NYC or Bust #4

We Lost Our Hood in St. Louis

Half way between Kansas City, Mo. and St. Louis, Mo. our car started to notify us that it wanted to be re-timed.  The front end started to boil and spew steam and the motor started to backfire and shoot black smoke out the rear-end.  We weren't completely obtuse so we pulled over and re-timed the motor.

It was an extremely hot and sticky day and one of the three geniuses on board suggested that we could help the motor run cool if we removed the engine hood.  We did this but the only place we could place it was on top of the car. Since the food and sleeping bags were already on the roof of the car, the hood was placed on top.  It looked like a crown of some kind.  "There, that should prevent the engine from running so hot", we said.

We arrived in St. Louis about four in the afternoon, just as the evening rush hour was starting.  We were now traveling on the first multi-lane highway we had ever experienced.  It was a six-lane highway (three lanes each way) and traffic was getting heavy. We were moving just as fast as the car would go and we were still holding up traffic.  At that instance, because of our high speed and a strong gust of wind, the hood flew off the top of our car onto the highway and landed in the middle lane.  Can you imagine the chaos this created.  The car in the middle lane swerved into the outside lane in an attempt to miss the hood.  Unfortunately there was a car already in that lane. That car applied brakes and was immediately rear-ended by a following car.  The same thing was happening in the outside lane.  What we had here was a bumper-car situation just like those at a carnival.

Now, can you visualize us stopping and trying to recover that hood off a busy highway from among all those furious drivers?  Absolutely not!  We just drove on, never to see that hood again.  We knew we had caused a world-class traffic jam because we were the only car on that eastbound highway for some time.  We all felt guilty for the catastrophe we had caused, but we knew that if we were stopped by the state highway patrol, our car would probably be confiscated as totally unsafe for use on any highway.

We were now driving a 1930, Model A Ford that wouldn't start unless we pushed it, had no cover over the engine, had some food and sleeping bags loaded on top of the car and had signs reading "New York City or Bust" painted on the outside.  It embarrasses me just to think about it.  We were three characters right out of "Grapes of Wrath."  We were the epitome of three hicks from the country.