I never ended up finishing the story of the roadtrip… made some notes, but never finished it. Now that I’m in Thailand, I feel it’s probably only right for me to wrap up that previous journey before getting into my new one. Here goes:

Once we were out of Louisiana and getting into Texas, for the first time on the roadtrip, the geography was noticeably different. We had finally left forested hills and farmers fields, which I would basically say were all we had driven through at this point, and entered dead scrubland, a mix of grasses and desert, that just looked quintessentially like Texas. We had actually made it to the goal of our shittalking fantasy (for that is how this all started, remember.

What do we do once we get there? Take a nap. A 9 hour nap. That’s what happens after 16 straight hours on the road. Dinner was late, but good. Went to a pretty nice Tex-Mex place, and Ii had a deep fried avocado. It was breaded and crispy and buttery and awesome. I need to find a place in Toronto that makes these.

We went to shoot pool that night with our Texan host, Nathan. The service was horrible – the waitress was just incredibly bothersome and unhelpful. I guess what really bugged me about her was how she would pick up my beer bottle every couple of minutes and shake it to see if there was beer left, which left the bottle constantly full of foam. Anyway, she bugged me so much I didn’t leave her a tip. When I told Nathan, about this, he flipped. I guess it makes sense. We were in Fort Jackson, a small Texan backwater home to two bars – a “good” one and a “sketchy” one. Pissing off one of probably three waitresses at the only bar you go to admittedly isn’t good practice, and Nathan went back inside to rectify the situation by explaining that we were Canadians and had never heard of tipping. Luckily, I doubt that our waitress will ever come visit, so it probably doesn’t matter.

A visit to a driving range the next day was in order, if only to prove we could comfortably play golf in T-shirts in December. Then we headed off to, you guessed it, Wal-Mart to stock up on ammunition for the night’s main event. The whole point of this roadtrip was to shoot guns in the desert, and it was really going to happen. Our shooting range didn’t actually end up being the desert – apparently Texas is really big and is only desert in the west. Instead, we went down to the levees of Freeport, just a few hundred meters away from both a huge Dow Chemical plant and a US Army base. Two hardcore NRA rednecks (they’re proud of the redneck title, I’m not trying to put them down) joined us, and showed us a thing or two about shooting. They thought it was absolutely crazy we had never shot guns before, and had a grand old time teaching us and making fun of Canada. At our disposal were three guns, a little handgun of some sort, an automatic shotgun (the first automatic model ever made, apparently a rare and highly prized weapon), and a vintage WWII soviet sniper rifle, complete with period ammuntion, including armour piercing rounds that could shred a fencepost. We shot skeet, beer bottles and all the empty energy drink cans we had accumulated along the way. There were a disgusting number of them. Pavel ended up the shotgun champ, Nate was able to hit an 8 inch target at 200 yards with the sniper rifle, and I realized that I really, really like guns. I just don’t want anyone else to have them.

Anyway, being with these two Texan to the bone, Ron Paul loving, NRA supporting rednecks, the conversation invariably turned to politics. Unsurprisingly these guys thought that the solution to crime was everyone owning a gun, and practicing with it regularly. What really shocked me was how serious they both were about the context of the Second Amendment – they both strongly believed that citizen’s militias are vitally important to protect Americans against their government. They knew their American history very well, and were convinced that when the day comes that the government has to turn the military against its citizens, Texas will be a logical starting place because of all the oil. To this end, these guys made sure they “know the land,” and were able to describe all the places they could hide and pick off soldiers. I “knew” that these people were real, but never really believed it until now. All I can say is thanks Dale and Charlie.. you made our trip.

We went to bed earlyish after shooting, and were on the road by 4am the next morning to make sure we made it to Missouri to party that night. It was nice to see Allison in the middle of nowhere, USA, and we brought her some moonshine in a mason jar Adam had picked up in Kentucky. All I need to say is that it was revolting, and Daniel, who had the most of it, was super hung over the next day. So hung over that on the drive home, I had to keep pulling over so he could puke out of the van. At one point this puking was on a front lawn, and I joked that someone was gonna come out with a shotgun. Instead, they sicced dogs on Daniel. Two big vicious things that charged the van and bit the tires as we drove away. It wa close to being a pretty bad scene.

Somehow we ended up in Chicago that night, and stopped for some deep dish pizza before pulling another overnight drive and arriving in Toronto around 6 am. All in all a good trip, and we learned some valuable lessons:

1. Roadtrips are awesome
2. Hairbrained schemes can actually work
3. Tight deadlines blow