Epic Road Trip Story: Pat's House to Emlenton.

“I’m not driving!”

“Pat, what other car could we possibly take? Mine’s about to fall apart, Eleanor only works when she wants to, and Liz’s parents would never let her take her brand new car that far. It’s up to you.”

“I still don’t see why we need to take a road trip the whole way to South Carolina just to get a present for Ms. Rut. Couldn’t you just order it over the internet?”

“We’re not going just to get the sign. It’s the epic road trip we’ve wanted to take for years. Besides, why wouldn’t you want to spend part of your Christmas break in the warmth of South Carolina?” 

In the back of my head I was thinking about the fact that it wasn’t actually that warm down south. North Carolina had just been hit by a massive blizzard, and South Carolina was only about forty degrees. I decided it’d probably be best not to mention that to Pat.

“Fine, we’ll go, but you all are giving me gas money.”

Capri, Liz, and I looked at each other with a look that said Pat wasn’t getting a cent out of us, because he never did.

“Ok then it’s settled. Pat drives, we take turns navigating, and we’ll be in South Carolina in a couple of days”

“Wait, we’re leaving today?”

“Yes, Pat. Didn’t you notice we all had bags with us?”

“I really need to observe more.” This was something we’d all been saying to him for years.

We loaded up the van with enough food to last us for about five days, which I felt was overkill, and started to pull away. James came running up to the car and asked if he could join us. Pat had an evil look in his eye that said he was going to mess with James, but I wasn’t sure how he was going to do that. He stopped the van. James opened the door, and just as he was about to get in Pat pulled away spinning a pile of snow up into James’ face. He giggled his girly little laugh, and we were on our way to South Carolina. It was Saturday December 18, and we had five days to get back in time for Festivus, the holiday of all holidays. We knew Seth would be very disappointed if we missed the airing of the grievances, the feats of strength, and dancing around the undecorated Festivus pole. Also, we knew that Liz would be uber upset that our whole plan was to make sure we were back in time for Festivus, because she truly hated the holiday. She felt it served no purpose, so just to make her mad Pat and I would talk about Festivus a good portion of the trip.

We hit the road hoping to be out of the snowy state of Pennsylvania within four hours or so. There were definitely not going to be any bathroom breaks within this leg of the trip, and we had reminded Liz of this at least five times before we left.

            Within fifteen minutes Liz was in the front seat crying about having to go to the bathroom, and Pat being the pushover he is, stopped at the Emlenton Truck Plaza. We felt that this would be a short break, but no Pat decided he wanted to look around. It’s not like he’d been there before or anything. Capri and I got out to walk around, and all of a sudden the Jetta flew into the plaza parking lot. It was James, he had planned to follow us until we stopped and then hop in the car with us. He really didn’t have much driving to do from Lamartine. As he slowly walked over to talk to us Pat and Liz were coming out of the building. Capri and I jumped in the van with the side door open. We sped up to where Pat and Liz were standing and they jumped into the moving vehicle like people do in the movies. It was epic. I looked in the rear-view mirror and James was standing in the parking lot with a single tear running down his cheek.