Читать книгу Class of '79 - Chris Rooke - Страница 11

On return to the campsite, we were all a little unsettled and certainly not sleepy, and someone suggested that instead of waiting until the next day to move to our next destination, we should ‘drive through the night’. Ah, what a romantic idea! That vision of being somewhere out in the USA, maybe in the desert, with the hood down, cruising through the night, radio blaring, watching the moon and the stars, and then seeing a spectacular sunrise, in a cloudless open sky! The vision continued as we pulled into a roadside diner for a great breakfast that included ham, eggs over easy and hash browns. We were going to be Jack Kerouac, On the Road Again, or maybe James Taylor in Two Lane Black Top, or Barry Newman in Vanishing Point.

We naturally fell for this romantic vision - but once again the reality didn’t quite live up to the dream. All we had was a car packed full of overgrown teenagers, who were slightly drunk and after half an hour were all trying to sleep. Traveling in such cramped conditions was difficult, trying to get to sleep in them was nigh-on impossible.

For several hours we drove on with various groans of discontent, punctuated with snoring and frequent oaths being uttered coming from the disgruntled passengers. Not even my wonderful 8-track cassette player could lift the occasion.