They forgot to add that the journey ends with a flat tire. Lucky for me, I had two journeys this weekend. They were 2 hours apart, and one was NOT appreciated.

Here's the short version of the 34 hours of Detroiting:

~~"Well, see you in Detroit. We'll have dinner waiting."

~~"Are we there yet?" "No." "Are we there yet?" "No."

~~"I should call you Foo Foo from now on. No more the Hottie. Little Bunny Foo Foo..."

~~"He's a crazy child molester. Seriously." "..."

~~"You're cooking your food in your stomach *right now*."

~~"It's a James Brown weekend. Woo hoo!"

~~"199 miles to go." "Is that all?" "HELL YEAH."

~~"Oh, Gary. How we love you so. Such a delicate and sweet city..."

And now, the long version. Settle in with some Vanilla Coke, the unofficial sponsor of this little adventure.

So the Hottie and Disco Diva and I were going to visit Detroit this weekend to see a friend, and it's been planned for ages. We shake off sleep Saturday morning, get in the car(s), and take off. Now, for clarity: Biker Boy was in town unexpectedly, so he drove Disco Diva back with him, and the Hottie and I followed. That is to say, we followed for about 10 blocks until he decided that he wasn't going to follow the route we discussed, and he waves as he turned onto Wacker and we...didn't. Fateful words were then said: "Man, I hope this won't be like our last road trip. Remember the cows?"

Uh, yeah. Pretty much within the next 2 miles, the rear passenger tire blows and we find ourselves across from Soldier Field, hysterically laughing at this turn of events. We call Biker Boy, who doesn't really show much surprise or sympathy. He'll "see us in Detroit." We call GQ, who shows much more concern, and Budget, who suck. Already, they're sinking fast. We muster up courage and change the tire ourselves. The Hottie takes up lugnut duty after I pry off the hubcap, while I wrestle the jack out of the holder in the trunk. Since there wasn't an owner's manual, brute force is always the best tool. We caused a gaper's block (woo!), effectively allowing us to say that we've stopped traffic. (Of course, it had NOTHING to do with the bootay hanging out of the trunk, or as we worked on stubborn lugnuts and presented posteriors to oncoming traffic...nosirree. Not at all.) Of course, did anybody stop? NO.

The only person who stopped actually had the nerve to ask us how to get to 57. Because people in distress WANT to be tour guides? Right. He was useless when asked just where the jack should go...I was pretty sure I knew but there's nothing like affirmation to make the moment better. He drives off and we start to lift the car. At this point, the camera comes out. We have action shots of us hoisting the car, changing the tire, and then attempting to put the donut on. Oh, the wee donut...how much do we love the donut? THIS MUCH.

Back in the car, cold, dirty, and full of self-congratulations, a cop car pulls up--perfect timing on his part. I hop out to meet Officer Hargraves, the nicest cop in Central 001, who is quite proud of us for attaching the donut ourselves. He even takes some pictures for us, making sure to include his car and the traffic. He then leads us to a automotive store, remains as advocate to make sure we're taken care of (which we weren't initally, so he rocks), and then he took off and we return to Budget to swap cars. They didn't seem too happy about this, but what could we do? There was a screw imbedded into the tire (the head had worn down along with the treads) and it was ENTIRELY NOT OUR FAULT. Armed with a new car and a can of Vanilla Coke, we take off again, 2 hours late.

We miss the Skyway, effectively sending us the long way to Indiana. (Don't ask. We don't know either.) We eat Burger King, where we get watches to commemorate our adventure du jour. We count off the fingernail-lengths left. We listen to bad music. We laugh hysterically. We caravan with strangers for hours, weaving in and out of traffic with our one goal--getting the hell out of the car. More head-banging-inducing music. I think the Blaze was transplanted to Southeastern Michigan. Yay, Jackson! Yay, Ann Arbor! Yay, Detroit? Just how the hell do we get to Royal Oak, anyway? I used to know, but that was before all my car-care information shoved it aside to remember how *not* to send the jack thru the rear floorboards. We call the house, where they've already had Spa Day without us. It seems we missed an exit near Ann Arbor; so much like missing the Skyway, we're devoted to the 'long way'. We go thru Detroit, with 94 and 75 feeling like home as exit and entrance ramps whiz by. Look! The giant Uniroyal tire with the nail sticking out! It seems that Budget uses Goodyear. We almost took a picture to give them...but we were laughing too hard.

Final directions were misunderstood, so while we saw two Tubby's Subs (a goal of the trip), we overshot our goal by a good 4 miles. ::sigh:: Back to the dimly-lit streets where you can't see houses or house numbers...so Foo Foo (the Hottie) gets out with her cell and checks the houses up close. She takes off down the street with me creeping alongside...much like a stalker, in fact. I'm laughing, she's laughing and trying to run, and the house we *think* is his has, at that moment, a huge burly scary man hulking in the window...much like a child kidnapper/molester at this point. We try to decide if it's the right place, nobody comes out onto the porch but instead stands at the door looking back at us as I'm in the middle of the street with Foo Foo laughing and fighting for breath as we can't believe that this is how the trip ends. No me molesta!

We get into the house, and immediately head out to dinner. No more sitting...please. Seriously. I can't take much more, my calf is twiching like a cokehead and the thought of eating anything after drinking my weight in Vanilla Coke is not good. Too bad...tapas rock. And are oh-so-tasty. Dinner conversation included the debate over mussels v. clams v. crustaceans, and Disco Diva knows waaaay too much about the mollusk family. We hit the hottub, where we were so happy it was crazy. Somebody *had* to bring up the mussels in our tummies (recooking right now! Feel them trying to escape?), which is not what you want to think about while gently simmering. On the rest of the evening's high-energy entertainment: Donnie Darko, a movie that will have you talking/discussing/pondering for a while. Watch out for Frank, people. He's truly a disturbing vision.

::shudder::

We girls each had a different level of the house to sleep on, but we all ended up in the basement with couch cushions as the makeshift third bed, giggling like it was the best sleepover ever.

Which it was.