Went to pass someone, when I heard a screwball "pop-pop-pop-pop" under the hood. Hrm. Hit gas. Pop-pop-pop. Hrm. Pulled over, popped hood, saw the Coil-on-plug module for the #3 cylinder dancing to the beat of the popping. Fuck. See, the 99-02 2v GT heads have a pretty common flaw in that there's only about two threads holding the spark plugs in, and under light detonation or boost, the cylinder pressure will pop them out, taking those 2 threads out of the head with it, usually requiring at least a heli-coil, sometimes a new head (MSRP-$1k+labor). If you're lucky, the threads stay on the plug, and out of the engine.
Assuming the worst, and knowing I was nowhere near anything and about 60 miles outside of Chattanooga, I was pissssssed. Got on the phone with Allstate Motorclub to get a tow truck, and my brain melted.
Me: "Yeah, need a towtruck"
AS Retard: "OK, where are you?"
me: "No clue. I'm sitting in front of the sign for exit 117 on 24E"
ASR: "Well, what town is that?"
me: "bla bla airforce something"
ASR: "What was the last town you passed?"
me: "wasn't paying attention, didn't plan on breaking down and having to call for a tow, can't you look that up in any way?"
I'm subsequentially put on hold for about 10 minutes while she tries to find me. Meanwhile, two TN troopers pull up behind me and sit for about 5 minutes. I figure they're running my tags, and I get out (with my hands up) and walk up, and find out I'm outside of Manchester, TN. Hang up, and put in a new call for a tow, and wait (and smoke like 5 cigs).
Truck shows up about 20m later, and after deciphering what the driver is saying, we're en route back up the road to Al White Ford in beautiful downtown Manchester, TN:
Dealership was closed by this time, so we just dumped the car in the lot, and the driver directed me to De Ja Vu, the bar across the street, and noted it was karaokee night. Fab. I had Nate en route from Chatty, so I mosey'd over to drown my sorrow/anger in booze and Camel Lights.
Met a few of the locals, "BoDawg", whose favorite color is clear, and his large, denim-shirt-with-no-sleeves-and-half-unbuttoned-shirt-wearing friend, either Scooter or Stubby or Smarty or smoething. Nice folk.
Of note: you can't buy hard alcohol in a bar in Manchester, TN. You can, however, go to the gas station next door, buy some booze, bring it back, and they can put Coke in it for you.
Anyway, Nate finally showed up, and we rolled back into Chatty, met up with Chris, and drank copious amounts of beer until 4am.
Friday: Since Al White Ford didn't have a keydrop box, Chris and I had to wake up at 6:30, and drive the hour back to Manchester to drop of my key and get the Mustang looked at when they opened at 7:30. Suck. Dropped off the car with the service manager, who said they'd get right to it. Which normally means, "we'll fix it when we're good and ready, you arrogant Yank prick". But to my amazement, they pulled it in and had it apart before I'd finished signing off on the paperwork. Chris & I headed up to Cracker Barrell for some much-needed coffee and gravy-covered foodstuffs. Got back, and the car was done. $78 later, the spark plug had apparnetly just worked itself loose (again, due to the short threads), but left everything intact. The roadtrip Gods had smiled upon me, and I made multiple mental notes to create a comprehensive car-based toolbox.
Drove back to Nate's, slept till about noon. Or two. Sometime. Woke up, got cleaned up, and went to Steve's Landing for some sweet tay (tea) and fan-fucking-tastic rib lovin'. Got back, drank some more beers, and headed downtown to CBC, which was this awesome pool hall/cigar bar/regular bar multi-level thing downtown. Again, they were rocking the library-style bar with ladder. Must be the new thing. Hot chicks abounded, beer and pool was cheap and plentiful.
Left around midnight, went back to Nate's for more beer (nach), more Bomberman, and more beer. Nate bowed out around 4, Chris and I stayed up chatting about Doritos X-13Ds and drinking till 6ish.
Saturday: This section of the trip is subtitled "Bad Ideas". Woke up around noon or so, hit Waffle House for a huge pile of shredded potatos covered in whatever they could scrounge up, and a waffle. Delicious. Pooped for days. Bought copious amounts of beef byproducts and canned pickled cabbage. And beer. Went out to James Roberts (aka Diesel) house for drunken Slip n' Slide. Knowing my track record with TN-based physical activities, I made sure my insurance was up-to-date, and noted the location of the nearest hospital.
Oh, and Nate made us stop and buy baby oil on the way.
The 'course' consisited of a large inflatable kiddy pool at the bottom of a steeply-sloped lot that would be covered in visqueen plastic, and properly lubricated with water, beer, dish soap, baby oil, and God knows what else.
Setup:
The final product:
Wayner/April and Tay-um/Jenniffer showed up shortly after. Wayne was half-nude and lubed within about 10 minutes of arrival. Quite the trooper. I stood by (drinking) and monitored the situation before annointing myself with ancient oils and diving in headlong myself.
Wound up slipping and/or sliding from about 4 until 9, with varying degrees of success and homo-eroticism. Such is expected when 4-5 grown half-nude men are dousing each other with dish soap/baby oil and riding them down a greased/wet sheet of plastic, much like a sled. While singing Journey. What? No, I'm serious. It's exactly as gay as it sounds.
Had some tasty grilled meats and assorted desserts, did a beer bong, more sliding, then we cleaned up, drank more beer, and then we attempted to drunken ATV in sandals, which was a complete failure, which was magnified by the fact that the trail Diesel was intending us to take was somehow missing.
Anyway, we left there around 11 after hanging out for a bit (and drinking more). Went back to Nate's, where there was, you guessed it, more drinking and Bomberman. Chris tapped out around 1, myself around 2. Woken up at 4 by drunk Ellen. Back to bed until about 7:30.
Sunday: Woke up, slapped on deodorant, packed up and hit the road. 6.5 hours later, I arrived unscathed but tired, in Collinsville. Ate BW3, took massive nap, caught up on Tivo, watched some Miami Ink, and hit the bed hard at 9ish.
My body currently feels like...well, like I'm some sort of idiot who slip and slides drunk on a very hard surface. Current damage count is as follows:
2 bruised ribs (bottom left, top right)
1 severely bruised knee (left)
5 bruised toes (seriously, the tops of my toes on my left foot are fucked)
abs of pain (I'm assuming this is mostly from straining myself to keep Deisel's quad from flipping over on the pseudo-trail)
General muscular pain.
All in all,
AWESOME TRIP.
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