It's About Time
DAY 1
It starts off when Matt picks everyone up in his mom’s brand new Toyota Highlander (later endowed with the name “Rolling Fortress.” He gets Huy, Anthony, Brandon, Me, and we are on the way to pick up Blake, our 6th and final companion for this wonderful journey. As we’re leaving Brandon’s house, Brandon laid down the law about complaints and whining when he said “Hey, if I wanted bitching, I would’ve stayed at home with some girls.” (3:06pm).
We are on Frontage Road and stopped at a light. On our left, we see a homeless man holding a typical homeless sign, asking for help and donations. What is unusual, though, is that as we are watching him he puts the sign down, walks over to his mountain bike, gets on it and rides away. Nobody can understand why he is riding away, but an opportunity like this only comes about once in a lifetime so we quickly jump out of the Rolling Fortress and take his sign. Now before you judge us, there are two ways to look at it: 1) we stole a sign from a homeless man… or the way I like to look at it 2) he was littering and we didn’t want it to tarnish our beautiful city of Chandler. Anyways, we get Blake and stop by to say hi to Jenny and her mom. Now it’s time to officially start the trip.
We only get about 2 miles before we all realize we’re hungry, so we make a quick stop for some chili dogs.
While there Matt already begins the traditional spring break Huy-bashing and as Huy is counting his money for the trip Matt hits his hand and Huy’s money goes flying absolutely everywhere
(sorry its fuzzy Blake was laughing too hard to keep still)
Things calm down a bit, we eat, and then we’re off. I don’t know what was happening at the time we were leaving, but it was like annual bug migration or something because there were more bugs hitting our windshield than you’ve ever seen in your entire lifetime.
Brandon was driving since Matt is not allowed to leave the state (along with two others that will remain unnamed) and he kept asking us to let him clean it but we absolutely refused. In fact, we all just sat there staring out the window and cheering every time a bug exploded on to it. While many of you girls are thinking we’re idiots and are kind of grossed out, we were having the time of our lives and even came up with the awesome idea that if they will splatter on a windshield, it would probably feel pretty funny when they hit your hand.
Now it gets good, because we enter the party capital of the fucking world: Quartzsite, AZ. If you don’t know about Quartzsite, you better ask somebody. Word. The place is the home of the world famous main event for Christ sake.
Brandon gets a little hungry
So we stop at a gas station where I proceed to find the only hat I’ve ever seen (and the only one in the entire store) that honors Quartzsite, so of course I buy it (try to spot it in a later pic) and we all buy some energy drinks and snacks. The cashier asks Anthony if we’re a band because we look like we’re on tour. I wanted to say yes and offer my autograph but Tony is too honest for his own good. We drive for a good amount of time, have some good conversations. It was during this conversation that the Indian burn technique was named and it was also stated that “Matt’s got the gobble-cock look” (6:48pm).
It gets dark and suddenly this Chevy Malibu in front of us begins to brake check nasty style. Like Brandon had to seriously slam on his brakes hard or we would’ve totally hit this bitch. It was some girl and she honestly was slowing down to 35mph on the main highway with us right behind her. We are all freaking out because Brandon is getting really mad and we all think that the Rolling Fortress is going to go slamming in the back of this car. We finally reach our destination though: Casino Morongo.
It’s time to get serious, everyone gets their game faces on and we begin to walk toward the casino. We all look pretty tough except for the fact that Brandon is squealing and skipping like a girl who just got a pony.
We leave the casino; Brandon has gambled away all his money for the entire trip so we kind of let him be haha. We have some weird ass conversations about a bunch of random shit. Just to give you an idea of how weird they got, Anthony Saenz can be quoted as saying “I would rather have Huy’s load on my dick than in my mouth” (12:50am). We also had a good hour or so of freestyling. We all suck but there were some good lines that came out of it, two stick out in my head, one was Matt saying something like “I’m mean like S.I.D.S/I kill babies in their cribs” and the other was when Huy started ragging on my mom so I said “Huy don’t try to get up on me/I kill Asians like a tsunami.” Tony and Blake were both too pussy to rap, I even tried to call Tony out by saying “What are you scared of we know you’re not too bright/Can you not think straight are your girls’ pants on too tight?” We take the freeway all the way into town basically until it ends, at which point we are forced to get off.
No idea where we are, things begin to look ghetto, and its 2am. Are we in the ghetto? Absolutely, we pass by a sign that welcomes us to the city of Inglewood. Brandon makes a joke about Crenshaw Blvd. (which you all might know from various rap songs and ghetto movies) and about 2 miles later we pass by. Instead of continuing on our way we trip out and can’t believe it so we decide to flip a bitch and take it to see where it goes. So we are going down Crenshaw Blvd, “packed and full of cars”, at 2am. Now take my word for it, every single stereotype you see in movies or hear in songs is true. Not a car on the street had rims smaller than 20’s, we saw 6 impalas in a row parked at a light, and we even saw a gang c-walking on the side of the road. Maybe the weirdest part is that the car in front of us has an 18” television screen in the car that is playing home-filmed black porn. Brandon was very intrigued at this and when Matt told him that white people aren’t supposed to be on this street seeing this porn, Brandon replies with “Nah man, I don’t think they’ll care if we mack on their vagina.” (2:37am). We know we stick out like a sore thumb but we really are lost so Brandon pulls up next to some big black girls in a car next to us and rolls down the window to ask directions, at which point Huy thinks he’ll make the situation less awkward by making funny noises and ducking down to try to hide from these girls, who could completely see him.
We finally find out how to get to our destination of Huntington Beach, and around 4am we get to our hotel. As Matt and Huy go inside to try to get a room, the rest of us are sitting there checking out the obvious prostitutes that are roaming the outside parking lot and going into rooms. As they get closer, though, we realize that they are all men, or used to be men before surgery, and we do our best to hide without being seen by these man-whores. We had made a pact earlier that whoever could get an Indian burn from someone on the trip we’d all pay $5 (for a total of $25) and so after gambling away all his money Brandon was contemplating paying one the transvestite prostitutes $20 to give him one and then make $5 out of it. He believed it to be a win-win situation, I called him disgusting.
Matt and Huy come back to let us know they are full for the night, but we can check in at 11, so we need to kill 7 hours. Me and Blake are the only ones who want to pay for a hotel room, the rest of them don’t, so after driving around for about 30 mins we pull into an upscale gated community and park in front of some big ass house. We try to get as comfortable as we can, but it’s no use and we resign ourselves to sleep in awkward positions, except for Tony “The Bitch” who was lying in the back seat by himself and told us we couldn’t fold our seat down because he had no room, but later admitted he was really comfortable.
DAY 2
Took me forever to fall asleep but once I did I was out and don’t remember anything. But from what I hear, Tony was snoring like a mad-man and Huy was getting pissed and started whining about it so, in my sleep, I took off the headrest in front of me and threw it at him. I don’t know if that’s true but I did wake up with the headrest in my lap. When we woke up, Huy had morning wood, and he announced it to everyone and expected us all to agree that we had our own, but it turned out to just be awkward since he was the only one and so Brandon flicked it and that’s when Huy said, “No one else has morning wood? I feel so pre-pubescent right now” (9:07am).
Since we need to wait until 11am to check in we drive over to Denny’s. Everyone gets out face wash and toothbrushes and stuff and uses the Denny’s bathroom to get ready.
The waitress at Denny’s was a huge fucking bitch and she didn’t bring me my garlic bread and she didn’t bring me my food until everyone was almost done and she never refilled my drink or anything. Basically she hated me. Also, Brandon whipped out his dick under the table and was doing something with it and this elderly couple across from us totally looked over and saw him playing with his dick under the table. Their faces, oh man it was awesome. Anyways, we check into the hotel, we go off on a quest for Dex. Hit up a few places, eat a lot of free samples at Costco, head back to the hotel and begin our Rolodexing trip. The first stage of course is the drowsy stage where none of us wanted to do anything but chill and love one another.
Eventually we know we have to get out of the hotel and it’s off to the beach. Brandon’s body didn’t exactly take well to the dex and he was throwing up for a while
We throw the football around for a little bit, write meaningful shit in the sand, but we all feel just too amazing for words so maybe these pics can give you an idea.
We wake Brandon up
And we decide that we want to take a walk a long freaking way allllllll the way to the pier.
Me, Brandon, Huy, and Tony make the long journey to the pier. Blake says he is going to fill up our meter with quarters, but then ends up taking the car on his own journey that nobody really knows where he went but he was gone for a good hour or so. Like if someone made a DVD of our trip, Blake’s little journey would be a special bonus feature that you normally wouldn’t get to see. Matt just lies on the beach by himself.
This walking trip to the pier was the most amazing walk and conversation I can ever remember, and I felt so connected to everyone and everything at the time. If you weren’t one of us you really won’t understand but the guys know what I mean. We get to the end of the pier, turn around and begin to walk back. As we’re doing this out of nowhere we see Matt, wrapped in his towel, walking up to us with the most content smile on his face. He walks up to us, we all hug him as if he’s a long lost friend, and he tells us that “At first I thought it was impossible… but then I just knew… I knew that if I came here, I would find you.” It really was amazing since there were so many people there and we were on our way away from the pier at the time, but it was awesome. We all reunite, sit on the beach and recap what was an incredible adventure.
Sober up, get some boba, and go over to Sarah Wray’s apartment for some good old-fashioned drinking. We are all pretty exhausted and I waste what little energy I have left racing some little kid’s scooter/razor around the townhouse backyard type thing. We have a good time, and head back to the apartment.
DAY 3
We wake up, I need to get money so Huy & I go on a search for a BofA. I haven’t used my cell phone like all trip because I forgot my charger, but I decide to call my mom to say hi and that I’m safe. Strangely enough, she is about 10 minutes away from where me and Huy were and at a BofA when I called her (she was in town to place my Grandma’s ashes) and so we met up with her and my Uncle for a little bit. It was crazy, I don’t see my mom when I’m in AZ but I run into her in Cali.
So we get back to the room and we all decide we want to go to the beach again, this time to play some football. Before we leave though, Matt wants to show us how amazing he is with his raptor toes and proves to us that he can light a match with his feet.
Have some non-sobering substances and we’re off to the beach. Make a quick stop at Boba, two cops walk in and I get way paranoid and shut up real quick and just watch some movie playing on the TV. Everyone played it cool except Tony, who was sitting at a computer by himself checking basketball scores and every once in a while he would just blurt out random obscenities. It was seriously dead silent in this store, we’re all quiet, the cops are waiting for their drinks, and Tony goes “NOOOO FUCK!!!” Awkward.
We’re off to the beach and Matt warns us not to be laughing like a bunch of retards. Yeah, sorry Matt haha. At one point I was laughing so hard I almost choked to death on a boba ball.
We get to the beach and everyone is feeling awesome. Brandon isn’t throwing up today so he’s having a good time.
We play some football. Halfway in, Matt catches a pass while Blake was guarding him, so they both go running off and Matt crosses into the endzone for a touchdown and to rub it in Blake’s face he spins around and chucks the football and it nails Blake right in the back. It was absolutely hilarious I almost died. But what was even funnier was that the next time Matt had the ball, he hikes it saying “Blue 42, Blue 42, Blake’s Mom’s A Whore, Hike!” Blake comes running full speed out of nowhere and nails him. Like straight up Terry Tate in those office commercials he takes Matt out. Revenge is a bitch but there is no crying in football only girls soccer (jk I love you girls) so we finish up and then rest.
We bring up the topic of long distance races or something and decide to have a wheelbarrow race from one volleyball net to another, and it seriously was like a quarter mile away haha. The idea was to race, rest, race, rest and see who could have the best management of endurance and time. So we start the race, it’s me and matt vs. huy and tony, ASU vs. UofA, and just what we would expect from Tucson they didn’t even try to do it right they would let us move ahead and then run up a ways and do it over and over again. This incited a brawl.
As expected Matt and I won the race and then it was back to the hotel to shower up. We shower, and we grab a quick bite to eat at a restaurant that I used to eat at all the time when I was a kid growing up in Cali.
We go shopping for some shoes, and hit up the pet store to look at animals (hey girls we all have sentimental sides too, and we’re all single give us a call) and then it’s time to pick up some fancy bottled beers and begin the night.
To make the drinking more fun, we decided to add a little flair and make a drinking game. The rules were that every time someone on TV said the name of a country or city, we all had to drink. Doesn’t seem so bad when you think about it, except that the movie we were watching was Eurotrip haha. They had this scene where they were planning their trip, they seriously said a country or city every other word. Two of the characters were like arguing about where they wanted to go or something. I don’t remember, by that time I was too faded.
Now I don’t know how many people can honestly say they have very intelligent conversations when they are drunk, but us 6 guys got shit-faced, and then had a conversation about time, space, megapixels, reality, illusion, eyesight, and more.
Only this group of guys could pull that off and that’s why I love em to death. However, boys will be boys and pretty soon some wrestling action got started, shirts came off and it was royal rumble.
After the original rumble the discussion turns to a lot of random topics and we’re all basically just recovering from expending energy while drunk, which is never fun. Matt takes all the blankets and rolls them up and lays on them.
The reason I needed to show that Matt did that was because when Blake said he wanted to go to sleep, Matt refused to give him any of the sheets or blankets. What ended up happening is that Me, Matt, & Tony pushed the beds apart and we were on one bed and we had all the pillows and all the blankets. We called ourselves “America” and called Blake, Brandon, & Huy “The rest of the world” because we had everything and they had nothing. This pissed Brandon & Huy off and they attacked America to try to take back some of the linens. It might have been successful too if Blake hadn’t pulled a France and sat in the corner and cried over it. He didn’t cry but he was incredibly drunk and said “fuck you guys I just want to go to sleep” and he went over in the corner and sat there and put his head in his knees and tried to sleep while the rest of us were fighting. Eventually America won the war and Huy & Brandon lay on a mattress with no sheets or pillows. Being American, though, we took pity and gave out some handouts every few minutes. We gave them each a pillow first, and then decided to let them have one sheet or something I don’t really remember I was way drunk. We passed out.
DAY 4
Woke up once in the early morning because Matt had his elbow digging into the side of my head. Yelled at him, fell back asleep, but when I wake up again it’s time to go home. We wake up, pack (I left my bag full of all my toiletries, fuck) and head out of town. First stop is at the outlet stores. We buy some shoes and also some Lacoste hoodies just to feel cool.
We then head to the casino. I head to the poker room to try to make up for the $75 I lost on the first stop. I sit down with $42 in chips, play for a while, when it’s time to leave I cash out with $234 in chips. Sick. Paid for most of my trip right there.
We make a pretty un-eventful drive back into Chandler. Nobody wants to stop we are ready to be home so when it’s time to take care of business, we all decide to pee in an empty jug of water. Brandon manages to do it while driving, Matt goes second, and when it’s handed to me it is really beginning to smell like urine. I piss as quickly as you can when you are in a car full of dudes and then it’s handed to Huy. I hope Huy is better under pressure when it comes to being able to perform sexually because when it came to peeing he choked. Unable to pee he resigned himself to hold it. He did try for about 15 minutes though.
We get in town, clean up the car, drop people off, and call it a night. Easily my most memorable road trip. I want to say thanks to the 5 guys who were there and made it all possible.