sounds like a good trip , Dennis . The part in McAlester about the Itailian grocery / meat market ,very good little store ,next time you go throw there I highly recommend to stop at Pete's Place very good Itailian food ,make there own beer (good/stout) not to hi on price and if you leave hungry , it's your own damn fault!! The top & luggage area of the westy is getting ready to go to the Paint shop . ready to get it back together Drew ----- Original Message ----- From: Denis Dodson To: tcb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Monday, May 01, 2006 9:52 AM Subject: [tcb] TRIP REPORT! So, I left my house, (the leaves were just starting to come out making a kinda green mist throughout the woods. Bufreakingcolic.) , got ice and beer for the trip and hit the highway. I decided to top off the tank at Ft. Smith (only about 1 1/2 hours from home, I was standing next to the fuel door on my truck with the nozzle when the damn think did not click off when the tank was full. I was sprayed with gas from about chest down and the f#@%&! thing was still pumping when I pulled it out. I got some new clothes out, trying not to touch anything too much, and stormed in to the little Quickie Mart ready to scream and maybe punch somebody, but it wasn't going to be the 65 year old minimum wage lady that was at the counter. I tied to rinse the gas off of me in the crappy tiny gas station restroom and realized that I was contaminated, toxic, a fire hazard. I should have orange cones around me. Time for the hotel, laundry and shower. End of day one. I had gone 67 miles. 613 miles to go. Not much else happened all the rest of the way except that, to let everybody know, do NOT try to find an address in Austin TX at 5:30! Especially towing a full length trailer with a bus on it. When I got to the campgrounds I had lots of help getting Murray off the trailer. It was like the Simpsons episode where Bart hired Milhouse as a watchman. All the knuckleheads watched as I drove one wheel off the ramp. There were enough knuckleheads watching that we could lift that corner and put the ramp under the wheel. The three night campout/marathon was great. You were, pretty much all there, so you know how that was. Bodean taking Big Balls' fastback for a spin through the water was funny. especially when he was coming back. He stopped, backed up and then splashed through the water. All this with Steve standing next to me, cursing. Bodean seemed to drive everyone's car. Then somebody stole his. "Who took it?" He says. Not "Where is it?" The trip home took me days because I stopped at Chuck's house and got his big arc welder, then drove in to Dallas, shopped and spent a night. On the way home I found a true authentic Italian meat market and store in McAlester, OK. I have lived in New York City and Hartford, Connecticut, both with huge Italian populations, so I know authentic and this one was pretty good. The history is that there was a large Italian population based on coal mining 100 years ago in McAlester. Who'd'athunk it? My only excitement on the way home was coming through a construction area I was doing about 30 MPH on a very narrow two lane service road when huge monster construction machine came out and took one and a half lanes. I swerved a bit, enough to cause the wheels of the trailer to jump the curve. I looked in the rear view just in time to see the bus land back on the trailer, the ass end about 6" to one side. I was going to get out and kick this guy's ass, but I wouldn't know how to make him come down from his two story machine and then, if I had, he would probably pinch my screaming head like a grape. So I let him go. Honestly one of the highlights of my life and about the nicest thing ever done for me was the People's Choice award rigged so that I was just about the only person on the planet that could win it. I am sure that Sharon was the great mind behind it, Steve doesn't like me that much, but all you other knotheads went along with it. And the feeling when everyone cheered when I won it was terrific and I truly appreciate it. Funny story, after someone had shown me the ballot I found one on a table and took it to the box. I looked at #9, which was mine, AND THEY HAD VOTED FOR SOMEONE ELSE! Lucky I squeezed out that win. Next up, (drum roll) PSYCOBILLY 4! RED WHITE AND PSYCOBLOOIE!!! Chuck, the head of the Explosives committee, went to a showing on the 29th where this guy shows his fireworks available for this year. All special license and stuff. It may be an awesome show. Pray for rain up till the First of July, 'cuz if it is too dry and we get a burn ban Dan will have to fire them from a rowboat in the lake ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 268.5.0/325 - Release Date: 4/26/2006
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