Well, I am finally home. After four days on the road and 3000+ miles. Needless to say, I am exhausted. But I am not so exhausted that I can’t post the sordid details, humorous as I found them.
I get in my car and start going south towards Houston, where I’m going to spend a few days with MsRobyn. 
It starts off OK. I’m making good time, traffic is relatively cooperative, and things are going well. Mile after mile I go, through Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia. Being from good ol’ Pennsylvania, however, could never have prepared me for what I saw. It was the most beautiful sight, too. The signs said “Speed Limit 70”. Wow! Us Yankees never get to go that fast, not legally anyway. I was in heaven. Needless to say, I was doing about 80 just like everyone else. 
So I get through Virginia, all 330 miles of I-81, and I hit Tennessee. The roads were nice, the state looks beautiful, and I am so friggin’ tired I can’t see straight. I manage to keep my eyes open through Tennessee, through the little corner of Georgia, and hit Alabama. Finally, I lay down my seat, cover myself up, set the alarm, and go to sleep.
The next morning I wake up. Three hours later than I had set the alarm for. Well, dammit, that’s just great. So I find me a truck stop, take a shower, and get my tukkas to Tuscaloosa, where I’m meeting Nocturne for a little while. Now here’s where it gets interesting. We meet at the mall, we go back to her dorm to shoot the stuff for a while, and we wait for her boyfriend to arrive. He shows up and we go to dinner. Now, I don’t consider myself to be the best driver in the world, far from it, but I’ll be damned if Nocturne isn’t one of the worst. She goes to pull out and almost gets hit from BOTH directions, something I have never accomplished in all my years of trying. Anyway, we go to a diner and have some of the most heinous food of all time, and then she drops me off at my car. I put it in reverse and chase her down going backwards, just to reassure her that I can indeed drive that bad, too. (For the record, she is truly an awesome person, just in case you were wondering. Just an awful driver.)
Anyway, it’s back to the road. I’m through Alabama, through Mississippi, and into Louisiana. I get tired around Lafayette, and I’m blocking two lanes while going 40, so I pull off to take a break. Next thing I know the sun is out, and was supposed to have arrived in Houston around 6 that morning. Well sheeeeeeit on me. So I go looking for a place to call MsRobyn to tell her what happened. I get off at this place called Lacassine, Louisiana. Little did I know what I was getting into.
I turn right off the end of the ramp, go about 3 miles and finally find a gas station with what appears to be a phone. In the back of the gas station I see a tall aluminum pot on a stove. Already I am feeling an ominous cloud over me, since I remember vividly seeing the Texas Chaisaw Massacre, so my first thought was “Cannibal Chili”. I shudder, but I shake it off and go in to use the phone.
When I get in the store, ten eyes and about 20 teeth turn my way to stare at me, making me extraordinarily self conscious. I go to use the phone, and the lady behind the counter, in the inimicable voice of all people from Louisiana, tells me that that’s the business phone. Now this is a pay phone, mind you, and they use it for business. I’d hate to have to pay that phone bill. Anyway, I say “Hey, this is a pay phone, right? Well, I’m paying.” Wrong answer. She kindly points me to the sign that says “Business Phone”. As we we stare at each other, testing each other’s will, I hear something in the background. I think to myself, “What the hell IS that?!?!” Then it hits me. It’s dueling banjos. As my mind runs amok in terror, I swear the other person behind the counter was subliminally telling me to squeal like a pig. OK, you win, lady, I am outta here! So I did what any sensible person in my situation would have done. I ran for my life.
I get in my car, rip out of the parking lot, and go back from where I came from. Except after 6 miles, it is clear that I’m not going back where I came from. I’ve made no turns, now, but nevertheless I’m in a town I’ve never seen, and I never saw the interstate. So I turn around and go back towards the dread gas station. Lo and behold, there’s the interstate. Except I’m now exactly one exit back from where I got off. I suddenly felt like the entire earth had flipped over, like in the B.F. Goodrich commercial. Anyway, I got the hell out of Deliveran…er, Louisiana, toot sweet.
Finally, later that day, I’m in Houston. And my God are the roads bad! I think they still have the same roads from back in the day when they still used horse and buggy to get around. Other than that, the city is nice, except for the occasional gunshot that had me reaching for a weapon one night as MsRobyn slept merrily away.
I met some of the HouDopers, and they were quite cool, I must say. Whatever I say here, I can never knock Southern hospitality. It’s every bit as good as I had heard.
To be continued, after I get some sleep.
-Dave
