I decided that I was a nice person. I’m not sure what possessed me to do this other than the fact that I’m a very nice person and want to help my friends as much as I possibly can. As such, I agreed to take my friend Jon to South Carolina for the weekend to visit his girlfriend. Considering that this was coming form a very long distance, (Cookeville, TN) he doesn’t get to see her often, so I was doing him a world of a favor as his original ride had to back out at the last minute.
He agreed to pay for gas, and since I had nothing else to do, we prepared to make the trip. Sandra is my crimson station wagon and we loaded her up with a few overnight bags and some snacks for the road (as well as good music) and left Friday afternoon. The first hour and a half of the trip was rather uneventful. But that’s because there is absolutely nothing between Cookeville and Knoxville. However, once we entered the west end of Knoxville, things got...interesting. We were travelling along I-40 going east about 70 mils an hour when we saw ahead of us a sudden deadlock of traffic and very little room to stop. Were it not for the fact that I was driving in the left lane and there was a nice wide shoulder there, we would not be telling this story right now.
I am also very thankful for the brakes my car has. Sandra’s breaks are anti-lock and quite superb. Slamming on the brakes the car has a very good rate of deceleration. Event so, moving into that aforementioned left shoulder, Sandra’s front bumper lined up with the back end of the front door of a red suburban from Indiana that was so conveniently stalled in front of us.
Near death experiences are a lot to do to people, especially when you couple it with the fact that very few people knew of our excursion and no one at Tech would even consider something was wrong until Sunday evening at the earliest; they probably would not start to really worry until Monday. It is a very subduing experience. We managed to get back into traffic slowly and calmly and took the rest of the west end of Knoxville at no faster than 35 at any given point.
We managed to at least exit the state of Tennessee without any further incident. In fact, the mountains leaving this state and crossing into North Carolina are breathtaking and beautiful. Ordained in the colors of spring, I was tempted to stop and look for a time, but need to move on kept me driving.
I would have liked a map of North Carolina and decided that perhaps we could get on at the visitor and welcome center past the state border. We had to leave the largest parts of the mountains to reach this center, but soon we arrived at it and I appreciated the short break. However, trying to enter the main area to get a map I was disappointed to learn that the main center closed at 5:00. And it was currently 5:55. Not to be completely thwarted, I searched and soon found a vacation guide with a rough map of the state that outlined at least interstates and major state highways. Good enough, I said.
Well, not quite. As if things were not troublesome enough by now, we found that after the large drinks we had picked up shortly before leaving the state were catching up with our bladders. So we began searching for a restroom as we got off the interstate and began our journey by state highways. All along US highway 74 in North Carolina we searched for a restroom and found not a single one. We even endured a near rear ending of a Toyota Tercel (it was Jon yelling "Oh, shit!" that saved us with one and a half inches to spare) and an oncoming Suburban (yes another one), yet still no bathrooms.
Perhaps I should explain this second Suburban. We were coming up on another gas station (one that looked more decent than others we’d seen...and safer) and another red Suburban turned out from it about a hundred yards away from us. Yet it decided to turn into the lane we were in and was headed directly for us. And it stayed there. Fortunately, the driver started thinking at one point and moved into his own lane.
It just so happens that this gas station ended up being the one we stopped at to relieve ourselves. No sooner had we pulled up to park, though, that we learned just how much first appearances can deceive. It was a very hick Phillips 66 station and a bit run down. The bathrooms were even worse. Two stalls, no doors, not very clean. And as I stood there releasing the floodgates, I noticed the sign written in black marker on the wall above the toilet. It read:
"Pleas Raz Lid Before U P"
No joke.
So we very quickly finished there and continued our journey. There were not other incidents on that part of the trip except for a random pillow that had been lost in the road just past the South Carolina border.
In fact, nothing very strange or spectacular happened until the following day around noon. I had gotten up early and Jon’s girlfriend’s mom and step-dad were out dealing with horses. So I was the only one awake in the house. Jon was sleeping on a bed right next to the front door and a man approached. I talked with him, told him where the parents were and he left to look for them. He appeared again shortly after that and told me he couldn’t find them. He then asked who I was (no surprise as I was not a familiar face) and I told him that I brought Jon down to see Crystal (his girlfriend, though I did not use that word, thankfully). The next statement he made brought fear into me and pure terror and realization into Jon, who was two feet from the man, sleeping, with his back turned to him.
"WHO’S JON???"
A good gamer knows never to leave his back to the door, especially in such a compromisable position as sleeping. Yet Jon had done just this and to make matters worse, we find out that the man is Crystal’s father, coming to visit her for her birthday. She was woken quickly and soon had the situation under control, thankfully.
The remainder of the "vacation" passed smoothly. Jon did not want to leave, for obvious reasons, but I’m proud of him, he did very well. The final saving grace of our journey back was the twenty-four hour Exxon station in Canton, North Carolina. Just rest assured that it was a haven...an oasis...I wish we had one here.
And with that, ends another grim tale...