Oct. 21, 2005 - Road Trips
Free, white and 16 1/2!
Yep, passed the test first time. Not much of a surprise there, as I had been driving for about 5 years already. Piece of cake really. What to do now? Drop the mother off at the house and see how fast the car will go. 1969 Oldsmobile Delta 88, 455 cubic inches. Yep, my Rocket 88! Actually dad's or mom's but mine for the next hour or two.
First objective, and must be done as soon as possible is to "bury the needle" as we used to say. Gotta get it right off the clock. Nice downhill straight about 15 miles away ought to do the trick. Yep. Job done. Would only pull 100 on the way back up.
Now for a road trip. My buddies Ken and Dave were a year older and had wanted to go on a road trip since getting their licences, but hadn't been able to coax a car out of their parents, so this would be their first as well. I mapped out the route: Lubec Maine, Plattsburgh New York, Quebec City, Montreal, Schenectedy NY and back.
Sleeping bags and a couple cases of beer were loaded and off we went. We took time to instal one of the cases under the back seat and put the bottles from the second under the front seat. Seemed a good idea at the time. Somewhere in East Bumfuck, Maine, Ken got stopped. I was sleeping and he woke me. "Hey Ed, there's a cop behind me" So? "He has his blue lights on" Well, might be a good idea to stop then.
There were two of them, the usual backwoods types. Spoke in that special Maine accent. Sort of a cross between New Hampshire and Alabama it seems. "Ayuh, you were doin damn neaah forty mile an hour back theyahh." We were politely asked to get out of the car. Naturally enough, we complied post haste, but I heard a tinkling noise as Dave slammed the back door. Seems the young cop had pretty good ears and he heard it as well. He shined his light in the back window and sure enough weren't there a dozen bottles laying on the floor. He promptly brought this to he attention of the older cop. "Ayuh, looks like ahm gonna have to haul you down to Skowhegan County Courthouse now. Ayuh" Oops! Really didn't like the sound of the second Ayuh.
We were relieved of our case of beer and told to pay better attention to the speed limit signs. I can just picture the two cops polishing the beer off that night. We reached Lubec, checked out some waterfront land my dad owned there, found that the huge pier had been washed away in a Nor'easter, cruised over to Campobello Island, went to Mt Desert island and generally cruised around the Maine coast. Interesting, but we were looking for action. Decided to head for NY.
Pulled over to the side of the road to sleep and woke up in the morning to find a beautiful waterfall with a fairly deep poll at the bottom of it. The water was pretty damned cold but we spent some time jumping off the cliffs into it. That was a really lucky find.
Plattsburgh had an airbase I believe and it was pretty easy for young guys to get served so we proceeded to drink a fair amount of beer in some club there. Seemed that every time a girl would show interest in one of us, a rather large guy with a crew cut would show his displeasure. We were vastly outnumbered so we made it clear to him that we there for the beer and nothing else. Yeah right...well, we did drink a good bit.
Somewhat hungover, we headed north toward our goal of Quebec. Once over the border we found that everyone drove a good bit faster that in the States. Cool! We felt a bit naughty smuggling the case of beer under the back seat, but at least we had our emergency supply. Well, it was a long time ago and none of us got laid so I really can't remember any details of either Quebec or Montreal. What I do remember was the large Mopar products that really owned the highway between Quebec and Montreal. I think they were some sort of official car, and they were always going flat out and would flash for us to let them by even when we were cruising in excess of 100. Saw quite a few of them. I think they were all black.
To be continued
|
|
|
|
About Me
Motoring from a German/European perspective, seen through the eyes of a American Irish transplant.
Friends
|
