subject: bruno's ass

i have never been on a road trip involving more than 2 people that has
ever left on time.  there's no escaping this factor of group dynamics.

the cast: jon bruno, wheelworks mechanic; dane st.john, weekly riding
buddy and harvard racer; brad evans, aka bradford evens, best friend for 7
years.

dane and brad and i loitered around in front of my house for awhile,
looking generally suspicious.  we loaded up everything in jane, sat around
some more, shifted stuff around in jane, sat around some more.  turned out
later bruno was lost (and he'd called earlier from a pool party to say  
he'd be late).  i paged him, he called back, and i managed to direct him
to my house.  packing went quickly because all we had to do was throw his
bike on the roof and stow his ENORMOUS messenger bag in the trunk.

(note: bruno's messenger bag is famous.  it's the only one every made by
bailey works in that particular shade of blue.  he's featured in one of
their ads carrying a half-keg in that bag.  not to mention he's also
featured, naked, in the catalog they send out to bike shops.  let us
never speak of that again.)

i drove first despite my general wooziness from being a bit sick.  i'd
been advised to skip the trip and sleep it off, but i just could not
resist a road trip.  jane fully loaded with three bikes on top, betty in
the back, gear, and three boys plus me was truly a sight to behold.

we headed down toward i84, listening to no doubt (of course) while dane
snickered and read to us from my copy of maxim.  we all started to get
pretty hungry and decided to stop somewhere along i84.  i think we were in
vernon ct?

friendly's.  you can't go wrong with friendly's.  lots of fat, lots of
grease.  yummy.  dane observed as well that it was a prime place to
"observe the local wildlife" after a gaggle of giggly teens sat down at
the table across from us.

i somehow convinced brad to drive and actually started to fall asleep
after we finished with limp bizkit and dane put on some cracker. =)  (i
apologize to the guys for my dorky taste in music.)

when i woke up we were way the hell deep in backwoods ct.  we began to
fear an attack by banjo-playing albinos living in holes along the side of
the road.  (i swear i did not come up with that, but i wish i had.)

we drove around and around burr state park, trying to find the       
campsite.  it was completely deserted, and we were lost.  i mean, we were
in the right state park, but we had no clue where we were
going.  eventually, someone decided it would be a good idea to look at the
directions.  that's when it became apparent we weren't even on the right
road.

so we found the camping site and brad had the pleasure of spending 20
minutes checking with the crotchety old lady who took care of the
place.  she was pretty annoyed that we'd showed up at midnight, and kept
on grilling brad about whether we'd brought in any alcohol.  those of you
who like to complain that roadies never drink (you know who you
are) should find this particularly amusing.

at our campsite we were accosted by a couple of random guys who again
bugged us about getting in late, telling us to keep the noise down,
etc.  finally managed to get the tents set up.  dane requested that i tell
him a story about rabbits, but i think i fell asleep before coming up with
anything better than the plot of _watership down_.  i guess he was making
some sort of _mice and men_ reference and we established that we both like
steinbeck, even if he is a communist. =)  steinbeck, not dane.

5:45 we were up and shortly thereafter on the road.  bruno was sporting
quite a plumber and i laughed pretty hard about it.  he said to give him
a break because all he had for a belt was some twine.  

dane informed brad that he'd been "voted out of the society."

i wanted to have breakfast at mcdonald's but we settled for good old
dunkin' donuts.  i was again driving and we managed to somehow make it to
the race despite the fact that i missed just about every single turn.

it was damn cold and i actually ended up racing with arm warmers and
wished for knee warmers.  however my cold caught up with me.  i was
climbing pretty strong in the beginning and then started to get
dropped.  i felt horrible.  with a pretty big effort, i chased the wheel
van for 3 miles or so, waving my arm to beg for a ride.  (i haven't           
voluntarily quit a race in over 3 years, so you know i felt really
sick.)  finally they pulled over and i got in the back, holding betty and
feeling sorry for myself.  the wheel van guys were super nice though and i
was in a much better mood by the time i got back to the start.

brad was at the car already.  he was also sick and had to abandon.  we
should know better by now...

dane finished, i don't know where, and bruno managed to pull off a third
place!  at least one of us did well.

piled back in to jane, somehow convinced dane to drive.  for lunch we
found a fine, fine eating establishment named "King Buffet," purporting to
sell "Chinese-American-Italian" food.  we did indeed hesitate, but i
said: "come on, we have to do it so i can write about it on the website."

i knew king buffet would have jello.  and they did. =)

the chinese food looked fairly normal.  the "italian" food consisted of
pizza and spaghetti.  all in all everything was nasty and fried,
accompanied by the musical stylings of someone (zamfir?) on the pan flute,
playing such memorable tunes as the love theme from the godfather, release
me, and aura lee.  i was frightened that i knew all the songs.

dane felt guilty enough about my sick/tired state to continue driving,
once he'd been fortified by two shots of espresso in a large coffee.  (i
swear that's what he actually ordered.)

i was sitting in the front seat.  it was a struggle.  i wanted to stay
awake, because i always hate it when the passenger falls asleep, but as
dane drives much more aggressively than i do it was also tempting not to
watch.  he's not unsafe, mind you, just impatient maybe?  and he hunches
over the steering wheel like a vulture.

we were going along fine until i90.  we were stuck in traffic getting up
to the toll booths but dane pronounced "i will not be afraid anymore!" and   
got into the fast lane toll lane (they also handled all transactions, but
people were scared by the fast lane sign).

stopped at a service plaza, i took over, dropped off bruno in southie,
drove back through insane boston traffic, went home.

i had such an amazingly good time.  bruno and dane may be the funniest
people i know.  i wish i'd thought to write down some of the things they'd
said.  i might have to start traveling with one of those little tape
recorder things.

michele: (clearing her throat) note to self: don't forget to write about
the albinos with the banjos and bruno's ass.