…giant flying weasels that breathe fire
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Life On The Magic Bus
Chapter 9, Part 3: Across America At Random
Burgers on the beach
Routes are revealed
8/9/2014
The Magic Bus arrived at the meeting place in Fort Bragg at 8:00 in the morning. The official “party beach” was Glass Beach, so called because of all the sand smoothed colored glass found there. The various competing vehicles were parked across the street in the parking lot of the former A-1 Used Cars lot. Besides the 15 vehicles involved, there were at least 40 more, 7 of them from Northern California radio or television stations.
The Fort Bragg Visitor’s Bureau was really taking advantage of this. There were signs up welcoming “The Great Random Race” and they had set up tables and barbecues on the beach. Small towns needed all the publicity they could get.
From the road above the beach, Doc spotted Phil Lacewood standing in a mall crowd talking to a TV reporter. He also saw another reporter and cameraman coming toward himself.
“Okay”, he said to Grace and the Smiths, “If you don’t want to be on TV, scatter. Lucy, you stick with Mom & Flash. Sasha, you go with Uncle Spike & Auntie Mary.”
They all walked off just as the reporters who were from the big Sacramento station, approached him. Doc turned on his smile and told the nice woman reporter that of course he would talk on camera about the race.
11 hours later, the reporters were off having dinner, everyone on the beach was full of burgers & beer, and the drivers & passengers if the 15 vehicles were gathered around a nice fire talking.
Besides the Magic Bus crew, the other contestants were…
The 4 Lacewoods & their two dogs, in a Saab Monte Carlo
The Drago sisters and their “travel loving cat”, in a neon pink 1963 VW Bug
Ed & Ella Hanson, riding a 1950 Harley Davidson with custom sidecar
The “Brown Gamers Guild”, all 9 of them, from Los Angeles, in a Dodge van
The 5 person, 2 dog, 1 cat, Patterson Family, from Colorado, in an RV
The Dorgan brothers from St. Johns, Newfoundland, in a ’49 Ford pickup
The 5 person Heroic Games crew, in a Honda Odyssey
Cody & Amber Judson in a Honda Civic
The 4 “Long Island RPG Ladies” in a 1967 Mustang
Lance & Missy Moon on his & hers Triumph motorcycles
Paul Chung & his two sons in a Toyota Camry
Stella Alvarez and her grandmother in a 1970 Corvette
“Jersey Jack” & his dog in a 1958 Cadillac
And finally, The 30 person “UC Santa Cruz Gaming Club” in an unconverted school bus decorated with paintings of banana slugs as D&D characters.
“Well”, Doc began, “this whole thing blew the hell up, didn’t it?”
Phil nodded. “That it did. There are already two dozen folks asking to drive next year.”
“Holy crap! We may have created a monster. Doc then turned to Sasha and said, “Sasha, go get me a Guinness, please.”
Sasha trotted off and soon came back with a bottle.
“Damn! That is one hella well trained dog”, said a Santa Cruz gamer.
Sasha woofed at him, then took a bow.
A few hours later, it was nearly midnight. About 300 people were in the A-1 parking lot looking at monitors that would soon show the routes they would leave on for the Day One leg of the journey. Online, the Choosing committee stood in front of a big bowl full of little envelopes. There were twice as many routes as there were vehicles, to allow for better randomness.
When the clock hit midnight, Pacific Time, the first envelope was drawn for Phil, because it was his idea.
And the Lacewoods would be heading to Arizona via mostly county roads in eastern California and western Nevada.
Doc chuckled. “Enjoy the desert. Don’t let any scorpions get under your kilt.”
Then the Magic Bus got it’s route.
Doc listened to the route being read, then said, “Huh, Fort Bragg to Lakeview , Oregon via every pissant backroad they could find. Well, we are up to the task!”
The other 13 routes were read off and people would be headed more or less east via routes from almost Washington state to almost Mexico. Doc was looking forward to hearing everyone’s nightly reports.
When the route announcement was done, there was more interviewing by reporters, then everyone was off to bed.
As Doc crawled under the sheets, Grace said, “Well, I guess this time we’re really taking the scenic route.”
Doc was still chuckling when he fell asleep.
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