First trip on I-10

If you've been reading this Blog you may have noticed a previous post that was somewhat of a cliff-hanger. We're tracking back in this post again to my Freshman year of college, the same week after Thanksgiving that I got back to Houston just a bit later than expected.

So, there I am, getting in on Tues. morning, literally running across campus with a hand-written paper that was due the day before after 8 days of weird driving adventures. I hadn't even stopped by the dorm because my roommate was in class with me anyway, and after lunch and afternoon classes and whatnot I didn't actually get back to my room until after dinner that night. Keep in mind that there was another trip to New Orleans planned for this coming weekend as well, and it was a trip to fetch an old car at that.

That very trip was already planned out to be almost as weird as the one I just got back from. We were going to drop my roommate off at his place in Lake Charles, LA on the way, and he was going to get a ride back to school with his folks. We, my automotivly inclined friend and I, were also taking along another classmate to visit her family in exchange for lodging. That's four of us. In a Ford Festiva. Ah, the picture resolves itself...

Now, to fully appreciate the mood in the car, you need to understand as a reader a few more things abut me and the buddy I was taking along. We were both on full-ride scholarships based on academics (actually, everyone in the car was) so this was a bit of a nerdy group. I had been on the weight roller-coaster for so long, and dating the same girl essentially since 8th grade, so I wasn't much of a Casanova. My roommate was in much the same boat. My buddy, on the other hand, was one of those good looking guys who always got the girls. And there was a girl in the car, and turns out she was a cutie too.

I hadn't really paid a lot of attention to this particular gal, after all, right up until the week before I was planning on marrying my High School sweetheart. She had helped me study for a couple of exams, and had done a great job, but there wasn't much more there than a casual acquaintance. Somewhere along the line either my buddy or myself had actually taken a good hard look at the girl, though, and we had both decided she would be someone worth getting to know better. At the time I was wishing him good luck because, again, I was already spoken for. But now, on this trip, we were the fiercest of competitors, vying for the hand of the fair maiden.

I thought maybe I even had a chance. On finally getting to my room the night I got back to college my roommate handed me almost a whole pad of "yellow stickies" the gal had left for me wondering what was going on, how I was, and if we were still on for the weekend. I put the laundry away, cleaned myself up a bit, and set off to find her to make sure everything was OK still. When I finally found her she caught me completely off-guard and tacklehugged me. I'll even admit to it, a 105# girl knocked me clean over, and me at 165. Now, keeping in mind that I was a college student, with all the appropriate hormones, and I had just been kicked in the teeth by my fiance, either this gal was truly interested or cunningly manipulative, and I didn't care which. This was all making for an interesting weekend.

So, now you understand the mood in the car. I'm the underdog, the squire competing with his knight for the princess' hand. It was hard to tell how I was doing on the trip over, after all, my friend was smooth and this gal was soaking all the attention up like a sponge. When we got to her Grand parent's place, and the room assignments were doled out, though, I was sure I had lost after all. My buddy got the spare bedroom, where a new couple could talk the night away in privacy, and I got the couch. I was sure that meant I was out of the picture entirely. Sure that is until she came out and sat with me at 2am for a few hours. Ah, young love; I couldn't tell you a thing that was said that night, or what she was wearing or pretty much anything about the quiet conversation there on the couch, but I recall vividly how she smelled and how often I saw a sparkle in her eye from the reflection of the porch light through the front window.

We ended up buying the car and driving it back to Houston, though it never did do much more driving after that. I brought my other car down a few weeks later for x-mas break, and it mostly sat around until it finally got home to SD over the summer. We got pulled over just shy of the LA state line by a highway patrolman for not having taillights or license plates, but since we were heading out of his state, he let us slide.

I got the girl too. We dated for over a year then I asked her to marry me as well. We were happily engaged for almost another year until shortly before I left college and joined Uncle Sam's Canoe Club. It would even be fair to say the break-up precipitated the enlistment, but wasn't the only factor. More happy times, times that started with a couple of very weird road trips.