Notes From The Road
By Linda

While I was on the road chasing RE from Cleveland through Berwyn, I saw some of the video that goes with this story, and Ron might eventually have some photos, too. I've only heard it second hand, in fragments, and Ron tells it better than I do, but he's still on the road. But, for what it's worth, here is:

It was a cold, misty Monday in Pennsylvania, one of the few "days off" the band had on this tour; they were heading toward Cleveland, and the luxury of spending two nights in a row in the same motel. Ron and Adam, in the Great White Van, were following Big Red when they started to smell petrochemicals in the air. Looking around for the source of the stench, Ron saw a rainbow sheen of oil on the wet pavement of the road, and was about to remark upon it, when Adam said "Oh, S#!T!"

Looking ahead, they saw the rear end of Big Red slide first one way, then the other, and then back again into one-and-a-half spins, a 540 degree rotation, before skidding backwards into the median, where its rear bumper connected, quite gently, with the rear wheel of the tractor-trailer rig that had already jacknifed into the median.

Ron steered Great White to the side of the road and stopped without mishap; Oleg jumped out of Big Red and ecstatically exclaimed, "that was so COOL!" Dimitri, who'd been driving, was somewhat less enthused.

The truck driver filled everyone in about what had happened, as far as he knew. He'd seen a truck ahead of him hit a piece of road debris, which bounced up and punctured the fuel tank of that truck, which had obliviously driven on, blithely spraying diesel fuel all over the wet road. It wasn't raining hard enough to wash the oil away, just raining enough to create a water-and-oil slick that caused this trucker to lose control and slide into the median.

"I was just dialing 911, and felt a little bump, and I looked around and you guys had shown up!"

During the wait for police and tow trucks, Ron noticed that the truck was from a company in Findlay, Ohio, a city about 15 miles from where we live; he told the trucker he was from North Baltimore, and they had one of those "small world" moments.

No one got hurt, and Big Red collected a very minor battle scar, but, considering the thousands of miles the guys travel every year to bring rokenrol to fans in the far reaches of the country, everyone realizes this could have been much, much worse. As it turned out, this little adventure didn't even make them late for a show, but what a way to have a "relaxing" day off! Anyway, when the Red Elvises make the effort to play in your part of the country, please try to go see them, even if it's on a weeknight and a few miles from home. To get there, they have to drive a lot further than you do.