a nice drive through forest covered mountains and we arrived in salem around 3 pm and checked into our hotel. i needed to do some shopping so we went to a mall and then we got something to eat in downtown salem at franks pizza, which was absolutely delicous. that was it really.
the next morning we headed out towards knoxville, tennessee and i wanted to get there in good time because i had 2 tickets for nine inch nails that evening. we were still in virginia and driving to tennesse when my friend asks me how far it was to st louis, missouri. i didn't know exactly because believe it or not, i didn't have googlemaps downloaded into my brain, but i told him it was probably a few hundred miles. why?. it was then he told me he was going to go to st louis and meet one of his friends for a drink. "we have tickets for nine inch nails tonight" (which i paid for) i told him, to which he replied he didn't want to see them and wanted to go to st louis.
a little stunned i tried to convince him that st louis was far far away and it would take him half a day to get there and it wouldn't be worth going driving so far but he stubbornly refused to listen to my reasoning and then said he wanted the car and was going to drive there no matter how far it was. oh great, not only are you changing the route that we agreed to a month before the trip but you now want to take the car as well. i could have dug my heels in and said that because i had paid for half the cost of the rental car i could veto his plan because it was not what i wanted to do, but rather than have an argument on our 2nd day i said, fuck it, just drop me off in knoxville and do what you want. although i didn't show it, i was incandescent with anger.
i had estimated it was around 400 miles to st louis from knoxville and because of that my friend who was driving, decided to put his foot down to make up time. about 20 minutes later the inevitable happened and he shot past a police car whilst doing 83mph in a 65mph zone. there was a minute or two of wondering if he had been spotted but then the flashing blue lights appeared and we got pulled over. ha!, Good!!!, i thought. that will learn you for stitching up your mates. the officer came over, gave him a ticket which was a $100 fine, and off we went.
we arrived in knoxville around 2.30pm and we found out from the GPS that St Louis was 498 miles from knoxville. that was even further than i originally thought. my friends face sank when he saw how far it was, but instead of listening to reason he stubbornly stuck to his st louis folly.
the hotel i originally planned to stay in was about 15 miles from the civic auditorium, where NIN were playing, and because i would have no car, i had to find another hotel closer to town so that i could walk to and from the concert. we went to a couple of places but they were pretty expensive but i eventually found a decent hotel for a reasonable price. my friend asked me what the plan was for tomorrow, when we originally planned to drive to memphis. slightly embarressed by the stupidity of what he was doing, he suggested driving back to knoxville (498 miles) and picking me up and then driving to memphis which was around 500 miles. 1,000 miles driving in a day. another great plan shithead!. i told him not to bother and i would make my own way to memphis and see him the following evening. to be honest i didn't want to see his face for a while after pulling a stunt like this, though i wasn't sure how i would get to memphis.
just for the record let me add that i knew he had a friend in st louis and during the planning of the route in the weeks before the trip, i asked him if he wanted to make a stop in st louis, to which he said no. it was for this reason i was extra mad. also let me state that if this were ' a drink with a friend' that would end up in sex, i would have been a bit more understanding. far be it for me to deny someone getting some ass, but the person he was going to see was married and has 3 kids and i know for a fact that it was definitely not going to be that kind of 'drink'.
that day i had mostly been listening to interpol - hands away.
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