First, right before I leave Lawrence, I hammer down a nice Sonic lunch. The benefits here are threefold:
1. I can get my daily intake of 11,000 calories all in one shot
2. It fills me up for like 14 hours, so I don't have to stop and get food the entire trip, which saves me time
3. Sonic is fucking delicious
As I'm leaving town, I usually play something like the Beastie Boys or Wu-Tang. For some reason I like a little rap to start off the trip.
As soon as I hit the interstate, it's time to rock out. I've got a playlist that consists primarily of my top 50 most played songs. It continually evolves so that it always contains the songs I like the most at the time (it is named 'Boner Jams 08' as an homage to the scene from 40-Year-Old Virgin where Paul Rudd has the box of porno and names one "Boner Jams '03...A collection of all my favorite boner scenes from the summer of 2003.")
The only criteria for this playlist is that it must begin with 'You And I' by Rick James. There is no better way for me to begin a road trip than with 8 minutes of my boy Rick James telling me to dance on the funk. When Alex is in the car with me, I never cease to be amazed at her ability to sleep during this stretch of the drive. She's just snoozing away while I'm playing air drums, air guitar (sometimes both at once....whooooaaaa look out!) and singing most songs as loud as I can- cause I have to be able to hear my award-winning voice over the insanely loud volume, duh. (Just so I don't come across as an asshole boyfriend, I ask her every time if I should turn it down, or put in headphones, and she says no every time. Not to say that I'm NOT an asshole boyfriend....just not in this situation.)
On my way up for Thanksgiving, I was pounding the steering wheel so hard during 'My Sharona' that it popped out of its locked position and I had a minor heart attack while I tried to steer and get it back into place. The surprising thing is not that I knocked the wheel loose; I've been waiting for years for this to happen to me. The surprising thing is that it happened during a song like 'My Sharona.' What can I say, that guitar solo that starts around the 2:45 mark is badass. I've got this playlist timed to end between Omaha and Sioux City, right about when I need to get gas for the first time.
After I fill up on gas, I will usually check my phone, which I mostly ignore while I'm jamming. By this point, Bergman has probably called somewhere between 3 and 14 times, so I'll call him back first, and anyone else who may have called or texted.
After my phone time, I usually take it down a notch or so. Maybe some Zeppelin or Stevie Wonder. My favorite part of the whole drive is going through Sioux City. Memories of watching the Sox win Game 4 of the 2004 World Series at the Argosy come flooding back every time I drive through, and as I drive past that big, beautiful riverboat casino full of happy memories, I'm unintentionally doing my best Lloyd Christmas impression right after he drops Mary off at the airport.
"Goodbye my looooovvvvvvve!"
About an hour past Sioux City is when I first start to crash a little bit. I start listening to slower music, I'm starting to get a little bored with driving after 6 hours, and South Dakota is awwwwwwwful. Seriously, the highlight of this stretch is when I send the traditional "I'm in Moody County" text to Schneweis (inside joke, don't ask.) Except cell phone reception sucks in South Dakota, so there is a 71% chance he doesn't even get that text.
I usually get gas in Watertown, and since they added a tiny little bar in the same parking lot, I have made it a habit to stop in and get a beer. There are always some interesting characters in there, and one time the bartender liked the bullshit I was talking so much that she sent me on my way with a free six pack of PBR.
For the next stretch, I throw in a movie, almost invariably a comedy from the group of Superbad, Knocked Up, 40-Year-Old Virgin, Anchorman, Wedding Crashers, etc. I've been working on finding the right angle to set the DVD player on the passenger seat so I can see the reflection while facing straight ahead. Playstation in the windshield, son, how balla is that?
The movie gets me inside of Fargo, and for the last 45 minutes or so, I'll just put the iPod on shuffle and return some more phone calls. Even though during the drive I feel like I'll never get to Grand Forks, once I do arrive, the last 10 hours feel like they went by in 20 minutes.
(Note: the drive back to Kansas at the end of the weekend is an entirely different story. I'm usually hungover, sick of most of my music, and as soon as I hit South Dakota there's a blizzard, or a monsoon, or the fucking dinosaurs from Jurassic Park got loose or something. As long as it makes me drive 35 mph and kills my time, it will happen during the drive back.)
