We were supposed to leave at 5 this morning but nobody woke up until 6:30, which probably happened because Jon and Vic spent all night fighting for covers and kicking each other in the head, leaving no time to actually pay attention to the alarm. So we got out a few hours late, but still made reasonably good time towards our next destination: Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Now, why we actually went there is still something of a mystery to me, though it vaguely involved a girl named Chrissy that Vic had met for about 12 minutes on our cruise to the Bahamas last summer. As we drove further north on our 4-hour detour, the terrain quickly changed to mimic Fargo – and with no distinguishing landmarks for miles, some of us began to grow a little uneasy. Vic, our navigator calmly asserted “I have no idea where the fuck we are!” and then rolled down his window, probably because he needed to think. Chaos reigned for about thirty seconds until we realized that we had been on the right path the whole time, and Vic was just a dumbass. So we reached the scenic backwoods of Muncie, Indiana, though now a further problem arose: we had no idea where Chrissy lived. The next hour was spent driving in circles around the Ball State campus with Vic attempting to reach Crissy on our $2 cellphone which would only allow conversations to last five seconds before cutting us off. Somehow, after twenty-odd phone calls, we eventually got to the damn dorm, snuck past security, took the elevator up to the 6th floor and then walked back down to the 2nd, where Chrissy’s room was (we hoped). Sure enough, we found it. Chrissy was actually a pretty nice girl, she put up with our shit and had a lot (a lot) of pictures for us to look at. After about an hour she gave us a ride back to our car (highlight: when Bob gentlemanly cleared the snow off her windshield she replied “thanks, bitch,” at our request – he just stared at her for ten minutes), though it wasn’t over yet – Vic decided it was important to get our picture taken in front of a Ball State sign, so we piled into the Olds and followed Vic and Crissy in her car.

Now, there’s something you have to understand at this point. We were looking to reach the University of Pennsylvania that day, still at least a good 11 hours away, and it was already noon. Maybe it was our knowledge of Victor’s lack of planning, maybe it was because we had woken up earlier than our usual bedtimes – but as we drove around the Ball State Campus, making the fourth loop in as many minutes, we started to go insane. We started to yell, wave, honk, anything at the car in front of us, hoping to stop them. Nothing worked. Behind Crissy’s car at a stoplight, Bob hung out the window and yelled “WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU GOING?!” a few times. At a crowded crosswalk, Bob screamed “FUCK YOU, VICTOR!” repeatedly at the top of his lungs. No doubt at least some of the shocked bystanders alerted the Muncie police, though they never caught us. When we finally found a sign and got out of our cars, Bob tried to beat up Vic for a good few minutes, or at the very least knock him into the snow. Vic happens to be really good at wrestling, so this never happened, but it was fun to watch anyway. We got the pictures taken (standing in another place we weren’t supposed to be, I hear), said goodbye to Chrissy and took off.

There was a lot more snow to the north-east (“There’s anthrax everywhere!” said Bob) making the way more difficult and at times almost impossible to see, but being hardy Kansas trailblazers, we could take the (lack of) heat. We were also very lucky in that the snow got progressively worse to the point that we were on the verge of a blizzard as we entered Pennsylvania. And, oh, it only got worse from there.

Pennsylvania must be the kind of state that doesn’t want visitors – either that or the Amish have infiltrated the department of transportation with extreme malevolent intent. This is the only explanation I can think of for the existence of the suicidal gauntlet of terror that some like to call the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Bad enough that the microscopic lanes would have trouble accommodating a VW Beetle yet were filled with giant semis, but the snow was still falling and the roads were getting more slippery. Plus, we hadn’t gotten those new windshield wipers yet, so any attempt to clean the windshield just made it worse. The signs that said “watch for falling rocks”, “watch for stopped vehicles” and “watch for angry Viking hordes” didn’t help much either. We almost died 6 or 7 times, which is actually a fairly small amount considering we were about as good off as a bunch of blind guys driving backwards around a pit of molten lava. But we made it through, goddammit, with only slight damages to Jon’s digestive system (don’t ask).

Driving in Philadelphia itself is about as bad, but for a different reason: the drivers are completely fucking insane. At least on the Turnpike, the grim reaper would observe the proper traffic laws as he cut off your head and made a cow fall on your Cadillac. These guys, on the other hand, wouldn’t know a traffic rule if it picked their noses for them. Who speeds up on a sharp curve in traffic four lanes thick? Evil Knievel wouldn’t. Superman might. Philadelphia drivers do, every day. We almost died for the 8th through 12th times on the Philly highways that night.

It was midnight, and we needed a place to stay – luckily we’d made arrangements to stay with our friend Sylvia at U-Penn. Bob and I would be staying in her room for the night (Sylvia knew we were the sane ones) while Vic and Jon would stay with these two girls down the hall, Nicole and Courtney. So we went and met these girls, and – luckily we’d brought a handle of vodka – partied down. I think Courtney said she needed to be up at 5:30 the next morning for softball practice, but after her first haircut (always better with Mountain Dew: Code Red) I think she stopped caring. Also, Victor disappeared at some point, but that always happens so we weren’t too concerned. Many hours of revelry later we crawled into bed.

And very, very soon after that, we had to get up again.