Blast-off

June 14, 2007
Novi, MI to Revere, MA ~14 hours

Graham and I awoke around 8:30 am. The weather was sunny without clouds which was ideal for driving. Though we slept little, anxiety would triumph over any feeling of tiredness. My parents cooked us a light breakfast of eggs, toast, and coffee. This would be sufficient until lunchtime. Stops had to be minimal at a rate of 1 per 3-4 hours of intense-concentration high-speed driving.

After we hastily ate, we loaded the provisions in the car. The checklist ensured that this task would be foolproof. In addition to piling my large travel bag, backpack, and cooler into the trunk, Graham's car was stuffed with presents for his friends in Boston. The entire back seat housed a voluminous wrapped box, I hadn't the foggiest of what the [mal]contents were.

After said my respective goodbyes to my dad, mom, and sister, it was time to depart.
We had officially crossed the line.

Two possible routes led to Boston, one was a more direct route through Canada, and one led along the periphery of Lake Erie and through the brunt of New York. We chose not to take the Canadian one to avoid dealing with border assholes and immigration. They do not take kindly to freaks and longhairs like us and would have held us up for hours for no logical reason.

The highway was about three miles from my house. After we got to the off-ramp, we balled the jack, or "hit the road," in the parlance of our times. Obviously, I would describe the phrase as the initial burst of acceleration to get to the constant highway speed. I put on the Zeke CDs "Death Alley" and "Til the Livin' End", the riffing is dirty, raw, and fast, the drumming upbeat, which makes perfect anacrusis to kick off the RTOTF.

I felt anxious and very inquisitive at the beginning of the trip. We would have unlimited exposure to concepts, ideas, absurdities, music et al. What music and how much would we be listening to? We had packed at least 300 CDs. What destinations would we hit in the proposed itinerary? Would events go as planned? Would problems arise with the vehicle? Would we be murdered by a gang of banditos? Enough! On top of all of this, I was optimistic. After all, No Expectations, No Destinations was the mantra for RTOTF.

Somehow we started talking about tautologies, after I impersonated my former boss with the quote, "It is what it is" in a smart-ass tone. As you can see, the last quote means absolutely nothing, which is basically what a tautology is, a useless repetitive repetition of repeats. Waste!
Re: it is what it is: if it wasn't then it wouldn't be. This would be the beginning of many abstract conversations.

We had each made some mixes to introduce new artists to each other. Graham's was called the EPIC mix, it was 3 different cds of epic songs from his repertoire. It totalled around 210 minutes, ranging from Nile to Bjork to Radiohead to The New Deal. My mix was mostly metal and punk. I had burned about 25 other cds (from Abscess to Zappa) so I wouldn't have to worry about losing them—which is a pet peeve of mine.

We drove by many signs that said: "No HC zone." I wasn't sure what that meant, but I think it had something to do with the amount of semi trucks pulled over. We had blazed through Ohio, the tip of Pennsylvania of which we could see Lake Erie from the road, and New York with only three stops until we hit Buffalo, the beginning of the Appalachian mountains. Epic vistas had been minimal until that point. The rest area rate increased to one per ten miles. We made a final stop around east Syracuse to stop for food, and liquor for the party when we arrive. We bought snacks at Wegman's Grocery, the liquor store was down the road on Erie St called Pascale's. There, we picked up Svedka Vodka, Hypnotiq (for Jess), gin, and crown royal (Gwen), two items per person. We needed to fill up gas, which the national price was about $3. Outside the traffic circle in east Syracuse we stopped. Graham was on the phone with his friends from Boston to coordinate a simultaneous arrival.
We drove through the Massachusetts border around dusk. Instead of rest areas every 10 miles it was toll booths that dotted the Mass. Turnpike. Weather has been partly cloudy and calm all day, no rain impeded our driving, light to moderate traffic also helped us get there speedily. The most exciting part of the drive according to Graham was the treed foothills stretching out for miles. Other than that, the terrain was generic. It was only about an hour from the first destination.

The Cadaver and the new Slayer albums recharged our batteries. After 13 hours energy drinks do not cut it.

We hit Boston around 12am. We still had about 15 minutes to drive through the network of city byways to go northeast to Revere, a town about one mile inland of the Atlantic Ocean. I took a few snapshots while driving through the tunnels, the abstract blurry effect proved cooler than a static shot. We eventually arrived at 12:15am to the apartment building. Boyd, Evan, and Gwen were hanging out on the front porch. I was glad to see them, and glad to finally arrive so I could relax. More of Graham's MIT friends awaited us inside to open their presents and begin the 15-minute drinking party...