Brian Hynes has a blog

Road trips hold so much promise and rarely do they turn out the way you expected them to. Some open your eyes to the actual beauty and scale of this country. Others create bonds of friendship that can never be broken. Or in my case it leaves you wondering.

Sometime last week I made plans to go on a short road trip with a friend of mine, Angelia, who needed to find a place to live in New Paltz, NY where she will be pursuing her masters degree in art. We hadn’t caught up in a good while so I agreed without hesitation. She picked me up in her 98′ Jeep and our greeting quickly morphed into a warning. “The AC is broken. Sorry.” No biggie. My wrangler doesn’t have air conditioning either, but I’m usually only on the road for ten minutes with the front windows down and the rest unzipped to create the cool canopy effect. The lack of cool air both inside and out took its toll on the two of us as we sat on the New York State Thruway for a good two hours of bumper-to-bumper preview of hell on a highway.

After finally arriving in New Paltz I unstuck my t-shirt from my back and took a look around. “What a great little hippie town.” We took a tour of the first room for rent and left feeling a lack of excitement. “The second place is going to be much better. I have a gut feeling”, Angelia proclaimed. Anytime anyone says they have a ‘feeling’ about something I usually respond in my head, “Oh good for you”, and knowing my friend I just let it roll of my sweaty back. After a couple of cold beers at the local watering hole we felt alive again and decided to check out the local art supply stores. We quickly split up inside the shop and by the time I found Angelia in the paint aisle she had kicked up the only splinter from the store’s ancient floorboards.

Sometimes you just shouldn’t wear flip flops. This was definitely one of those times. The splinter was a good eight inches long and it sure left its mark on her big toe. That was our sign to leave. A few words with the owner, a bit of tape, a free sample product later and we were on our way to the next room for rent. Remember that ‘gut feeling’ that she had? It wound up being a washed up artist/mom who was mowing the lawn, a German Shepherd, and a six year old who made me believe in ADD. Oh, if only I had stayed in the car.

The last tenant had moved in with her boyfriend(I like to think of it more as her escape) and decided to stop paying rent. That was the first sign of trouble. The second was the fact that every inch of the room this young runaway once kept was covered in this runaway’s underwear. After I discovered the month old cup of hot chocolate left sitting on the dresser we both agreed this place would never be called home. The over friendly German Shepherd had warmed up to me because I seemed to be the only one giving the dog any attention. And by ‘warmed up to me’ I really mean it had shared one of its fleas with me which I felt crawling through my leg hair. Turns out Angelia is extremely allergic to fleas. ‘Check Please!’ Not that we needed another reason to say the hell with this dump, but finding the flea, allergy or no allergy, was enough to make that first place look like a 5-star hotel.