Gas Stop Blues

The road to Philadelphia was fraught with perils - if your definition of ‘perils’ was 'obnoxiously large billboards advertising the salvation of your soul and a number of overpriced gas stations.’ Elizabeth scribbled “buying gas station burritos” to the end of her ever-growing List of Forbidden Activities the third time Blair christened the leather seats of the minivan with her vomit, right under “stopping to photograph weirdly shaped rocks” and “playing that one Carly Rae Jepsen song on repeat”.

“According to google maps, this trip should have taken like six hours. Can somebody explain why we’ve been stuck in the car for two days now?” Blair tapped vigorously on the phone keyboard, replying to yet another message from her mysterious friend. “Dave is getting impatient.”

“MAYBE it’s because SOMEBODY keeps stealing the phone of the chief navigator!”

“Lizzie it’s not my fault my flip phone doesn’t connect to the internet.”

“You could have had a regular phone like a normal person.”

“Nah. Besides, flip phones are totally coming back into style. I just read this buzzfeed article about it!” She brandished the screen in Elizabeth’s face which resulted in an eye roll and unamused snort as the phone was snatched back.

“Hey I need that! I’m in the process of setting us up with a travel blog. Which name do you like better: Gypsy Souls or The Runaways?”

“Holy hell. Go for the one that sounds more like a cool rock band and less like the sickly perfume of a B list celebrity, and tell your friend Dave that it’s not our fault he lives on the edge of flipping nowhere.”

Elizabeth adds ‘stealing my iphone’ to her list and settles back into the passenger seat. She reaches for a bright blue powerade from their “pile” - an accumulation of snacks and drinks from the odd general store and Honey’s backpack. Unfortunately for Elizabeth the “pile” was now mostly consisted of wrappers and empty bottles.

“We need to make another stop soon,” Elizabeth told Max, who was still driving despite a serious lack of breaks.

Max didn’t respond but a minute later there was a sharp left-hand turn which caused Honeydew to smash her nose against the window that she had been staring out of for the last few hours. Elizabeth was still very curious about her, Blair and Max had taking a liking but all she had really done so far was sleep and gaze to the horizon. Maybe they could have a heart-to-heart over the type of chips they should buy.

Max pulled into a shabby gas station, “Alright! we are going to make a list of things we need and we will systematically-” she didn’t even finish the sentence before everyone was clambering quickly out of the minivan.

Max was filling up the tank with his hand shielding his eyes from the glare of the mid-morning sun and the girls were already gathering supplies by the time Elizabeth walked in to the ‘ting’ of the bell at the door.  There was a trucker in the store who was giving HoneyDew weird looks as he bought his red bull and cigarettes. She stuck out her tongue at him.

Blair made it her duty to make sure they had snack coverage and most importantly they would never run out of Milky Ways. While HoneyDew was grabbing the largest lemonade she could get her hands on Elizabeth took it upon herself to cover the more important food groups and got everyone a questionable looking sandwich for breakfast.

When the got back to the van, Max was leaning against the side with his eyes half shut.

“I’ll drive from here,” Blair said and took the keys.

Max half climbed half fell into the back seat and HoneyDew pulled out a almost fluorescent coloured blue long sock from her bag and passed it to him. Max wrapped it around his eyes and almost immediately everyone could hear slight snoring from the gentle giant. Honey climbed in on the passenger side and cradled her lemonade. With Blair driving Elizabeth went around the other side and sat in the backseat, Max’s head resting on her leg.

“With Miss. Fusspot/Carly-Rae-Jepsen-Hater in the back do you know what that means?” Blair cheekily asked HoneyDew, giving her a wink.

Elizabeth put her head in her hands. By the time they past the New Jersey border and “I Really Like You” had been played to an extreme amount Liz had thrown her “Road Trip What Not To Do” list to the wind.