the maiden voyage of his most excellent Sir John the Indefatigable.

Thursday:

My phone rings at 11:45 pm. Ben has just gotten back from Los' house, with Stephanie. He wants to know if I am going to Stephanie's graduation party tomorrow.

I hesitate. Dylan is unable to go because of work. The green Ford Ranger has been unreliable at best, though recently has been running strong. My beloved Nissan has never let me down, but it hasn't really been tested and Chowchilla is 377 miles away.

I relay this information to Ben, who assures me we can make it. He needs to know now, because if I'm not going, he'll ride up with Stephanie in the morning. If he waits up for me, there is no way I'm going to bail on him in the afteroon.

More importantly: Stephanie thinks I am going to go. My word is my bond.

So I commit. "Yes. We're going. We'll figure out the car thing later."

My housing issues are evicted from the back of my mind. Car paranoia signs a temporary sub-lease. I eventually get to sleep.

Friday comes, and I am a solid four minutes late to work. The shift begins and ends quickly, and I'm back at home preparing a backpack. I laugh a bit as I look for the bag- I hadn't used it since the first day of the spring semester. I find it and fill it with t-shirts, shorts, and loafers. I stuff an optimistic amount of condoms in the front pocket as well.

I'd been so distracted on Thursday that I'd completely forgotten to "handle it." So to speak. Wax the batmobile, etc. This becomes important later, but for the time being, it manifested itself in me bringing condoms to what is basically a family picnic.

I tell Ben that we should check my tires, and that I would like to drive. I estimated my nine gallon tank yielding us 270 miles before we'd need to refill, and I wanted to test the roadworthiness of this particular 17 year old car.

I call my mom (specifically my mom, and not my dad) and let her know I am driving to Chowchilla. She asks where it is and wishes me luck. She wonders if my car can make it; I assure her it can. Is this enough obvious foreshadowing yet?

We neglect to check the tires and we're off. I notice certain things. The car rattles a good deal after 85 mph, depending on the surface. Drafting other cars does wonders for your gas. We'd gone through half a tank in the first 100 miles. Ben did some quick calculations and realized that we were only projecting 200 gallons on my tank of gas. On the freeway. I guessed that it was an error with the meter and not the engine, and sure enough, we squeezed almost 200 additional miles out of the remaining "half tank."

The goal was to refill in a town called Earlimart, more for sentimental reasons than conveniance. Let it be known that there is no store called "Early Mart," if you're ever explaining your location to an extremely confused group of friends in another car.

Ben and I both took careful precautions to make sure our ipods were charged and ready for the nearly seven hour drive. Playlists were made. Plans were set. It was only after we were out of range for San Diego's radio stations that we realized that neither one of us had brought an adapter to use them in the car.

Nice.

to be continued.