Before cell phones became luxuries and eventually necessities, being on the road meant you were out of touch with friends and family. Truck drivers, however, led the way in developing a way to communicate on those long road trips, and otherwise indecipherable phrases made sense. "Breaker one-nine. This is KDB9323. Come on back."
That's how my Uncle Roy would sign onto his Citizen's Band radio in Alabama, where he would buy and sell CB radios that could "walk and talk" on the side of country roads to make some extra money. In California, Tony would sign on under his handle, the Stump Jumper, shortly after starting the engine on his royal blue, big-as-a-whale Chrysler to drive to Golden West College. Pat was a trucker at heart, so you can bet his Chevy pick-up had a CB. Gloria loved her TR, as she called her Triumph, just the way it was, so she didn't want anything stuck into her dashboard that wasn't stock issue. Therefore, we couldn't communicate between the vehicles going cross country. This proved to be a big disadvantage.
On Interstate 70, the Eisenhower Tunnel allows motorists to avoid going over the top of the mountains, but the elevation of the tunnel is still the highest point on the US Interstate Highway System at 11,158 feet. Gloria's TR had no trouble making the climb, but Pat's truck struggled with the heavy load, forcing us to pull over several times for it to cool down before reaching the summit.
Eventually, the pick-up survived the uphill climb in thin air, and we were jubillantly heading down hill through the beautiful mountains into Denver. After checking into a motel, Pat suggested going down to the nearby bar and grill for some dinner. Gloria had been growing increasingly agitated along the road, and she said she didn't feel like going out. Pat insisted he and I go anyway.
It was your typical cowboy kind of place, and nothing eventful happened that I can recall. We played a game of pool and had a Coors while our food cooked. About an hour later, we returned to the motel to find Gloria's TR gone. Gloria had flown the coop.
The fact that she was too tired to go out made her disappearance more of a mystery, and since cell phones didn't exist and she didn't have a CB, we had no way of knowing what had happened to her. In a panic, we packed our things and jumped in the truck. We assumed she must still be going east, because our first assumption was that she was so ticked off about us going to the cowboy bar without her that she was hightailing it to upstate New York, where most of her family lived. With all the disappearances that we hear about these days, like Lacey Peterson and Natalie Holloway, perhaps we would have assumed something more nefarious had it happened thirty years later. As it was, she had only been gone for an hour or less, so I doubt the police would have been interested in hearing about it.
After a long day nursing that truck over the continental divide, we ended up driving all night trying to catch Gloria. Pat liked the Beach Boys and the Beatles, but he considered himself a cowboy, so of course his favorite singer was Johnny Cash. Pat always had a flare for the dramatic, and hanging out with him often felt like being in a movie. This night was definitely such a time.
Now perhaps if Gloria had a CB, she could have set our minds at ease. Or maybe she could have used it to avoid being caught by Pat. In any case, we were zooming out of Colorado and through the plains of Kansas with Pat checking with truckers on the CB to see if anyone had seen that British Racing Green GT6. After about three hours, we finally received a positive report. A truck driver had seen a woman with curly hair driving a Triumph about sixty miles in front of us. Pat turned up the booming 8-track tape of Johnny Cash's Greatest Hits as we sped through the night, occasionally turning it down to check the CB for updated info. I don't remember the town, but somewhere in Kansas, we pulled into a restaurant parking lot, and there was the TR. To say Gloria had a surprised look on her face when she walked out of the restaurant would be a gross understatement.
They exchanged a few words in private, and later Pat told me that the crux of the issue was that she thought we had gone off to party. After all, she had said, they were supposed to be starting a new life, and here Pat had brought his friend along for the ride. That he chose to spend time with that friend instead of staying with his wife bothered her. We had to admit she had a point, although the fact that Pat tried to get her to go with us seemed to be irrlevant. I wonder if Pat ever learned to understand women? In any case, they kissed and made up, and we were off again. Gloria was tired from driving all night, so she rode with Pat in the truck, and I got to drive the Triumph again.
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