This story has Tiger content in it, only in the sense that we were heading
to Evergreen, CO from Oklahoma City to pick up a Tiger that I had just
bought over the phone. Myself and two friends, Greg and Dennis, took
Greg's F-250 truck and gooseneck trailer to pick up the car. Having had
alot of towing experience with his trailer, Greg knew that, without any
weight on the trailer, it would give us a pretty bouncy ride. So, before
leaving that Friday evening, he strapped two 55 gallon drums to the center
of the trailer floor and filled them with water, thereby giving us enough
ballast to keep the trailer firmly planted on the road.
I had never been on a road trip with these guys before but had heard about
some of their antics. Needless to say, I figured we would at least have a
good time. I should have known things were going to be wild when, after
spending about half an hour in a neighbors storm cellar as a tornado passed
over, we headed out in the middle of the remainder of the storm. We made
it through the wild weather and drove all night. We switched off the
driving duties and while one person was driving, one was riding shotgun and
the other was sleeping in the sleeping bag that Greg brought (in the open
bed of the truck...in the cold spring night...brrrr). Anyway, along about
8:30am the next morning, we were between Colorado Springs and Denver. The
grades were beginning to get a little steep and Greg made the comment to
Dennis that we ought to lighten our load by draining the water from the
drums. I figured that we would pull over and get a little stretching done
whilst Dennis drained the drums...but, noooooooo! Dennis reached under the
seat of the truck and produced a hatchet. He then proceeded to crawl
through the sliding rear window of the truck and into the bed. With Greg
laughing his butt off and me sitting there slack jawed, Dennis crawled over
the gooseneck of the trailer and onto the trailer bed with the damn hatchet
in his mouth! We were still doing about 65 mph when all this was taking
place. Then, holding onto the drums with one hand, Dennis proceeded to
hack holes in the bottom sides of both drums, allowing the water to stream
off the back of the trailer. He then reversed his steps and crawled back
over the neck of the trailer and back into the cab of the truck. You
should have heard the CB chatter goin' on! The folks that saw us radioed
that they thought Dennis was a nutcase; the ones who didn't radioed that we
had some sort of a major fuel leak and should pull over before we blew up!
We laughed all the way to Denver and, when we pulled into town, we
deposited the slashed drums at a car wash dumpster and continued on the way
to Evergreen. What a trip!!! We still laugh about it to this day, but I
think privately now we wonder how we managed to keep from getting killed!!
Happy Sunbeaming,
Andy Walker
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