Road Trip

I am, of course, reading the excellent Donald Miller book, "Through Painted Deserts" about his road trip from Houston to Oregon when he was a young man. It reminds me, vaguely, okay, very vaguely, of a road trip I took back in 1989.

To set this completely in context, I had already joined the Navy the previous summer. I attended Naval Intelligence school in Virginia. My buddy - Jay Raymond - attended Aircraft Electrician School in Memphis. We both managed to get cashiered from school at approximately the same time - heading home to San Francisco. For me, it was a stop over on the way to my first and final assignment in Hawaii. For Jay, it was a stop over before his first and final assignment in Lemoore, California - near Visalia. We both had earned about three weeks vacation and I decided that it'd be a good idea to take a short weekend down in LA and go to Disneyland.

So me and my friend, Jay, managed to get a ride with my brother, Dave, and my other friend, Stanley (Think Napoleon Dynamite - I swear it was autobiographical about him! ;). We were going to go in Stanley's car - since he was the only one with a working vehicle. We had little cash, no hotel reservations, and only a few operating brain cells between us ;)

As soon as we started out, I knew we were in trouble. As we cleared the city limits of Pacifica, Stanley reminded Dave that we had to stop in San Jose so that he could pick up his temporary license.

"Temporary license?" I asked.

"It got revoked," Stanley informed us, "But they said I could get a temporary one back starting today."

Now, I was worried and Jay and I exchanged looks. But we really exchanged looks when they decided to bypass San Jose and just take their chances. We drove out of the Bay Area and into the coastal range, stopping at a little truck stop/tourist area called Casa De Fruita to pick up supplies. My brother, Dave, bought a huge bag of pistachio nuts and strawberry soda - the combination still makes me ill just to think about it. Jay and I were already nervous, but Dave and Stan were too excited to be making this trip. We all climbed back into the car and started up the long hill over the Pacheco Pass.

We got about three miles before we saw the red and blue flashing lights of the cop. Jay immediately started to freak out. He thought for sure we were all going to jail because Stan didn't have his license. But Stan was freaking out as well because, well, the car's registration wasn't up to date either. He was using the registration money to buy the new license. We pulled off the side of the road.

The cop pulled up behind us and climbed out of his car and walked around to the passenger side door where my brother was seated. He calmly rolled down the window and said, "Good afternoon, officer, would you like a pistachio nut?" Jay nearly had a heart attack. The officer asked for the usual paperwork, pointed out that the car's registration was expired, and wrote Stanley a fix it ticket. And then, miracle of miracles, he let us go.

The drive to Los Angeles was subdued at first, but eventually we all recovered from our shock and mocked Dave for his pistachio comments. When we finally arrived in Anaheim, it was late. We drove from hotel to hotel in our price range and were shocked to discover that there was some sort of Disneyana convention going on. There was no room at the inns (that's about my only biblical reference today... ;)

We ended up in a motel about thirty miles away called, appropriately, The Anchor. Jay was raving on and on about being a real sailor and staying at the anchor. We bought beer and before I was half way through mine, just about everyone had dropped off to sleep. I called it a night.

I woke up first the next day and dragged the others off to Disneyland. My brother is a real bear to wake up. I swear, if he could, he'd hibernate for three seasons out of four. But the other two weren't any easier to wake. However, since I needed them to get me to Disneyland, it was a cross I bore (okay, make that two references ;)

We reached Disneyland and immediately rode Space Mountain and Star Tours and then headed over to the Matterhorn. As Dave went off to find a bathroom, Stanley went to grab us some hot dogs and Jay and I stood in line. It was a long line and there were a lot of hot 1980's SoCal women in the line with us. Jay was trying to pull the macho sailor act to impress the ladies, but they weren't having any of it. Finally, Stan returned with some hot dogs and the appropriate condiments and we stood in line and waited.

Jay, being Jay, decided to impress everyone by showing us this trick he learned in the Navy. He immediately dropped a mustard packet on the ground in front of him, and before we could stop him, stomped on one end of the packet. Mustard squirted everywhere - including head to toe on the rather attractive blonde standing right behind us who was wearing nothing but black. Scraping mustard off her face, she looked at Jay and said, "Thanks... Dick!" Jay, for his part, was slightly embarassed. But I think more disappointed when we explained that we already knew that trick and had learned it in grade school.

The trip was long. We ran out of money. We limped home. Stan eventually got his license. Dave changed his eating habits. Jay never did hook up with an attractive blonde. And I was very glad to finally get to Hawaii. Some trips you take for the fun. Some you take for the adventure. And some, you just endure so that you can write about them for years to come.