Rammstein and the Radar Detector

August 2006. Midday. Somewhere on the I-80. Maybe Wyoming.

Picture a majestic frontier, where the great plains slam into the rocky mountains. Breathtaking vistas of rolling hills colliding with oceans of rock; creating random meadows of vast prairie that give hints of flattening terrain as you descend slowly into lower elevation. Like Montana’s younger, more progressive cousin; Wyoming has a mixture of ranch-hand cowboy versus Colorado liberalism as you drive through the lower half of the state.

A dark green Chevy uplander, the exact color of an emerald-green beetle, crests the top of a hill and smoothly descends downward, hugging the deep lines of the curved road, cutting swiftly through the canyon at 110 miles an hour. The thumping bass and loud, heavy guitar of Rammstein fills the air as the SUV rushes past.

The SUV then guns up the next crest, and just as it leveled out on top, that mere fraction of a moment right before the descent, the radar detector emits a long, siren-like “pinging” noise reminiscent of a ray gun. The inside of the car erupts into cheers, and the SUV begins to slow down, gradually coasting into the posted speed limit. There it crested over the next hill, at a respectable speed. Obeying the rules of the road, and calmly, quietly passing by the glinting chrome of the highway patrol car and the officer, radar gun perched on their arm.

The beginning of the middle

Earlier that year I decided it was time to move to Chicago from Sacramento. After my brief foray there I had become thoroughly attached and was focused to the point of obsession about a certain someone.

This is a love story, by the way.

It was a situation manifested purely from chaos and love, all because I would have done absolutely anything to get closer to a person. In an extremely bizarre, almost indescribable twist, the fates listened to me and opened up the universe so that I could completely and metaphorically, move mountains.

To which we later would drive through, blasting music and (basically) evading the cops.

It’s the truth. I was just completely smitten with both a person and a place. Back in Sacramento there was a panoramic poster of Chicago taped to the inside wall of my closet, and I would pull back the clothes every morning, look at the city and take a dreamy sigh of relief that I had such firm, direct goals. This was pure, unmitigated manifestation. I knew without a doubt it would happen, and when the logistics inexplicably started falling into place, it was obviously fate. The idea of being back was a beacon of light that shined through an extraordinarily dark period of time for me, post hurricane Katrina and post engagement breakup. This was the sort of trip that would leave its mark indefinitely.

Mike was my ride or die. We met several years previously and connected on all levels: wit, crass humor, interests, deep weird, long discussions about existential topics, and a true affection that deeply evolved with us as we aged and navigated through life. Sometimes together, often apart. It was a connection that I will admit here, I’ve never been able to match to this day.

He was going to fly over to Sacramento and we were going to road trip all the way to Glendale Heights, IL.

How in the absolute hell I managed to secure a rental car from Sacramento airport to take us all the way to the suburbs of Chicago still mystifies me to this day. Maybe I lied, maybe I was honest and maybe it was someone’s first day and their mistake. Either way this would be the first and last time I was completely allowed to execute this plan by a rental company. My trip partner would repeat this a few times on the road, as we beat the ever living shit out the vehicle.

The idea for the radar detector was born from his genius. This man held a firm adoration for fast cars and mechanics, harbored a deep penchant for speed and loud engines, and was a talented master of subterfuge. This device was detrimental to this upcoming adventure.

As the road trip panned out, we researched which states a detector was illegal in and how much the fines costed. To our pure delight, the only states that could be problematic were California and Illinois. The states that were the bookends of our journey. Surely we could behave ourselves at the beginning and end of the trip.

When the day actually arrived I was amped, completely charged full of voltage over the anticipation of what was to come. I remember feeling so completely in control of my own destiny, and the future seemed incredibly bright.

The reunion after a year apart was sweet, intense, and went by in a blur of picking up the rental car, stopping by to visit my grandmother, meeting with my friends, drinks and dinner, and shoving every last open crevice of the SUV full of what was left of my belongings.

Mike was ever the gentleman. Polite, engaging and adorable- winning everyone over instantly. The emotional security of having someone who knew every nuance of my life by my side with this adventure was tantalizing. The delight of introducing him to my inner circle in Sacramento was such a neat way to tie all the threads together. Even though it was so completely bizarre, this convergence of two separate worlds.

The jarring reality of having someone suddenly with me in a city where I had serious life changing events happen before I even knew them, and where I was living when I had met them online, was only what I can describe as a startling catharsis. Sacramento saw the end of my family, the permanent division of siblings and parents, the ebb and flow of meaningful friendships, the beginning and the ending of an engagement, various job situations, and just a life force that I could never get on the right side of, no matter how hard I would try. Sacramento would lure me in and spit me right back out every time I would try to come back. We had an extremely toxic relationship.

Time to end that chapter and move forward. We had places to be and mountains to speed through.

The Road Trip

Quite eager to get on the road, we wasted no time. After a splurge at the store, that naturally looked like a 5 year old supervised our snack purchasing, we were on the 80 freeway heading north to Reno. In my possession were several maps, printed directions from MapQuest, and random directions scribbled in one of my notebooks. There were no smartphones; only he had a working cell phone and were fairly unconnected to internet unless we stopped at a hotel or certain stores. This was unfiltered, raw adventure on the cusp of the age before phone data connected you to the internet. Where you could drive hours with nothing but road, cars and weather ahead.

Ever the tech guy, Mike had provided us with a laptop for in-flight entertainment with movies. Ever the music nerd, I was the provider of tunes in the form of CD’s. A various accumulation of various genres, collections and lime wire rips from years before.

Once we were off on the 80 freeway heading towards Reno, the high energy sparked between us and we chatted animatedly for well over an hour, before we realized we were going 120 miles an hour with an illegal radar detector. I plainly remember him slowing down and admitting to me that we did “not need to be going a buck twenty” down the freeway. At least not at this point in time.

We felt like we didn’t have a care in the world with the radar detector.

That day was a whole lot of empty desert, solid conversation, music and random radar pings. I just remember gazing out the window almost languidly at points, thinking about the fact that I was looking at the vast desert with its random water towers, utility buildings and farms that I would see from a plane during a red eye flight 35,000 feet above. At night this would all just be blinking, wavering lights below. But by day, it was this massive stretch of uninhabitable land.

Day slowly crept into night, and before we knew it we were coasting into Utah.

The only way we realized we were in Salt Lake City was with the absolute rotten stench of the salt flats as we zoomed on the 80 towards the capital. We had the windows down briefly and we were in complete disbelief that this was a real situation. How could anyone handle living close to this olfactory assault.

We actually zoomed so fast that we drove THROUGH Salt Lake City and pretty much left it in the dust. When we realized we were suddenly driving into a mountain range, we pulled off at the nearest, well-populated exit and amazingly found a hotel in the middle of the night. I had reservations in SLC but we really had no idea where we were and we were tired, so this was our new stopover.

It wasn’t until we woke up to a beautiful, blue skied, warm morning that we found out we were actually RIGHT by the Olympic Park just outside of Park City, Kimball Junction. One of us opened the curtains and in astonishment exclaimed “Oh holy shit look at the mountains!”.

Kimball Junction was home to the absolutely whitest Walmart we had ever experienced, being Chicago/Los Angeles raised. We both had a sense of unease and it just didn’t make sense. WAY too white and neatly stocked but at least we found what we needed in a timely manner. I’m sure my snacks involved red vines.

We settled in for the stretch from Utah to Nebraska. This was where things started to get fun, and this was also when we noted we seemed to be jointly developing a little obsession with a certain band.

Rammstein

I had brought my entire (large) book of CD’s with us but we never got past three albums. We had in our possession Rammstein’s Mutter, Herzeleid, and Reis Reis. These became our official road trip soundtracks. We would listen to them, in their entirety, and then just hit repeat. Over and over, no words spoken, we didn’t even have to ask if the other person wanted to hear it- we just knew. Soundlessly we would reach over each other and hit the repeat button and enjoy the passing scenery of mountain desert mixed with Rocky Mountain high. We were Rammstein and Rammstein was us.

Zwitter was our favorite song.

This stretch would become infamous in the years after when we would tell this story to other people. This was the stretch of radar activity. Because of the hilly terrain of Wyoming, we found that with the 2006 top of the line radar detector we would get the first ping over a hill with the highway patrol some distance away. So we would slow down at that ping, sometimes even push it till the next hill crest, but immediately slow down to the speed limit when we hit the crest exactly. Minutes later we would see the highway patrol with radar guns usually underneath an overpass, as we clipped along at the posted speed limit (respectfully and innocently).

We adapted FAST and had a rhythm that was purely devious. Speed on the highway, get that first radar ping that was just a couple miles away, slow down after a minute, rinse/repeat. Rammstein blasting out of the speakers. Someone in one of our little speeding packs DID get pulled over during this stretch, as they did not have the technology that we possessed. I seem to remember some vague contention from them as we passed but I will never forget Mikes raucous laughter. He might have even honked the horn.

We continued this pattern for hours. Rammstein blasting. A radar ping. Slowing down. Spotting the cops. Cheering. Resuming shenanigans.

Rammstein and the radar detector kept us thoroughly entertained all the way to our next spot. Smalltown, sort of ghetto at the time, North Platte, Nebraska.

I remember this stop over in flashes, like a fever dream. It was a half empty, vaguely run down hotel that I made reservations for, and we were just tired and grateful for the room. Did some exploring when we got there and somehow got into an unused wing that had ALL orange walls and green carpet. I remember being vastly confused until I realized I was on the wrong floor trying to get ice. On the way in we passed a Mexican restaurant that we planned to come back to for dinner. It was vaguely Mexican. More Mexican adjacent. There were chips and salsa at least, but we both could swear that the enchilada sauce was really SpaghettiOs sauce. But I think we also just agreed that we were in…North Platte, Nebraska. People were definitely looking at us but it was probably because we were laughing at everything.

The next morning, more than unsettled about Nebraska in general as both a concept and a state, we unanimously agreed to just push hard to Illinois. Mike was pretty certain we would make it before dark, and I was inclined to agree. We would make this work. There was little radar action with this length of the trip. Why?

Because the drive was BRUTAL. I actually drove a bit this time and it was just rows and rows of corn, church signs, and “sodomy is illegal” signs peppered around the highway. Neither one of us wanted to stop longer than we had to because of the shitty vibe the rest of Nebraska and most of Iowa was projecting along the freeway.

Once again I had this realization that these were the states I would see when I was flying from Detroit to Sacramento after visiting my family in Canada. Endless miles of farmland, sprawled out underneath a plane. The limitless, endless view of these states was more impressive from above, as I was completely not interested in the churches and sex stores that alternated exits as you sped toward the border.

Of course, Rammstein was still on repeat.

Actual footage: Map reflected in the corner, Rammstein on in the background

Luckily we just sailed through the 80, only finding traffic in Davenport, to which we both only knew about from the movie Tommy Boy. It was there we went over the Mississippi and I thought of my sister, who was at the time back in New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina.

We would constantly bring up how awesome the previous day had been with the radar detector and driving. Giggling at each other between conversations about how incredibly flat and full of corn Iowa seems to be at any given moment. Blasting Rammstein. Sometimes turning it down to chat. Other times turning it up loud to drown out the freeway white noise.

For several miles we had a guy on a motorcycle riding our ass, so Mike explained “drag” or “drafting” to me as we sped along. I found this fascinating and started looking at transport trucks with bikes close behind them supposedly saving gas money. The biker finally pulled a head of us and saluted us as he passed us up.

Coming Home

We sailed on the 80, merged to the 88, and then onto the I-64 coming in near West Chicago. I started recognizing bits and pieces of land as we started making our way back into the greater Chicago area. We were still riding the momentum high of such a whirlwind trip, but I remember having the window down towards the end, letting the wind ruffle my curls as I took in the sights and sounds of Illinois. We breezed through green tree’d, cozy neighborhoods inching closer to home, with Rammstein still on repeat.

I was so happy to be back. Just the idea of being around him and his mom again left me with this deliriously full, happy feeling. I really felt like I completed that unit and couldn’t wait to get back to this new home. The accomplishment of this move left me feeling completely invincible and I remember hugging Mike often, at random, out of pure happiness for him, deep dish pizza, sarcasm, and what would end up being a very unhealthy gaming addiction between the both of us that might earn it’s own story eventually.

For years after, we would always talk about the Zwitter song and we always felt like getting up and going when the song came on whatever playlist we had concocted. When he visited me in Canada in 2012, which would be the last time I would ever see him, he texted me that he was listening to our official traveling song.

As most real love stories go, we did not end up together. He ended up getting married and settling in his home town. I ended up in a relationship for years that would completely reshape who I was at my core and get me permanent residency in Canada.

It’s impressive how we change as we age. The stable, reliable person I have become over the years would be hard pressed to jump into a car and relocate to a different country, much less a state. I’ve lost the whole “fuck it” mentality that fueled that entire relocation, and dictated most of my life when Mike and I were involved with each other, plus I’m just so much older. I spent years getting to this point and I relish in my weekends of uncharted fuckery, without the ever-present anxiety of that age to keep moving before life catches up.

It’s just when the light hits a certain way in my car, when the weather is warm enough for the sun roof to be open, and that song comes on, that I mentally go right back to that moment. The trip, the speed, the happiness, the excitement. Not a care in the world that I was complicating the shit out of my life, just the cold hard facts that I was in love and ready for anything. Nothing matters when you have that feeling and that person beside you. Nothing mattered at all in the middle of a desert turning into prairie, in 2006, on that highway.

It was just us, Rammstein, and the radar detector.