Night Driving

After the excitement in Tucson, Dad wanted to make up for lost time and decided it was a good opportunity for a "night drive". This was unusual for the trip and definitely out of the ordinary, but nothing to cause any concern, in fact it seemed like it would be fun and different. Dad seemed to have some experience and was familiar with the fine art of night driving, so this was designed to be a first-time learning experience for me, and given our recent event with the car breaking down, I just happened to be ready for the adventure.

Because of the specific dangers involved with the night, we broke some of the tradition and traveled primarily on Interstate highway. This was deemed safer, provided better visibility and we shared the company of other night drivers along the way just in case another incident should happen. I was fairly confident the car was in good shape since it just got fixed, and Dad's driving ability was sure-footed even in the dark, so off we went into the night. We drove through the desert and the atmosphere was decidedly different, the late daytime light gave off a distinctive feeling of peacefulness, it wasn't as hot, and it was relaxing to see the sun set. As the drive progressed and the sun went down, nothing seemed really different about driving at night, except you couldn't see anything. I wasn't feeling tired, in fact I was wide awake, so I sat up in front with Dad and had casual conversations.

I guess we were both hungry because the main topic for discussion was about food, specifically all the weird and unusual foods there was available to eat, and more interestingly, all the weird and disgusting things Dad has eaten. Of course Dad had to bring up the movie Mondo Cane, a film I’ve never seen but was very familiar with the theme song, which Dad had the 45 of, and like I mentioned before, we would always play at our traditional celebration before the start of the trip. The movie Mondo Cane, from what I could gather was a documentary film about weird things that went on all over the world, and one of the things shown in the film that Dad loved to talk about was about these people in Africa (or somewhere like that) that had more of these big bugs living around them than they knew what to do with, so someone decided that they could eat them. So Dad explained with great delight about how they would roll up these live beetles into a burrito and eat it like it was just refried beans or something, and during this meal some of the bugs would escape from the bite holes and crawl along the face of the person eating them as they would casually grab the beetles and poke them back into the burrito and continue eating. I could only imagine what this was like or what it appeared like on the screen, but it was fun to listen to, even the millions of times Dad told it over and over again. At the time the most exotic thing I could think of eating was octopus. I knew this was something you could eat, and that many people all over the world eat it regularly, but to me this was the ultimate in dare-foods, and I could only imagine finding an opportunity and actually eating it. Dad on the other hand was unfazed about eating octopus and explained that it was the tentacle that made the best eating. This led to other possibilities such as squid, rattlesnake, frog legs, monkey brains, any kind of raw meat (remember, this was before sushi became mainstream) and of course, eel. The eating of eel seemed like the supreme feat in disgusting cuisine to me, which then led to an interesting story that Dad re-tells at any opportunity not realizing he's told it 100 times before. The story goes: Dad and his father, Grandaddy, were somewhere in South America and went to eat in a local restaurant, and on the menu was "eel soup". Now one would expect eel soup to be large pieces of cooked eel, since our perception of eels are basically sea snakes and should have similar appearance and size to a snake. But when the waiter brought Dad his eel soup it was a bowl of luke-warm oily broth with hundreds of thread-like live eels swimming around in it. Grandaddy was appalled by this dish and insisted that he send it back, but Dad was fascinated by eating live baby eels and proceeded to eat it all down. Grandaddy wanted nothing to do with this revolting display and moved to another table. Dad explained that the soup was basically tasteless and he could feel the little eels slither down his throat. While I was amused by this story I too found it nauseating and admitted that I would never be able to eat this eel soup.

Most of the drive was through the state of New Mexico and part way through the trip we were spotted by a highway patrolman and we were pulled over. This is always a cause for concern and being stopped by the police is always nerve-wracking, For some reason I can't help but imagine the worst and fear we have somehow done something seriously wrong and will be taken in and put in jail. Dad seems to take a practical approach about being pulled over and consciously tries not to show panic, but tends to be impulsive with his actions. Just about every time we have been pulled over by the police (not very much) Dad always gets out of the car after he pulls over and stops, and every time this apparently spooks the policeman and they sternly demand him to "remain in the vehicle" over the loudspeaker. I never understood why Dad always insisted about trying to get out of the car after he was stopped, and he always seemed surprised and perplexed after he was told to get back in, but I guess he was nervous too, and this concept about remaining in the car for the policeman never sunk in. The reason we were stopped was; one of our front headlights was out. It made sense we never noticed since we never travelled at night. The patrolman was typical, polite but stern, nice but slightly suspicious. He gave us a warning and told us we couldn't continue until we replaced the headlight. Now the problem was that it was about 10:00 at night and we were essentially in the middle of nowhere, except for a small community beside the highway. Dad agreed to get the headlight replaced and the patrolman reluctantly let us go, but followed us into the town to make sure we didn't just continue on without heeding his advice. We went to the only store that could possibly sell headlights, a Piggly Wiggly grocery store, and of course they didn't have headlights. This didn't discourage Dad and he was determined to continue, but I was afraid that Dad was going to do something foolish and get us deeper into trouble with the policeman still lurking and ready to arrest Dad for contempt of the law. But despite my fear and nervousness, Dad actually came up with a brilliant solution. Knowing we were under surveillance, we went into the Piggly Wiggly, bought a snack, came out and opened the hood of the car as if to change the headlight. Now our car had double headlights - two on each side, one pair for regular headlights and one pair for the high beams. When the high beams were on all four headlights were lit, so what dad did was disconnect the regular bulb on the good side and turned on the high beams, and it appeared as if just two regular lights were on. Now I was still a little nervous about doing this, running the risk of the policeman recognizing the high beams were being used, and it's technically illegal to drive the highway with other drivers present with the high beams on, and we didn't do what we were told to do which was replace the bad bulb. But Dad was satisfied this was going to work and we got in the car and drove off, essentially tricking the cop. We must've been noticed by the patrolman as we entered the highway again, but the patrolman seemed satisfied himself and to my relief took off in the opposite direction. Dad made a self-satisfying laugh and re-assured me that this was all that was needed to comply with the law sometimes.

It was late, well after midnight when we reached our destination of El Paso, Texas. We stopped at one of the first motels with a vacancy, and I was surprised to see that there was still activity and life this late at night, things even seemed to be more open than during the day. The motel manager was friendly and it didn't seem unusual that we were checking in so late and needed something to eat. He directed us to an all night taco place next door and we proceeded to get cheap and really greasy Mexican food to eat in our room. I ate my dinner and quickly fell asleep for the night, my first successful night drive behind me.