Adventuring With Az

So I started feeling a little edgey this past Saturday at work. I needed to go somewhere, do something. I couldn't take another weekend of the same old shit. I needed an *adventure*!! This used to be a regular occurrence in my life, the most epic of which was a buddy and I tag-teaming the twenty hour drive to Florida from Mass just to spend a couple hours on the beach during February.
I placed a call and a text. The call went unanswered, the text - as usual - did not. After I got out of work (likely around 2 or 2:30), I'd go home, shower, and head out. The mission? A 350+ mile trek into the deepest darkest of upstate New York. We'd talked about it a few times before, but for one reason or another it had never happened. I was going to hang out with Calli.
Calli has been a friend of mine outside of WoW for many months now, has listened to all my lame jokes, my trials and tribulations and just generally been the best that a person can hope for when they call another person 'friend'. I must admit, I was kinda psyched. I love the highway, especially over long distances, and six hours at a stretch, solo, would be a real test.
As I coasted through the rest of my day, I was mentally preparing the list of things I'd need: the Halestorm disc (true highway music if ever there was such a thing), my toothbrush, phone charger, couple of other noteable CD's (All That Remains, Avenged Sevenfold, Breaking Benjamins first one, to name a few). No need for a change of clothes - the plan was to hit the bar together, crash on her couch, head out in the early afternoon to make it home in the evening and be ready to work again on Monday.
Life being what it is, though I planned to leave by 3:30, I didn't get in my car until 4:00, sans Halestorm because I didn't have any blank discs, and my computer was refusing to erase the RW discs I use when I burn CDs from my iTunes. No biggie. Headed out, down a couple side streets, toward the Mass Pike, knowing I'd be stopping to fill the gas tank and get drinks for the ride. No way was I going to make this ride without a Redbull or two.
At the store, some jag-off just hit a scratch ticket for $150, and he's backing up a line of about 9 people while picking out how he's going to spend his newfound winnings. /sigh. 9 minutes later, I've finally paid for my Red Bulls, gas and Gatorade and am about to get onto the Mass Pike. My GPS informs me I have 6 hours, 23 minutes to reach my intended destination. Doing the math, that puts at me at Calli's around 11... Not good. No biggie. I've done my highway time before. I know some tricks. >= )
The Ride:
The plan is: Mass Pike (I90) into New York, follow 90 to 88w, follow that to 17w, then to 87w, some side streets, finally her house. Hmmm. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Bah, I drive a time machine. My GPS is always wrong about how long it's going to take to get somewhere when I'm piloting my trusty steed.
On every highway drive, you will find both like-minded souls and those that you abhor. I found my companion from Mass into New York within 20 miles. I knew he was good people when I caught up to him and saw the logo emblazoned across the back window of his car. Across the top of the window in an arc: R A N G E R S. Across the bottom: Lead The Way. In the middle: the jump wings with a combat star! I have known many in the military, and these guys are usually badass. Takes a certain kind of person to throw themselves out of a perfectly good airplane - repeatedly - especially knowing folks are likely to be shooting at you when you land...
As I cruised up on his bumper (both of us in the right lane for a brief second), I flicked my lights at him. Without waiting to see if he had figured it out (Rangers are pretty sharp) I dropped a gear, let the turbo do its magical work, and catapulted around him into the left lane, speedometer sweeping into triple digits. I looked back and smiled when I saw my new friend almost on my bumper. We hurtled through traffic, moving fast, like old friends. I'd get in front of someone in the left lane, let off enough to get him around them and out in front and we were off again. He did the same for me just as often as we leap-frogged through what was surprisingly heavy traffic at speeds sometimes bordering on ridiculous. I was somewhat sad to see him signalling that he was exiting in Albany. I drew even with him, tossed him a sharp salute after catching his eye and lamented his loss. Would have offered to buy him a drink if I weren't in a bit of a hurry. Already, thanks to his help, my GPS was saying that instead of 11, I'd be arriving at about 10:30. Cool to have shaved half an hour off, but I knew better. There was more to come.
88 Westbound:
This is now maybe my favorite highway that I have ever driven. It's 5:30 or so, and there's nobody on it. Nothing revs me up like miles of deserted highway. With the unspeakably melodic guitar mastery of ATR filling my cabin, I'm racing down a 2-lane highway at 100-110 mph, the arrival time falling off my GPS by the mile, Red Bull in one hand, steering wheel in the other, the biggest smile I've worn in months on my face. It'll be nice to finally meet Calli, but this is the real-world equivalent to the times I used to tell Bal to chain pull everything and don't worry about my mana. I'm dialed in. My car eats the corners (the big sweeping highway curves) with barely a thought. Frequently I find myself going into the curves at 90 and coming out at 110, my car asking "when's the real challenge start?"
The weather is a bit odd... Four times, it's raining without a cloud in the sky - full sun. Once, it's downpouring torrentially under thick black clouds (I dial it back to about 70... safety first!). I think I saw about 4 cars in the next hour or so. Without hesitation, my reaction is the same: blinker, switch lanes, blow past them like they aren't moving.
Two hours in, I'm halfway through the drive, feeling smug, happy, and envigorated. And feeling like I have to pee. Luckily for me, there's a rest stop ahead, so I swoop in, disembark my ride and head to the men's room.... which is closed. Cleaning lady inside. I'm comfortable peeing with her in there, but she says she just put disinfectant on everything and nobody can pee in there for another 3 minutes... Ummm... Isn't the disinfectant a mute point as soon as someone does pee in there? Whatever. I head to the ladies' room, poke my head in and call out in my most masculine voice (yeah, not very, but whatever) "Hello?" No answer, nobody in there. Excellent. Relieved, I climb back into my car, revel in the way I'm pushed back in my seat as my car races out of the rest stop and back onto the highway, speedo sweeping past 90 in what seems like no time.
17 West:
This is essentially just more of 88w, but they change the highway number to keep you on your toes. Oh, and they add jersey barriers outside of Binghampton. Jersey barriers freak me out, so I am cruising at a stately 80 or so through more sweeping curves, hardly a car to be seen. The ones I do see are good enough to keep out of my way - whether because "this dude is effing crazy" or because "this dude is effing serious" - makes no difference to me. No brakes, that's what counts. Brake lights on the highway drive me nuts.
It's about half an hour later, with the approach of a major sweeping curve, that I see brake lights at the end of the curve. Brake lights, and flashing police lights - lots of them. Must have been an accident. Dammit!! After some jockeying through barely-moving traffic, I am able to finally crest 15mph. I'm ready to start chewing on my steering wheel out of frustration when I come up on the flashing police lights. There are 6 "Sherriffs" (presumeably the NY equivalent of state troopers) escorting... literally... what looks to be a thousand bikers. The real, leather-wearing kind, not the spandex-wearing kind. Hell's Angels rally? Cool.
That's about the time i notice that one has a child riding behind him and one has (I'm not kidding) a 5 foot tall Pink Panther doll riding behind him. Ok, probably safe to assume it's not *entirely* Hell's Angels. Clear of the rolling rally, the next move is obvious... Into the triple digits goes my needle, and I'm racing into the sunset again.
86 West:
As with 17/88 it's prettymuch the same highway. I guess NY needs to mess with it's drivers from time to time. That's cool with me if they keep building highways like these though. Managed to get an incredible sunset photo on my phone while racing along the side of a scenic river, then back into the rolling, wooded hills that characterize most of this trip. I find myself slowing slightly to gawk from time to time. It's truly amazing country. The windows are down, Stone Sour is blaring over the wind noise, and I feel as if I have found myself for the first time in months. I find myself daydreaming about a full cross-country trip to visit other guildies when I get laid off in the winter. It'd prolly be guildies more down south if it happens - though I have all-wheel drive, I hate driving in the snow. I just think it'd be awesome to drive from here to, say, Oregon or California, stopping occasionally to get loaded with guildies and crash on their couch before embarking on yet another stretch of deserted highway.
The allure of all this is that when I'm locked into something - driving, gaming, golfing, even pacing - I free my mind to work on the things that it needs to work on. My greatest moments of clarity about anything and everything have come at these times. Sometimes I think that with enough gas, and enough open highway, I could solve all the world's problems. In the Hagakure (The Way of the Samurai) it says that matters of little import should be treated as if they are matters of great import, and matters of great import should be treated as though they are matters of little import. At times like this, I get it. Staying focussed on not spinning off the road at 110 miles per hour allows the subconscious to work on the matters troubling you. There were many matters troubling me, hence the breakneck pace. The conscious muddies everything up. The subconscious is the real powerhouse. It's just lazy. This drive certainly woke mine up and made it earn its keep. When it sorted out my issues, it started composing this post.

Calli's Town:

I'm nervous as I descend from the highway onto surface streets. This looks like the sort of town where it's common to see guys in straw hats and overalls driving their tractor down the road while chewing on a piece of hay. I've seen more cows in the last half hour than maybe in the rest of my life combined. After a bit, though, I see that they have a WalMart, and a little later on, a Burger King, so I know things here can't be all *that* hill-billy. Soothed, I head to Calli's. It's 9:17 when I park in front of her house. Eat that, GPS!!
Calli in person is everything I had expected. She's truly one of the most genuine people I have ever met - the same in Wow, on the phone, or in person. We spend an hour talking in the living room (only occasionally laughing about how bizarre it is for us to be sitting face-to-face). After she sends out a couple texts to friends, we decide on Vinny's. They are "not that busy" tonight, and have a live band playing. Cool. Sounds like a good time. Vinny's is not an experience I'll soon forget...
Vinny's:
It's slightly after 10pm when we park and head inside. On the way, Calli's gotten us lost, and driven the wrong way down a one-way street (Told you I was putting it in the post, Calli!!). But it's ok. The band's playing, we're laughing and joking like the good friends we are, and we're over the whole "this is kinda wierd" thing.
I realize what I'm in for as soon as the door opens. I can see drunk people staggering everywhere, and apparently, "not that busy" means there's about a foot of room to make your way through. Moving around in there is like those puzzles with 8 blocks that slide around with nine open spaces... I frequently find myself sliding one guy out of the way to move someone else to move someone else... They don't mind, most are already ripped out of their skulls.
We finally make it to the bar (the whole place could prolly fit in your living room!) and I have to let Calli order the first round of drinks. As we all know, bartenders ignore dudes in favor of sexy women when taking drink orders. The odd thing is, when we finally catch the attentioon of a bartender, it's this tiny, squirrelly woman. She's about four feet tall, coked out of her mind, and moving her hands around and pointing at nothing as she asks what we want. She talks so fast that neither of us can understand what she said. Calli orders a beer, I try for a vodka and RedBull... No dice. She says something about not having any any ice. Really? A bar with no ice... Um, ok, I'll have a beer too then. She gives me the wrong beer, takes our money, and moves off to talk way too fast at someone else. I figure she just didn't want to mix a drink, until the lead singer of the Badgemen (tonight's band) makes a crack a few minutes later about how the bar ran out of ice. Never fear, he assures us, they've sent someone to get ice.
We've met up with a couple of her friends and are all outside laughing and joking when a guy walks by with the ice in a rolling cooler. I can't help but laugh and point it out. It's time for another round, and while I'm waiting patiently for the bartenders to get through serving the chicks, I somehow draw the coked-out lady again. She's still talking too fast to be understood, so instead of trying for a RedBull and vodka, I give up and order two more beers.
I'm a people-watcher by nature, gleaning what I can by suppositions and extrapolations based on what I see. At first, this annoys Calli as she thinks I'm being mean when I point out that there are two guys sharing a 'man hug' of a wholly inappropriate duration at the bar. This would not normally be an issue, except one of them is wearing shorts which are about .1% on the hetero side of flaming. A spirited debate ensues, but she gives up when I refuse to change my opinion that they'll be making out and groping each other zestilly by evening's end.
Later in the evening, she's laughing and taking part. We spot someone we laughingly refer to as "The Drunk Girl". She earns this name by being so annihilated that she manages to trip over nothing and stumble into me, where she lingers for an uncomfortable amount of time. I'm torn. On one hand, the polite thing to do is to help her steady herself, but I'm nervous that lending a hand could result in that hand ending up somewhere inappropriate if she corrects herself. While the proposition of a well-intentioned accidental grope doesn't bother me, I'm not in the mood to get slapped tonight if she doesn't realize just how drunk she is. After several long seconds, she rights the ship and steers herself to the dance floor.
The place is a mess, spilled alcohol covers most of the floor, there is almost no horizontal space besides the floor because there are beer bottles and empty cups everywhere. This is my kind of place. These people are truly dedicated. On the way outside with her friends, during a band intermission, we pass two guys who are so drunk they are leaning on others to stay upright. One of them stirs himself, leans forward and bellows in his buddy's face: "Let's do another fuggin' shot dude!!!" Yup. My kinda people for sure.
We're outside and Calli's asking her friend just how drunk she is. Her friend waves Calli off, explaining that she's not nearly as drunk as other times Calli's seen her. Then she starts explaining how she doesn't want to dance anymore, she wants to do "floor exercises". She goes on to explain that she doesn't mean gymnastic floor exercises, but the Jane Fonda/Abs of Steel type! This brings on an excited conversation between her and another random girl about how sexy leg warmers are and how they are back in fashion... Were I not laughing so hard, I'd wonder what I've gotten myself into.
Calli and I stay outside talking while the band plays its last set and "Let's do another fuggin' shot" guy comes stumbling out, his girlfriend desperately trying to reason with him that it's time to go. She's about half his height, and is trying to hold him up and steer him to the car as he's trying to go back inside, presumeably to "do another fuggin' shot". I'm watching the scene and laughing as I explain to Calli about the vagaries of "bar time"... how they set the clock 7-10 minutes fast so they can make last-call early and have everyone done with their drinks by the "real" time that everyone's supposed to be done drinking. I don't think she believes me, but she says she's going to question everything from now on. When we head back inside to get another round, the coked-out chick informs me that I'm cut off (after 4 beers). The bar clock reads 1:03. I take out my cell, check the time (12:53) and point it out to Calli. She promptly informs me that I have spent way too much time in bars. She's prolly right.
We head back to her house, spend an hour or so talking before she heads up to bed and the couch consumes me. I doubt she made it to the top of the stairs before I was asleep. Up at 6:00am on saturday morning, it's now 2:15am or so on sunday morning. There was no way I was staying awake another minute.
For the sake of clarification: were I in less emotional turmoil, or were I as morally bankrupt as I often pretend to be, I'd have probably made it a point to pour drinks into Calli and take advantage of her. But for those who are concerned, Calli went to bed with her virtue thoroughly intact that night. I value our friendship way too much to screw it up with something like that. Because this has turned out to be so long, I'm going to leave the return trip and Cooperstown (yup, Baseball Hall of Fame) on sunday for another - hopefully far shorter - post at another time. Thanks to all who are still reading.

Happy adventuring,
Az