Eggshells & Oddities

Jiggity Jog

July 14th, 2006 at 9:26 am (Miscellaneous)

Home again, home again, jiggity jog. That’s what my old man used to say whenever the family returned from a trip. That’s how I felt Monday evening when I rolled onto Balsam St.

The trip started out easy enough. Kenny and I loaded the truck on Saturday and Caitlin kept packing stuff into boxes. It worked out well, it was hot as hell, but by the afternoon we had the truck loaded and the bike on the trailer. Eric came by just in time to help us call it quits for the day and to share a big fatty. I did not partake at the time, because I was too tired from loading the truck.

Then Eric, Kenny and I went out to get my last and Kenny’s first taste of real Texas BBQ (Caitlin was a little over-exerted and decided to take a nap). We went to a joint called Ruby’s and had ourselves a little meat fest. Then we went looking for some of what Austin is famous for: live music. It must have been the Luck of the Lou, because we couldn’t find any place that was playing live music (well, there was one, but it was a bunch of high school kids playing Tommy Dorsey songs). We hopped from bar to bar, Threadgills, The Continental, the Trophy, but could not find a live band.

So we gave up and went looking for a motel room. I figured we could stay one night in a motel and get a good night’s sleep before taking off early in the morning. But every motel I went to didn’t have any rooms left. I guess that where all the live musicians were, sleeping in motel rooms. We hit four different motels and they didn’t even have a manger available. At one point I looked up in the clear night skies of Austin and expected to see the frigging star of Bethlehem.

So we went back to the apartment and pulled the TV back out of the rent-a-truck. We slept on the living room floor of the apartment and watched Food TV all night. Well, we slept as best as we could, considering that we were on the floor and Kenny snores like a Howitzer.

The next morning, we took off, heading southeast and not looking back. I was towing the bike on the trailer while Kenny piloted the rent-a-truck. Caitlin was navigating and operating the radio (we had walkie talkies!!!). We made it out of Texas in pretty good time, but got stuck in a major downpour in the Gitcheegoomee Swamp in Louisiana. That slowed us down a bit, but by the afternoon we were passing thru New Orleans. It was amazing to see that the devastation from Hurricane Katrina still remains there. Parts of New Orleans seem like deserted ghost towns. At least they have the SuperDome fixed, so the New Orleans Saints will have someplace to lose football games in next season.

Well, we made it through Lousiana and ran through Mississippi and Alabama quickly. It was O-dark hundred by the time we hit the Florida border so we decided to get a motel room in Pensacola. We needed one more night of Kenny’s snoring to get us ready for the rest of the trip.

We got up early Monday morning, showered and shat and got the caravan moving again. About 10 miles out of Pensacola, Kenny had to enter a agriculture inspection station. I pulled up towards the end of the station to wait while Kenny went through what we thought would be a routine truck stop. We had been through numerous weigh stations the day before and had no problems, so we figured this would be the same thing.

But boy howdy were we wrong. Instead of just passing Kenny through the gates, they had him pull the rent-a-truck over to the side. He got out and had to open the back door of the truck so they could look inside. Caitlin and I were watching in the rear view mirror as Kenny showed the Agri-Cops the swell job we did of packing all my crap into a 16ft rent-a-truck.

It seemed to be taking a long time and I started to get a little worried. Finally, Kenny called my cell and told me that the Agri-Cops wanted to speak to me. So I drove back into the inspection station and got out. Caitlin waited patiently in the car enjoying the air conditioning.

There were two Agri-Cops, one was more of an angry Agri-Cop while the other just seemed to be wondering why he was lucky enough to be scheduled on the same shift as Angry-Agri-Cop. So Angry-Agri-Cop took me to the side and started asking me questions: is that all my stuff in the truck (yes), nobody else put anything in the truck (no), etc. Then he told me that he smelled pot in the back of the truck as soon as he opened the door. He wanted me to be honest and tell him where the pot was. So I was honest, I told him that there was no pot in the truck and that if he smelled anything, it was because the furniture in the truck had been in an apartment where pot was occasionally smoked. I don’t think that Angry-Agri-Cop believed me very much. So he searched the cab of the truck, rifling through Kenny’s duffle bag and even going to the point of emptying out the contents of the cheap fire extinguisher that came with the truck. All the while, the nice Agri-Cop and I chatted about Austin and the difference between the Texas heat and the Florida heat and about my bike.

The whole time, I remembered the big fatty that Eric had brought to the apartment on Saturday. Only half of it was smoked, but did he take it with him? Did Kenny have it? Did Caitlin have it? I didn’t have it, but if it was anywhere in any of the vehicles, I was screwed.
Angry-Agri-Cop didn’t find anything in the cab of the truck and asked if he could search my pickup truck. I told him to go ahead and that there was nothing to find there except for three cold cans of beer in a cooler which we were saving to help celebrate our arrival when and if we ever got home.

after a somewhat cursory search, Angry-Agri-Cop didn’t find anything in my truck either and reluctantly let us resume our travels. Kenny hopped in the rent-a-truck and sped away and I pulled a wide U-turn with the pickup and trailer and tried to catch up.

About two miles down the road, when we were completely out of earshot of Angry-Agri-Cop, Caitlin came clean. She had grabbed the half a roach before we had left and put it in a cigarette pack. When she saw Angry-Agri-Cop searching the cab of the rent-a-truck and noticed the nice Agri-Cop was distracted by chatting with me, she swallowed the roach.

Caitlin saved the trip and my ass. Caitlin is the best!

Anyway, we made it to Palm Beach Gardens and drank our three cold celebration beers and then went to Scotty Bs for more beer (Caitlin went home to see her boys).

It is good to be home.