The trip to Boston was interesting to say the least. In a city that is a cross between downtown Chicago and a wild college town, almost anything is possible. Granted, I only had time to see a few blocks of it, but what I did see, was "N. V. T. S. - NUTS!!!" (I'll be semi-impressed if you know where that quote came from)

Lets take it from the top. My friend, Joel IV, bought a van through E-Bay for $200. Not a big deal, except for the fact that we live in Northwest Indiana, and the van was in Boston, Massachusetts!

My other friend Jim, who is a pilot, was nice enough to fly Joel and I out to Boston to go get it. We flew out there in his Piper Arrow (a small single engine plane) but we had a tiny little problem arise before we even left the ground.

We weighed too much! There is a maximum amount that the plane can weigh at takeoff, in order to keep from crashing into the ground in a great aviation-style fireball. If we were to have nothing but the three of us, and both fuel tanks full, we would have been 8 pounds over that weight. That's not even to mention our luggage, food, and my tools. (You didn't think I was going to ride 18 hours home in a $200 van without my tools did you?) I even went so far as to take the tools out of the toolbox, and put them in a cardboard box. (a savings of over 20 pounds!) Joel even had to leave the extra car stereo and speakers behind! (I really hope that van has a working radio! That would be a long trip to make without tunes!)

So here's the deal:
The weight of the plane will be at the maximum. There's no getting around that. Now the question is... How much crap can we take with? The only way to make the plane weigh less so that we can take more, is to carry less fuel. For every pound of cargo we carry, that's one less pound of fuel we're allowed. No big deal... We can handle it!

Jim figured out how much fuel we could carry, and how far we could get before having to refuel, and then we were airborne! Joel had gotten about 1 hour of sleep the night before, so he passed out in the back of the plane 10 minutes after takeoff. I had slept about 3 hours the night before, so I was good to go.

The first leg of the flight went relatively smoothly. We landed in Youngstown, Ohio, where we were delayed for roughly an hour. The main reason being, because the staff at Winner Aviation hardly lived up to their name. (C'mon boys... the gas tanks aren't that hard to find! They're in those long, flat things that stick out of either side of the plane!!!) So while we were waiting for the Einsteins at Winner to locate the gas tanks, we decided to check the weather for the rest of the trip. We're in luck! It looks like we'll catch a tail wind the rest of the trip there! That being the case, we'll get there faster, and use less fuel doing it. We should be able to make it all the way to Norwood from here without stopping to refuel again! What luck!

Our heroes with the fuel truck finally managed to fill up the plane, so we were ready to hit the road. (figuratively speaking, of course) To add to our list of delays at Youngstown, the control tower put us behind a BEHEMOTH cargo plane in the takeoff pattern. It was a Navy P-3, and lets just say that they're not known for their swift maneuvering on the airport taxiways.

Here's a few photo's I took from the air on the way to Boston

Finally back in the air, and on our way to Norwood. (Norwood, Massachusetts is the home of the small airport that we were bound for. Its roughly 10 miles southwest of Boston.) There's just one problem... Where in the hell is that tailwind that we were supposed to get? Mother Nature was supposed to blow us all the way to Boston, but so far, she's only managed to slow us down with a head wind! (Bitch) So, of course, instead of flying farther and faster, we're flying getting nowhere and we're spending a lot of fuel doing it! So much for making it all the way to Norwood on these tanks of fuel! Looks like we'll be making another stop along the way! (Geeze, you can't even get an accurate weather forecast at Winner Aviation! Way to go boys!)

After perusing the maps while in flight, we decided on a little airport in Cherry Ridge, Pennsylvania. So naturally, we changed our heading, and set out for Cherry Ridge. This was all fine and dandy, except one thing... Did I mention that the airport was small?

All of our means of navigation told us exactly where the airport was. It was in the middle of a shitload of trees. One small problem, though. We couldn't see it! Did I already mention that the airport was small? You'd think that it wouldn't take long for three guys with a birds eye view to find a 3/4 mile long stretch of asphalt... but it did! (Did I mention that there was a shitload of trees?)

We landed and taxied over to the fuel tanks to refuel the plane. This would have been fine, except that it appeared that the airport was deserted, and there was no one to dispense the fuel! Luckily, there was someone in the airport office, and he was able to call someone out to fuel up our plane. Then the fun began... Did I mention that the runway was small... and there was a shitload of trees... and the plane was dangerously close to weighing to much? (not a good combination) Lets just say that we almost cleaned the underside of the plane with the treetops!

Finally... Next stop: Norwood!
We arrived at Norwood Airport at around 6:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. Now, to get a hold of the guy who owns the van. Sounds easy... right? WRONG! There were about 5 listings in the phone book that we thought might be him... We tried them... They weren't... We're screwed. In the meantime, Joel's wife, Dawn, who was still back home in Indiana, was trying to find this guy's phone number or address off of the internet. One hour goes by, and still no van guy.

Here we are! That's Joel in front, Jim checking the fuel behind him, and of course, the plane!

The airport was closing, so we had to get the hell out. There was an Avis car rental office incorporated into the airport terminal, so we inquired as to the cost of renting a car. It would have cost us forty dollars to rent a car for the night, but we decided against it, since the hotel was only a 10 minute walk from the airport. With that, we started our walk to the hotel. For a moment along the way, I stepped out of my perspective, and thought it would be strange to see three guys with bags walking along the side of a highway. I'd seen similar events before from the third person perspective, and I've always wondered what the hell they were doing. Now I know... They were too stupid to rent a car.

Ahhhh... Finally settled in the hotel.
It's been a long journey, but our weekend is far from over. NOW WHAT THE HELL DO WE DO? We've exhausted our resources locally, and still no sign of the van guy. At this point, we're hoping that Dawn can reach him and put him in touch with us.

Hey, I've got a great idea! Lets find the Bull and Finch Pub. For those of you who don't know, the Bull and Finch Pub is the real bar that the television show Cheers was based off of. Ok, great... now how do we get there! I know, we'll take a bus! - Nope! No busses running from Norwood to Boston. Hmmm... how about a train? - Great, except that the nearest train that runs into the city is a long walk from the hotel. Gee, wouldn't a rental car be real nice about now?

Well... I guess TRAIN it is. The hotel manager was nice enough to give us a lift to the train station. Needless to say, the Ramada Inn in Norwood, Massachusetts gets a two thumbs up rating from me! So we arrive at the train station and are now looking to acquire tickets for the next train into Boston. WHAT FREAKIN' LUCK! The train station is closed! All locked up and shut down... except, WAIT! There's a sign in the door! "Get tickets at the gas station across the street!" But of course! Where else would you think to look for them?

So across the street we went. We bought our tickets, and asked the gas station attendant / train ticket salesperson when the next train was. His reply: "Well... looks like it leaves... NOW! You'd better hurry!"

Back across the street we run! Good! Looks like the train hasn't arrived yet. We made it!
Oh, we made it alright! The damned train didn't show up for a FREAKIN' HOUR! During that time we managed to entertain ourselves, though. We weren't the only ones waiting for the train. Among the "lucky ones" were a typical, average Boston dude, a self-proclaimed hoodlum (and generally irritating person) who kept asking us if we knew where he could get some drugs, and this really cute girl. We found ourselves engaged in the usual bullshit session one might find oneself in while waiting an hour for a train, but the highlight had to be when Joel started chucking rocks at some kid writing on the sidewalk! Now's a really good time to note that people from Boston talk kinda' funny. Upon noticing Joel's bombardment of the skater dude with the rocks, the average Boston dude said, "It's all fun and games 'till someone hits a caah." What the hell is a caah? Maybe that's something they only have in Baahston.

Oh JOY! It's been an hour, and the train has finally arrived. Just our luck... More bad news. We found out why the train was late. It has a top speed of 2 MPH! The jackass that drives the train has 2 sets of keys. One for each engine at either end of the train. Since the train can't turn around, when it reaches the end of the line, the driver switches to the other engine, and pulls the train back the way it came. Well... our dumbass driver lost his key to the other engine, and so he had to push the train from the back instead of pull it from the front. Just in case you were wondering, trains don't go very fast in reverse!

Let me just say that there's nothing quite like a paper airplane fight on a 2 MPH train in a city you've never been to with a bunch of total strangers (some of them stranger than others). We took the train to the first stop and decided we'd had enough. We could walk faster than this train could go! The cute girl took pity on us, and led us through the subway system (which was actually operating at full speed!) into the city. Had it not been for her, we might still be wandering the streets of Boston today! Besides, I really didn't mind following her out to the city.

WE MADE IT!
We're finally in the city! Hmmmm, weren't we looking for something in particular? Oh yeah! It was so long ago, I almost forgot! We're trying to find the Bull and Finch Pub. It's about 10pm and we're in the middle of a strange city (and I don't just mean unfamiliar!), so we've got two choices: 1) We can try to find the Bull and Finch Pub, and starve to death in the process, or 2) We can just eat at the first restaurant that we come across. Ok, McDonalds it is! Let me just mention this now - there are some great looking people in Boston... unfortunately, none of them were in this restaurant! These were some of the UGLIEST people I've seen yet! From the neanderthal woman behind the counter to the vagrants at the tables, there were all kinds of ugly here! And as if the uglies weren't enough, there was some big dude asleep at one of the booths. (Guess he couldn't afford a hotel room... but I'll bet he had a rental car!)

We sit down to eat, and right away, an ambulance whizzes by the restaurant and stops. Seconds later, two squad cars stop next to it. I said to my fellow cohorts, "Looks like something interesting is going on!" Something interesting indeed. The cops and paramedics walk into the restaurant! One of the cops looks up to the neanderthal woman behind the counter and said, "You guys havin' a praablem 'ere?" I thought it was a prank or something! There was nothing going on in here! Then neanderthal woman directs the cops toward our table! Holy Shit! I'm not in Boston more than a few hours, and already the cops are coming for me!

Luckily, they stopped at the sleeping vagrant. "Hey! Hey pal! Wake up! You're sleepin' in ya' food 'ere! What's his pulse? Is this guy dead? Never mind, he's breathin'. Hey! HEY!" This guy just would not wake up! As he struggles to regain consciousness, the cop continued his babble, "Hey pal! You're sleepin' in ya' food 'ere. There's kids 'ere. Ya' scarin' the kids!" They finally get the guy to wake up and acknowledge the world around him, and promptly escort him out of the building. This was only the beginning...

Well, we're nourished, and now its time to check out this city. The first thing I wanted to see was a pint of Guinness sitting on a coaster in front of me, so off to the bars we go! We started our wandering the streets and happened upon a place that looked suitable. It was an underground pub, and I don't mean underground like secret society kinda' thing. I mean underground, as in subterranean, below sea-level, under the earth, like they dug a hole and put a bar in it. The place looks cool so far: dim lighting, pool tables, good music, Guinness and Harp on tap! My kind of place... or so I thought.

Nothing goes quite like a pint of Guinness like a good cigar. It just so happened that Joel had brought along some cigars, and was kind enough to share them with Jim and I. As we started to light them up, an overbuilt bouncer comes up to me and says, "Hey, ya' caahn't smoke dat in heer!" What the hell is this? Is this the world's first non-smoking bar? Nope. There's ashtrays out. There's people smoking all over the place. Its a BAR for Christ's sake! Maybe out of towners can't smoke? Who the hell knows! So, in my usual diplomatic style and grace, I casually inquired as to why. "What the hell are you talking about?" It was this next statement that truly captured the difference in dialect, and I had to ask him to repeat it a couple of times before I finally understood what the hell he was jabbering about. "Dis baah ain't cigahh friendly." Once I finally was able to translate, I was pissed. You mean to tell me that you'll let these people light up these chemically treated, shredded, packed, processed, wrapped, and filtered shit sticks by the handful, but when someone comes down to their sewer-level establishment with a fine Dominican tobacco product, they're discriminated against and shunned away? Well they just lost our business! (Not like they really seemed to care.)

All right, now where to? We started wandering around the city just trying to take everything in... and let me tell you, there's a whole lot to take in! The streets were packed with people. All kinds of people... Primarily intoxicated people. We ran into a group of 10 women all dressed in wedding gowns running around the streets screaming, and wanting to take a couple drags off our cigars. There was a dude who set up an entire drum set out of pots, steel grilles, and a five gallon bucket. You know what, that dude sounded pretty damned good. There was a whole crowd of people waiting to get into one of the bars nearby, and most of them were dancing and jammin' around to the beat of this dude's Ace Hardware drum set. We threw a couple of bucks in his tip pot out of appreciation for the entertainment, and headed on to see the rest of the city.

Our next stop brought us to this little bar sandwiched in-between a whole row of bars. (You kinda' get the feeling that selling alcohol is a lucrative business in this town!) This place was the only one in the row that didn't have a line running out the door to get into it. We soon found out why... It was so packed, that you couldn't move through the place! I felt like a pinball being bounced around between everyone. It was really starting to get on my nerves. I was about ready to get the hell out of there, when Joel starts ordering a drink! Oh well... looks like we'll stick around for a few. This bar had one unique feature, in that it carried a ton of local micro-brews. We thought, "Sure! We're in Boston, so lets try some true Bostonian beer!" Bad idea. Oh, did it suck! I think we each took one swig from the bottle, and about choked! We handed the bottles back to the waitress, and promptly left! (Mental note, never drink a beer with a picture of 'Old Ironsides' on the label. Old Ironsides sunk, and it should have taken this beer with it!)

Back to the streets! We ran into our gang of angry brides again. Boy, were they drunk... entertaining, but drunk nonetheless! And you'll never guess who we ran into next... Nope, guess again... It was Sleeping Un-beauty from the McDonalds! He was passed out in a doorway about 3 blocks from the restaurant! I tried as hard as I could, but I wasn't able to talk Joel or Jim into posing with him for a picture! (In hind sight, I should have just had one of them take my picture with the dude!) I did manage to get one really cool picture in the midst of our wandering the city.

Ok, now here's where I get to demonstrate the "Dave's 24 Hour Access Line" AKA, my cell phone. It's always on, no matter what. I am the most accessible person in Northwest Indiana, even when I'm not in Northwest Indiana! It's about 2:00 AM, the bars are just closing, and all the drunk whackos are pouring out into the streets. We witnessed everything from people puking in the street to people wrestling on top of cars, to people talking to themselves in the middle of a park. And right in the middle of it all, my phone rings! I answer it with the usual, "This is Dave!" and this what I heard: (Mind you, it's 2:00 AM)

"Dave, it's Fred. Hey, I'm on 5th and Broadway in Gary, and my car just quit running, and I can't get it started again."

Now for those of you that aren't familiar with Gary, Indiana, it holds some kind of record for being the murder capital of the United States. (per capita, of course) Not only that, but 5th and Broadway puts you right smack in the center of it! Its not a good place for a white boy with a broken down car to be at 2:00 AM. For that matter, it's not a good place for anyone to be at 2:00 AM! Of course, he called me because aside from being the computer help desk for all my friends, I'm also the local automobile repair guy. If something goes wrong with one of my friends' cars, I'm usually the first one to hear about it. Not that I mind, at all! I'd much rather have them come to me, then get screwed by some mechanic that they don't know. Besides, I just like helping my friends out. Unfortunately, there wasn't much I could do for Fred from 950 miles away! I tried talking him through a couple of things to try to fix it, and told him to call me back if that didn't work. I still haven't told him where I am, so as far as he knows, I'm still back home!

Sure enough, the phone rings again, and he said to me, "Dave, it didn't work, I think you'll have to come out here and have a look at it." I still didn't tell him that I was in Boston, and I think he was so frazzled that he didn't catch the hint either. I told him, "Fred, the earliest I could be there would be in 6 and a half hours, and that's if Jim hadn't started drinking! You're going to have to call a tow truck! Get it towed to your place, and I'll look at it Monday night after work for you." He was a little surprised Monday night when I explained to him where I was when he called!

With that out of the way, now we have to find our way back to the hotel. Hmmm... a rental car would be real nice about now! Instead we'll have to take a cab. Well, that would have been fine and dandy, except that after all the bars close, and every jackass and his cousin are trying to hail a cab, it gets real tough to catch one before someone else does! We fought for about an hour and a half before we finally got a cab. The three of us crammed into the back of this car, and told the driver to take us to the Ramada Inn in Norwood. Now brace yourselves, folks. It took everything I had to keep from shooting this son-of-a-bitch in the back when I heard his response. He said, (in the worst Indian accent imaginable) "Do you know how to get there?"

Holy Shit! We stand out in the cold trying for an hour and a half to flag down a cab, and we get this dipshit that can't communicate worth a damn, and to top it all off, he doesn't even know his way around the city! What is it? Do these people just immigrate to the United States to drive cabs and piss people off? Did he just get off a boat, and hasn't graduated from "How to be a cab driver: 101" yet? How in the hell do you get that job without any knowledge of the outlying area? What an ASSHOLE! "No, dip ass! We're from Indiana! We don't know how to get there! We were lucky to get into the city!"

He starts looking through a bunch of books, trying to find Norwood. It's either not on his maps, or he's just too damned incompetent to read it. Perhaps you don't have to be able to speak English, or read English to be a cab driver in Massachusetts! It took him about 20 minutes before he finally figured out which direction to drive. Then he asks us if he gets us close, if we'd be able to figure it out? Apparently, he found Norwood (by some miracle), but he doesn't know where the Ramada is. We figured its better than nothing, and since the damned meter was running, and we were just sitting there, we figured we might as well get some mileage out of this dip ass!

Lucky for us, Jim recognized a couple of signs for the airport, and we were able to find the hotel once we found the airport. By the time we arrived, the meter had run up to about $45. Hmmm... how much would a rental have cost us? Yeah, I know. We should have rented the damned car. Oh well... Live and Learn.

We went straight to bed, seeing as we were all pretty wiped out, and we had to get up really early to fly back home. There was a storm that was supposed to be developing right in our flight path for the return trip, and we wanted to get in the air as soon as possible, so that we could hopefully get back before it develops. And all this time, we still haven't heard from the van guy! The whole reason we took this trip, and we haven't even heard from him yet!

When Joel and I awoke the next morning, Jim was already out at the airport, prepping the plane. We soon joined him out there, but not before making a few more phone calls to track this guy down. Still, no sign of him! We had resigned to the fact that we weren't going to find him, so we headed out to the airport. We loaded up the plane, and got our clearance to take off. We were on the runway, lined up and ready to go. Jim was just about to push the throttle full forward, and head home, when suddenly, my phone rings. I quickly threw off the headset from the plane, and answered the phone... guess who.

It was the van guy!
He apparently was out of town, and just got his messages! We're saved! I yelled to Jim, "Don't take off! It's him!" but it was to late. We were in the pattern, and there were planes waiting behind us to take off. We had to take off now! Jim got the plane up in the air, while I continued to talk to van guy. He asked where we were, and I told him that I was in a plane, taking off to head home! We made arrangements for him to come pick Joel and I up from Norwood airport, and Jim circled back around and landed again. We quickly unloaded all of my tools and Jim got right back into the air. He was in a hurry to beat that storm back home. So now it's just Joel and I. If this van doesn't work, we're stuck here! Let's keep our fingers crossed.

The van guy showed up about 20 minutes later and brought us to the van. It didn't look to be in to bad of shape. The body looked pretty solid. It seemed to run ok. And best of all, it had a working radio! We're saved! Joel signed the paperwork, and we were ready to hit the road! That is, if the transmission would work! DAMN!

Murphy's law strikes again...
Van guy informed us that it seems to be loosing transmission fluid at a rapid rate. He had some spare fluid, so he topped off the trans for us, and much to our amazement, the van moved! .... Barely. Our first stop before the highway was an AutoZone. As much as I hate AutoZone, they were the only auto parts store around, and it's real hard to screw up transmission fluid. (I've gone into an AutoZone before, and ended up teaching their parts salesmen a thing or two about cars. These people are supposed to know more than me!) We bought a case of trans fluid, a case of motor oil, and a funnel. Now we're set, right? Wrong.

We got about a mile down the highway, and we were low on trans fluid again. We pulled it over, topped it off again, and made it about another mile before it started to slip again. This is not good. We couldn't possibly afford to keep adding trans fluid at this rate. It's time to pull over and find out why it's loosing fluid so rapidly. Joel crawled under the van, and I started rummaging through the tools. When I threw together this toolkit, I made sure that I'd have enough equipment to rebuild this whole van from top to bottom if need be. It was a good thing that I brought all the junk that I did, because the item we needed was one that would have been real easy to leave behind.

The cause of our woe was a split in the steel transmission cooler line under the van. All the fluid in the trans gets pumped through this line into a small radiator, and then back to the trans before it gets used. Needless to say, it looses fluid pretty quick when there's a split in this particular line. At that point, it's classified as a spray, not a leak! I happened to have a small hack saw, a rubber fuel line, and two hose clamps. We cut the line on the split, slipped the hose over it, and clamped it down. Bada Bing - Bada Boom! Good as new! (As far as I know, that repair job is still holding to this day!) We started the van, topped off the trans fluid one last time, and checked for leaks. None found!

Here's Joel under the van on the side of the Massachusetts Turnpike

Our hands were covered in filth, so we used some industrial waterless hand cleaner that Joel had brought. You're supposed to be able to just squirt some onto your hands, and rub them together. The cleaner absorbs the grease and then starts to dry, and crumble off your hands. It works well in theory. One slight problem, though. Joel's entire arms were covered in grease, and his arms are a bit fuzzy. The manufacturer of this cleaner neglected to mention that this shit sticks to hair when it starts to dry! You can imagine the mess that made! We decided to drive to the next rest area to get cleaned up and to try to get this shit out of Joel's arm fuzz!

Joel loves knives. He always has a couple on him, and they're always kept razor sharp. You can seriously shave with his knives! It's a good thing too, because he literally had to shave the hair off his arms to get this crap off of him! Imagine what it looks like to see some dude standing in a public rest room shaving this goop off his arms! It wasn't a pretty picture.

We ate, and were back on the road in no time. Ahhh.... the van works, the radio works, and we're headed home! Jim called me once from Ohio at 1:30 PM, and then again when he made it back home at about 3 PM. He apparently didn't make it back before that storm, and ended up washing the plane in flight! (Why is it, that when the weather calls for something that would benefit us, they're wrong, but they're dead on anytime its something that would hinder us?) Jim did mention, that it was a much easier flight back after loosing 2 passengers and 100 lbs of tools!

That was about it for the rest of the trip. I will say one thing that I learned on the way back: New York drivers are generally the worst I've ever seen! Other than that, there wasn't much to mention. Joel drove the whole way back, because I had to work the next morning and he didn't. (What a guy!) I was able to get some sleep for most of the trip. It took us about 19 and a half hours to make it back. We didn't arrive in town until about 3:30 AM on Monday morning. And that was the end of our trip to Boston. It was quite the adventure! I hope to go back some day when I'm not so rushed. With as much excitement as we managed to pack into a day and a half, I can't wait to see what kind of trouble I can get into with 3 days to kill!

- Dave