It was a great road trip: cops, an amazing concert, Ho-Ho's, mullets, circus freaks, imaginary dildos, and a late-night Denny's breakfast.

Finally, I've gone on my first road trip, and it had many of the best elements of the ubiquitous college road trip. Accompanying me for this epic journey were two of my friends, Tawnya and Adam. The trip was to Poughkeepsie to see the Mighty, Mighty Bosstones on the 26th.

Tawnya and I left Oneonta at about 2:30 in the afternoon. And, after a quick stop for BK, we took off to Binghamton to pick up Adam. We got lost briefly (one wrong turn sent us off-track for an extra half hour in downtown Binghamton.) After picking up Adam, we spent the 3 hours in the car acting like typical college students making jokes about: sex, dildos, the Po-Po, frustrated housewives and Smokey the Bear smoking weed. We invented a mythological case of dildos in the trunk--you can only imagine the jokes that revolved around the big black mag-lite in the front seat…

When I was telling Tawnya about how I'm so much shorter than my mother, she asked me if my real dad was a circus midget. And, from that point on, my dad became a circus midget and my mom was the Bearded Lady. (I don't think I'll tell mom that part).

We stopped in 5 gas station bathrooms over those first 24 hours-dirty, unisex Ally-McBathrooms. But if I need to take a piss and that's the only option beyond poppin' a squat on the roadside, I'll go in the gas station, thank you very much.

We put away plenty of Snapple, soda, and Ho-Ho's and we were on a raging sugar high (yeah, just sugar, too bad.) Tawnya has a bit of a speeding problem, and we joked incessantly about what we'd say if we got pulled over. We thought about claiming she was pregnant and that Adam and I were drunk. Or that Adam was pregnant--we figured that would get rid of ANY cop.

We finally got to Poughkeepsie and after getting lost yet again, we found the Econo Lodge on the strip. The lady behind the counter (I really only noticed her fake nails, they were obscenely long and dagger-like) said that one of the bands was staying there too. Then we left for The Chance, and got lost again.

We finally got there and got in line…the wrong line. As we stood outside freezing our asses off, I joked that if it weren't for my padded bra, I'd have the breasts of Barbie-you know, no nipples. We were in line behind some kids, who were young enough to actually have a chaperone with them. Luckily, before we had to spend too much time listening to their crap, we were directed to the right line.

The concert was absolutely incredible. The opener, Strike Anywhere was the sort of screamy, punk band that I don't really go for. But the 2nd band was great: The Ritalin Kids. But nothing really prepared me for the Bosstones. I was deaf for about an hour afterwards. They kicked ass, and I need to go see them again sometime, soon.

Not much happened after the show, except that we all had a hard time falling asleep, what with the unbearable ringing in our ears. Then, after finally passing out late that night, we woke up again to the sounds of guitar music from a few doors down. I thought it had been a dream, but Adam assured me that it wasn't. We decided later that it was probably Strike Anywhere by looking at the license plates on the cars parked outside of their room, but we still don't know for sure. Then the alarm clock went off at 7 am, causing me to nearly fall off the bed.

We took off for home at 11, after stopping for a quick breakfast at a local gas station. Never eat a bagel and cream cheese bought at a gas station. Never.

The stupid jokes, about the Po-Po continued as we took off down the road. The jokes continued, that is, until we sped past a cop that was on the other side of the median. After the split second of "aw shit," we saw the flashing lights behind us. Tawnya tried to talk her way out of it and it looked like it was working, until he handed her the ticket for going 90 in a 55. Oops.

We took off again, at a snail's pace. We drove through towns smaller than I have ever seen before. We renamed then "East Jesus" and "West Moses." We saw some cow-patterned mailboxes, freaky gas station attendants of questionable gender and mullets, of course-lots of mullets. I could almost hear the music from Deliverance.

It was a great road trip: cops, an amazing concert, Ho-Ho's, mullets, circus freaks, imaginary dildos, and a late-night Denny's breakfast. What could have been better for a first road trip?