2005-ish, I decide to help my best friend move from the east coast to Portland, OR. I had relocated to Olympia, WA about a year prior, so I had already made the trip in a box truck pulling my car on a flatbed, and generally knew what to expect in addition to having experience with big trucks + trailers by way of growing up on a farm. I fly back east and my buddy has already packed the U-Haul, so all we need to do the next morning is get his car onto the flatbed and head out. Everything is smooth sailing until we hit Missouri (I think it was April or May) right around the same time that a tornado shows up and rocks the shit out of the lower half of the state. Semis are getting blown over, interstates are shut down, so we try to find the nearest hotel ASAP to wait it out but everything is booked up. We finally find a small trucker motel that I’m certain was only used for prostitution. We’re skeeved out and sleep in our clothes for fear of catching crabs or something and just want to get some sleep and get back on the road at the earliest opportunity. Morning rolls around, the weather has cleared, so we hit the road. Traffic is crawling due to all the tipped semis, so we’re already more than a day behind schedule. Fuck it, I drive through the night and most of the next day, which was more comfortable for me anyway since I’m 6’2 and my buddy is like 5’6 at best, so I don’t have my knees jammed into the dash when he needs to adjust the single bench seat to drive.
We’re finally approaching Cheyenne, WY as another weather event happens. This time, it’s a freak blizzard accompanied by high winds, so once again the interstates are shut down and it is incredibly difficult to find a hotel. We finally get a room in a small motor lodge attached to a seedy bar and diner. Not ideal, but at least we can get some drinks and put cooked food prepared by an actual person into our bellies. Now, this particular bar and diner was apparently the favored hangout of local roughnecks and we became hyper-aware of not fitting in immediately upon entering. Imagine the type of joint portrayed in a Coen Brothers movie, where the jukebox skips and everyone stares when outsiders walk in. Exactly that type of vibe. We sit at the counter, order some beers and food, and do our best to become invisible and mind our own business. This went south when the two local shit-kickers at the table behind us decide to entertain themselves by asking us the same questions repeatedly in a way that became less friendly. “Where ya’ll from?” “Whatcha’ll doin’ here?” “Ya’ll drive a truck? Does the short one sit on your lap?” We’re doing our best to diffuse but it is clear that conflict may be imminent. Eventually, words are exchanged, threats are made, and we just want to get out peacefully. We settle up and head for the door, but our aggressors follow. Next thing I know, my buddy is getting sucker punched in the eye, the other tries to glass me with a beer bottle when I intervene, and now we’re in an all-out brawl in the parking lot. I don’t know if a cop was nearby or if somebody called, but within a couple of minutes we all get lit up by lights and sirens and instructed to line up against the wall, hands over our heads. All of us get cuffed, patted down, and put into 2 different cruisers so each pair can tell their side. Obviously, we were painted as the instigators by the 2 townies. Smartly, the cops didn’t necessarily buy it, so they jut cut everyone loose before giving us a warning to leave town as soon as the roads are clear, which we eagerly did the next afternoon.
I’m basically going to yada-yada the rest because this is already too long. In addition to having a fucked up and swollen eye, and me having a couple of broken fingers, my buddy then gets food poisoning from a truck stop Subway in Utah and shits repeatedly along the roadside all the way through Idaho, before we finally arrive in Oregon about 3 days later than anticipated.