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| BEB (beautiful elf boyfriend) waves goodbye to the hippies after they drop us off at the airport. |
A Brief Summary of Despair
I knew we wouldn't make it to California two days before the road trip began, when all six of us sat down to give a realistic nod toward the calendar and map. We pointed out that if the hippies (referred to thusly for the sake of anonymity) went to their music festival, Electric Forest, we could never reach California. For the festival fell squarely halfway through the road trip, meaning we would only have a week and a half to get from Michigan, to California, to Colorado, to home. I had an extremely important orientation to get to by July 10, so my hands were tied timewise. The hippies insisted we could still make it. But how did it make any sense to go to Iowa City, then Chicago, then Michigan - if the goal was to reach the west coast? I had my doubts. My dad had his doubts. And a day before we were to leave, my beautiful elf boyfriend rang me up to suggest that we ditch the trip and visit his Aunt Sally instead. I was infuriated, so determined was I to make the road trip work. I wanted to feel like an adventurer, I wanted to spend intimate time with my boyfriend before embarking on a year of long distance, and I wanted to hang out with my Fei Fei, who was to return to China on July 15. So when the RV departed, we went along for the ride.
The Timeline of Doom
On June 25, we dropped off the hippies in Rothbury, Michigan. Determined to have an amazing time despite the detour, we immediately headed towards Ludington State Park to swim in Lake Michigan and hike around the Lost Lake, a lagoon of Hamilton Lake. We got along quite well, joking with one another and getting closer to Damon despite the age gap.
June 27, we decided to fulfill Fei Fei's lust for art by heading to Grand Rapids to check out some galleries. The RV was struggling in minor ways - the radio was broken, the speaker disconnected. A few minutes into Grand Rapids, the muffler fell off. Damon was driving. Though a decent driver, he was young and panicked. He pulled into the first parking garage he saw.
Fun fact: RVs do NOT fit into parking garages. The RV lacked air conditioning, but still had a large plastic cap on the roof, which was promptly knocked off and destroyed, leaving a huge hole. It took us over an hour to carefully maneuver the RV out of the garage, scraping bits and pieces as we went. We spent many more hours repairing the muffler at an auto parts store. My beautiful elf boyfriend used four layers of tarp and some duct tape to patch up the roof. We realized that the fix was actually a huge improvement over the previously leaking air conditioner part.
We hightailed it out of Grand Rapids and went for a swim in Lake Michigan at Muskegon State Park. Somehow, my beautiful elf boyfriend lost his ring to the waves. It was a promise ring I had given him a year or so previously - a representation of my assurance that I wanted to spend my life with him, a cool titanium ring with inlaid dinosaur fossil. He was devastated, and though the water was freezing, he searched through the rippling sand as long as he could.
And yet, the day was fine simply because we were all encouraging and friendly to one another. That night, we picked up the hippies from Electric Forest at 2:30 AM.
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| The roof is "fixed", wow. |
June 28, it was my birthday. BEB somehow managed to snag me a rose and some shrimp (I am obsessed with seafood). He gave me a sketchbook I had been eyeing back in Chicago, with gorgeous handmade watercolor paper.
Later that day, Damon drove straight through a toll gate and knocked it down while nearly everyone else slept soundly. After that, I didn't sleep.
June 29, everything began to fall apart. The overdrive was off, for which everyone blamed Fei Fei, though the real reason would later become apparent. The vehicle overheated. Perhaps relatedly, suddenly it became impossible to pump gas. Even at an extreme angle, gas would just fall right out onto the ground.
One of the hippies had a carving tool which he used to make acorn top rings. He wanted to use that tool to put a hole in the RV to make a new gas line. He said if that didn't work, "I'll use this hammer to smash a motherfucking hole right in this fucker.
"The gas pipe is in a weird spot. Why is that even there?" asked BEB.
The hippy responded, "Rednecks. Motherfucking rednecks."
Yesterday I joked to my beautiful elf boyfriend, it's a good thing the whole roof didn't rip off because then the trip would be over - but, I realized we would probably just continue on anyway with a giant tarp over the RV or something. I used to be worried about the lack of seatbelts, but then I realized we have a grill and propane on the RV's deck anyway. Dead is dead. Remember, if this thing blows up in a fireball: my little brother gets all of my things except whatever he wants most. That goes to my little sister. (Text I sent to my parents.)"It's okay," said Alpha Hippy. "We were meant to stay at this gas station for a while. There were signs. I bumped my head earlier."
Later, same day, June 29 - We had only made it as far as the Badlands. After buying a $15, seven day pass we raced through with barely a pause to take in the sights. A glance at the calendar told me we had no chance at all of making it to California. I asked everyone to gather around to discuss revising expectations. Damon was so angry, so set on making it to the Redwood Forest, that he refused to join the conversation. He blamed me, even though I had no driver's license, didn't own the vehicle, and was in no way leading the trip.
At 5:45 pm, the transmission died.
Stuck and in need of a place to sleep, the hippies brought us to a public park that closed at 10 pm. I was already half asleep in the lofted bed above the steering wheel, and I was unwilling to camp out illegally. Everyone else pitched tents outside.
Around midnight, June 30, a police man pulled up and knocked on a side window of the RV. My heart instantly began to spazz out.
"This is the police here. Come out with your IDs," he called.
"Hold on just a minute, sir", I responded hoarsely. Sir? Since when do I say sir? I grabbed around for my sandals, pulling one out of the garbage can where it had mistakenly fallen in.
Everyone gathered round as we passed over IDs and explained that we were from Connecticut. "Let me just run these IDs," he said, "and then we will discuss what happens from there."
Shit. I'm supposed to be a Mitchell Scholar. I can't get arrested. What if one of the hippies has a record? One of them is embroiled in a pyramid scheme, though only god knows if he's aware, and all of them smoke.
He looked at the RV with mild concern. "Six of you fit in there?"
"Yes sir," answered one of the hippies.
A grin spread across his face. "That's. AWESOME." he stated. "But this is a public park, it closes at ten."
"Oh no," I gabbled, "we didn't know... do you have any recommendations?" My panic was fading but in its place, anger spread. I did know the park closed. Why did I allow other people to decide where I slept? It was my fault that I didn't take responsibility for myself.
"Our overdrive stopped working," explained one of the hippies.
"You're going cross-country without overdrive?"
"We had one-" I started to laugh, but one of the hippies cut me off to say, "We have six seatbelts." What?? No we don't! Why would you bring in a lie he didn't even ask about? Fei Fei gave a short, choking, sarcastic laugh that was only cut off when Damon nudged her.
The policeman gave us some recommendations as to where we could sleep instead. He was conversational, asking if we had been caught in the tourist trap town Wall Drug (we had), and told us to swim in Hippie Hole tomorrow. Everyone stuck their tents onto the RV's porch, and Damon held them down as we drove away.
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On June 30, instead of getting the part we needed for the vehicle, we decided to hike to Hippie Hole. The policeman had told us to find a parking lot leading to a gravel path. We pulled over on the side of the road to a location vaguely close to the instructions and walked down a completely random ATV path.
"I don't think this is the parking lot," I said, to which Alpha Hippy responded, "Well we aren't looking for a Walmart parking lot." I know that. I'm more well traveled than you realize. But this isn't a parking lot, and we aren't in the correct location.
"Let me just grab my hiking boots," I said. Beta Hippy frowned and said, "It's just a mile walk, you don't need those." Five minutes into the strenuous uphill hike through mud and high grass, I was glad I didn't listen to her.
The hike was four miles and led to a random town. Because I only had one water bottle, I ended up drinking creek water near the end. It was a long and horrible hike. Between the hippies implying that my negative energy was causing us to remain lost and my beautiful elf boyfriend refusing to walk with me (we'd had a fight over nothing, which had become typical of the trip), I was not having a good time. Finally I asked some locals for directions. We made it back to the RV, and drove to a different but suitable watering hole close to Hippie Hole called Little Falls.
July 1: Despite my introverted nature, I did ask a stranger for advice on finding parts for the truck. Alpha Hippy thanked me out loud for sharing the information but did not seem to take the advice to heart. He proposed stealing the part from a car he saw parked in Wall Drug (tourist trap town near the Badlands), an idea I loudly and disdainfully put down. The next morning, after illegally camping in a closed Starbucks' parking lot, Alpha Hippy seemed to have fallen apart. He fell asleep across the front seat in the early morning. Beta Hippy tried to coax him into bed, but he was crying, saying "I haven't slept in three days." He kept moaning that he was hungry. Beta Hippy tried to feed him the breakfast she'd prepared for everyone (eggs and veggies on the grill), but he wouldn't eat. She dragged him into bed.
I looked at my watch. I looked at the calendar. I noticed we'd spent days in Rapid City, South Dakota even though that was never a planned stop. And with us so near Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse! We'd sped through the Badlands, and spent barely any time in the Black Hills.
The entire trip, the hippies told us again and again that my negative energy was effecting the physical state of the RV and the emotional state of Alpha Hippy. My propensity for planning, my voiced refusal to participate in illegal activities, and my interest in scoping out the area before hiking to unknown locations was, in short, "killing their vibes". Said Beta Hippy, "[Alpha Hippy] is psychic, you know. He can feel that your thoughts are pushing him. And the RV can feel your negative energy."
I felt unwelcome. As a fundamentally negative (and yet adventurous and humorous) person, I could tell my presence was having ill effects on the rest of the group. So I spoke with BEB, and we booked tickets to immediately fly to Phoenix, Arizona to stay with his aunt.
A Predictably Obnoxious Aftermath
Fei Fei wanted to come with us, but Damon wasn't letting her leave without a fight: he punched the RV and promptly ran away, which left us in an awkward situation. We'd been illegally parked at Sonic all morning and the manager was keen on us leaving.
A day later, BEB and I safely in Arizona, she called me near tears herself. She said that the hippies told her that we (beautiful elf boyfriend and myself) weren't the problem - she was. Fei Fei bought a ticket, slept in the airport overnight, and joined us in Phoenix. She found a note in her backpack from Alpha Hippy.
I am sorry you are not happy... I wish you the best as I always have... I am sorry I hurt your feelings by expressing mine last night, and all tho I feel as though you contributed nothing but money & bad vibes I still made you a samich & I still love you like a child of my own. Go get em tiger. Stay grateful, [Alpha Hippy]
Later I pulled a business card I'd forgotten out of my back. It belonged to Alpha Hippy. He was part of a fairly notorious pyramid-scheme-esque business named Qivana. He left business cards all around Chicago when we were there with Ali Noe, and I picked up after him. I remembered how on one car ride, a homeless man came around to windows at a stop light to ask for money. Alpha Hippy gave the man a couple cents, then said, "Come on! Smile!"
Any worries I had for the hippies and the RV dissipated. I was with my best friend and my beautiful elf boyfriend - it was time for us to figure out how to get to California.
Yoda - RV Roadtrip to California Blog Entry
