were going great. No one was prepared for was about to happen. A few miles from the Illinois state line, a short distance from the bridge over the Mississippi River, Kodie’s maroon, rusted, recently given the seal of approval by her uncle, Toyota, blew up. DADDADADADDAADDADADADADA BANG! That’s how Brandon described it. Not 100 feet from the bridge. Oil splattered all over the windshield. Her little car committed vehicular suicide. I personally think that the thought of going into the north was too much for that little car. I am sure it came from a long line of confederate Toyotas. Maybe the lineage of that steel could be traced back to the glory days of the south. You know when they all had funny accents and stuff. We noticed what was going on and pulled over on the side of the road. Brandon and the now heap of crap and oil coasted to a stop right behind us. I opened the hood and assessed the damage. I am no mechanic but I was sure there was not suppose to be a whole in the side of the engine. Kodie asked us if it could be fixed and if we could tow it home. Well lets see, tow a 15 year old car back from Missouri only to have to put an engine in it. Uh NO! She began to cry. Brandon called his dad to ask for some fatherly advice. I believe his exact words were to “leave that piece of SH$ on the side of the road and get back onto the right side of the huge river to safety” Sounded good to us.

The one and only problem was what to do with all her stuff. Her car was packed to the brim with all the useless junk that one might need to move across country. Our only choice was to rent a truck. We found a place over the Mississippi in the small town of Cairo Illinois. Either this was the closest place or the only place we could find to rent a truck without a gun rack and a the horns on the hood. Kodie begged me to rent a car hauler to take her car back to Michigan. I talked her out of it. We went back to the location of the junked out car and transferred her things into the truck. I am sure this looked normal to passers go by. Two guys ransacking the contents of a car and tossing them into a truck. One female crying her eyes out. I am surprised no one called the police. We took everything we could. Kodie cried for me to get her license plate off of the car. She wanted it as a memento of her baby. The bolts holding on her plate were rusted on. I could not get the plat off. After a few more minutes of her hysteria I ripped the plate from the car leaving a gash in the trunk lid. We left the car on the side of the road. We were once again on the road.

The traveling went nicely for some time after that last little mishap. We made it to northern Indiana. Kodie had never been to the “north” and was convinced that Michigan would be a snowy mess. Kodie had never seen snow before. She envisioned that we would enter into Michigan only to be hit with pounding snow and ice. She thought we would encounter road conditions no person could ever withstand. My final words were “ its not like were going to see the welcome to Michigan sign and bam there’s a wall of snow” That’s totally ridiculous. A few seconds later we saw the welcome to Michigan sign, sort of, it was being blocked by the wall of snow coming down from the sky. Honestly there was no snow in Indiana at all. The second you crossed that imaginary line into Michigan you could not see anything. Just white. Its as if there was someone with a snow making machine dumping loads of the stuff onto my truck. Ah well at least we were safe back in my home state. Now our home state. It took the three of us six hours to make the three hour trip from the border to my place. Everything had managed to work out. We had finished the ROAD TRIP!

Meanwhile back in Missouri the police were discovering the abandoned car left behind by those hooligans who ransacked it for everything that it had to offer. The car was a mess. The window’s were busted out. The license plate had been ripped off. The owner of the car, a woman who went by the name Kodie, was nowhere to be found. The Missouri State Police contacted the local Arkadelphia police who arrived at Kodie’s mothers house midday Monday. They knocked on the door, hats in hand, and asked to come in. They began to tell her that Kodie’s Toyota had been found on the side of the highway, within sight of the Mississippi, and that Kodie was nowhere to be found. They feared that she had be abducted by some unsavory characters who took the time to carve out pornographic pictures in the roof of her car. It was quite disturbing they said. Of course we had already explained to her mom what had happened and she explained that to the police officers. I guess they all had a laugh.

When all was said and done our trip was quite the adventure. It ended up costing me about fifteen hundred dollars, and a weekend of sleep. My relationship with Kodie lasted for eighteen months. My friendship with Brandon still lives on. We have not taken any trips together since that faithful weekend to the deep south. Would I do it again? OH YEAH! This time I would just leave the picking up some girl I met online part out of it. There are a lot of do’s and don’ts in life you need to live by. Packing up your car and heading out on the open road for a little speed and adventure and the occasional southerner who wants to hurt you over something that happened 200 years ago is heavenly. Call your buddy, gas up your car, it’s time for a ROAD TRIP! Boom, wa wa waa brrerererererreewawawa.