The Early Years - Part 4

Having experienced a week away from Michigan's winter in February 1981, we decided that February vacations going south was the thing to do. It really did break up the time between winter and spring, as spring seemed to arrive quicker after being away for a couple of weeks. Instead of a one-week vacation, we took two weeks in the middle of February 1982 to get away yet again. On my way home from work after my swing shift, a snowstorm had arrived in the Detroit metro area and it was dropping a lot of snow. By the time Dennis got home after his midnight shift, over twelve inches of snow had fallen. Instead of waiting any longer, we decided to hit the road right away, with Dennis foregoing sleep so we could try to get out of the raging storm. I drove first and Dennis tried to catch a little sleep in the car, though he wasn't able to get any "good" sleep. By the time we reached Cincinnati, the snow had changed to rain and the temperature had climbed from the 20s in Detroit to over 40 degrees in southern Ohio.

Once we passed Cincinnati, we left I-75 and caught I-71 to Louisville, Kentucky. Once we were at Louisville, we changed to I-65 and headed towards Nashville, where we planned on changing to I-40 towards Memphis and Little Rock, Arkansas. Everything was going along fine until we got into Arkansas, when we suddenly developed car trouble. We coasted to a stop along the freeway and lucky for us, a man in a pickup truck stopped to see if he could help us. He told us that an exit was less than two miles away and offered to push us to the exit, where we could get the car to a service station. Because it was late at night, by the time we arrived, the station was closed. We left a note on the windshield, advising them that we would be back in the morning. There was a motel at this exit as well, so we walked to it, got a room and spent the night. In the morning, we found out that the problem was the alternator. Because it was Sunday, they could not get parts but the attendant suggested we charge the battery, go as far as we could, then stop and have it recharged and continue on our way. It worked out just as he said. We kept stopping about every 150 miles, recharged the battery, got back on the road and headed to our destination: Dallas.

Dennis, me and our friend Steve Burge

We contacted our friend Steve Burge to let him know what was happening, and we anticipated arriving in Dallas around 7pm. Steve had given us good directions (no GPS or Mapquest in 1982!) and we found his place easily. We got the car fixed the next day and spent a couple of days with Steve in Dallas, as he showed us around, we checked out some of the gay bars and had a nice visit.

Once we left Dallas, we headed next to Houston to look up another friend who had said we could spend the night at his place. Houston was a one-night stop, George lived in the gay-friendly area of Montrose in Houston. We went out partying the one night we were in town, then the next morning hit I-10 on our way to New Orleans.

Dennis & partial view of our room at Lafitte Guest House

We had reservations at a gay Bed & Breakfast place called the Lafitte Guest House, right on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter area of the city. We spent two nights at the B&B, doing some of the fun touristy things—walked through the French Quarter, walked along the Mississippi River until we got to Jackson Square, ate at a cajun restaurant and had fun just being tourists.

Houmas House outside New Orleans

One of the highlights was visiting Houmas House, the southern mansion used during the filming of "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte." We had to wait for a bit once we got there, as they have "tours" of the house—you aren't permitted to look around the inside of the house by yourself, you must be with a tour guide. We explored the exterior while waiting for our tour to begin. We also drove around and looked at a host of southern mansions. It was fun pretending to be Scarlett O'Hara!


After leaving New Orleans, we got back on I-10 heading to the warmth of southern Florida. We were planning on looking up Morrie again in the Tampa area. We had reservations at a hotel in Tampa for the remainder of our trip. The highlight of our visit this time was a trip to Orlando to see Disney World. Dennis, Morrie, his boyfriend at the time (whose name I can't recall), and I piled into the car and headed out. Morrie had a couple hits of mescaline, so while in the parking lot at Disney World, we crushed them up, split the powder into four parts, each of us took a hit and headed into the park. Our first visit was to Space Mountain. The mescaline started hitting all of us just as we climbed aboard our respective cars—talk about a wild ride. In case you are not aware, Space Mountain is basically a roller coaster in the dark, though your eyes do adjust to the darkness and you can tell what's going on. The one thing we didn't anticipate though was almost at the end of the ride—you go through a straightaway area and these bright lights flash on for only a couple of seconds. Tripped us out thoroughly—we were giggling like school-girls once we exited the ride. All in all, it was another great vacation.