By: David Matthews
There’s no better way to spend Mother’s Day than by making your mom proud.
Of course, that’s easier for some than others.
Take Bailey Roy, 21, and Damien Roy, 22, two industrious brothers from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Last fall they decided to take a vacation to Mexico, but they didn’t have a license plate for their car, passports or access to GPS.
Those weren’t problems for these can-do kids. First, they loaded up their car with 21 jugs of gasoline so they wouldn’t have to stop at any gas stations along the way, which would prevent anyone from noticing their missing license plate.
Next, they plotted a course on a paper map to (what appeared to be) a deserted road leading into Maine with no border checkpoint, eliminating the need for ID.
With astute planning like this, what could go wrong? Turns out, everything.
The brothers managed to navigate through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to the U.S. border, but instead of the deserted road into Maine they were expecting, the pair found themselves at the Houlton-Woodstock border crossing, one of the largest checkpoints into Maine.
Realizing their predicament, the brothers came to a stop in the middle of the road. They were within view of the checkpoint and too close to turn around, so with no idea of what to do, they froze.
Officers approached the car and quickly became alarmed when they noticed the jugs of gasoline. Concerned about a potential terror attack, Canadian and U.S. officers arrived on the scene with police dogs and even a drone, but the men continued to sit silent and motionless in the car for another 6½ hours.
Finally, the brothers agreed to exit the vehicle and were promptly arrested. They were sentenced to just three months in jail since, as Canadian prosecutors stated, “This was more stupid than it was criminal.”
On the bright side, their mom got to see them on TV.
Orange you glad you stayed home?
A whole lot of California moms were shaking their heads in dismay after a spectacle of utter selfishness and vanity went down in Lake Elsinore earlier this spring.
It started with something quite spectacular: A “super bloom” of bright orange California poppies on the slopes of Walker Canyon in the Temescal Mountains, so dense that it was visible from space.
When the poppies began to bloom in early March, a couple of social media stars posted selfies with the flowers, which set off a landslide of trouble for local officials.
Thousands of people descended upon Walker Canyon, and their geotagged Instagram photos opened the floodgates for even more. Hordes of people—as many as 100,000 in just one weekend—drove in to see the #PoppyApocalypse (as it became known) armed with smartphones and tripods, and some wearing Easter outfits, whimsical boho hats, and even wedding dresses.
Their aggressive Instagramming meant wandering into the flowers, picking and trampling them, littering, and causing nightmarish traffic jams. A Lake Elsinore city official was hit by a car, and one visitor even suffered a rattlesnake bite.
Whisky and the beast
Having a child who started his own business is something to be proud of, right?
Mrs. Luchs and Mrs. Hengstler of Steamboat Springs, Colo., might be asking themselves that now that their sons, Dan and Sean, operate a taco truck. Well, not exactly a taco “truck,” but a taco snowcat.
For those of us who aren’t winter sports enthusiasts, a snowcat is a large, truck-sized vehicle that runs on tank tracks and is typically used for grooming ski trails.
Instead, the “Taco Beast” serves four kinds of tacos, Mexican street corn, soda and beer from any one of several slope-side locations. The kitchen is built right onto the back of the snowcat, and all of the cooking is done right there.
Delicious slope-side platos are served daily, as long as the snowfall isn’t too heavy (because melting snowflakes are not a popular taco fixin’).
Mrs. Derbomez, mother of the Monkey Shoulder Mixer’s operator, also may have some mixed feelings about her son’s choices. The Mixer is a 27-ft-long cement-mixing truck with the mixer drum replaced by a huge 2,400-gal martini shaker. Brand ambassador Seb Derbomez pilots the Mixer around Florida, offering samples of a specialty cocktail called the Mixed Up Monkey. Made with Scottish malt whisky, it’s the perfect way to forget about all those aspirations you once had for your children.
About The Author: Matthews has been chronicling the unexpectedly humorous side of transportation news since 2000. The stories are all true.
