Equals 9 p.m. That's a fact. At least according to my girlfriend. Look you'd be bad at math too, or arithmetic as she likes to call it (her hair is in a bun and her name is Helen), if you had been up for 24 hours straight. See, it's vacation time. And we decided, along with 6 of our closest friends, to make the drive from Pittsburgh to Myrtle Beach. Straight through. After work.
The plan was to leave Pittsburgh at 8 p.m. and arrive in Myrtle Beach at 6 a.m. This was a great plan. Honestly, it was. Until 3 a.m. But we'll get there.
The first three to four hours of a road trip are what I like to call the honeymoon hours. You are excited to be on the road. You are charging through the "beach mix insert year here" mix cd's you made in preparation. You are having fun with your co-riders, possibly by having a contest to see who can make the highest pitch noise, or possibly not. Just giving you an option. The point is, you are full of vacation adrenaline - happy to be on the way to where you are going.
The 2 - 3 hours following are like the first anniversary. The bathroom is a little dirty, but you are still just excited to be there. You're in love with the thought of vacation. And you have downed an Amp energy drink to celebrate and keep it going.
Then hour 8 hits. Hour 8, by the way, can be sooner or later depending upon what your departure time is. For us, it was hour 8. This is when you start finding other vacations' numbers in your vacation's panty drawer. You are ready to be done with it. Ready to end the trip. Problem is, you can't. You have to keep going. You have to make it. So you take down another Amp, but this time to try hiding the reality. And while Amp, or any other energy enhancing (read: liquid cocaine) drink is to travellers as spinach is to Popeye, it has as much downside as it does up. Yeah, you forget that you still have 2 or 3 hours of pitch black straight ahead road left, but your innards have turned to jelly and you end up forgetting how you even got there in the first place. There is no destination now. Just two headlights, the occasional stray animal, and eternal blacktop.
Luckily the final 2-3 hours are like counseling. You recognize that you have done something to get yourself in this position, but at the same time you recognize that there may be light at the end of the tunnel. There is an end. And its happiness. And milk and cookies.
For me, it was a life's journey in 11 and a half hours. And I had a full car of 4. My buddy Diddy, however, made the trip with just one passenger. This can be a make or break point in the trip. But for Diddy, the co-pilot in the journey boils down to, "...three judgeable criterias. Sex, average hours of sleep needed to function, and the third and most important: motivation." And his logic here is stellar. Travelling with someone of the same sex allows for constant interesting conversation. If you're a guy, you don't have to worry about hearing thoughts on a new Barenaked Ladies CD, or make up. As a girl, you miss hearing about every sports figure in the Western hemisphere. According to Diddy, this is close to fact. Actually this is what he said. "It's not a proven fact, but if someone tried to prove it, then it would proven." And who could argue with that?
The moral of the story is, we made it. But it was rough. And now, after being up for 35 of the past 38 hours, it has taken its toll. Diddy just formulated a theory that Rocky IV is bad for America. If you're interested, it's based on Rocky not throwing in the towel when Drago was battering Apollo Creed - it made black people look bad because Creed ran his mouth, making white people look worse because Drago killed Creed and Rocky let it happen. This, obviously, is bad for America.
Ahhhh, vacation time.
