"Back in the day, there was a company called Drive-A-Way. They'd give you a car that someone wanted to be driven across the country, and you just had to pay for the gas. So my friend Doug and I found a fuel-efficient VW bus in Bellingham, Washington, and headed east."

"It's rather temperate when we leave, but as night falls, we realize there's no heater in the car; and that there's such a thing as wind chill in an unheated vehicle which has its engine in the rear."

"We had to drive non-stop because we had no money to stay or sleep anywhere. So I was driving inside a sleeping bag. I had a sleeping bag all the way up to my shoulders, and I was operating the pedals through the bottom of the sleeping bag.

"Somehow, I got to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and I was on a one-way street. And I was going the wrong way on a one-way street in Coeur d'Alene. It was very late, and all I could think was, 'How the hell can there be a one-way street in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho?'"

"We got pulled over by a cop and I'm thinking, 'He's got to know how ridiculous this is...a one-way street in Coeur d'Alene.' This guy saw I was inside a sleeping bag and made me get out of the car and get out of the sleeping bag. Usually, they make you stay in the car, but I'm outside the car, and he's inside his car while he checks my license."

"He comes back, and he starts talking to me awhile, and I realize he's in a short-sleeve shirt. So he may not have even been from this planet. I was so cold my teeth were almost chattering and I thought, 'if I can make my teeth chatter, maybe he'll have mercy on me, maybe he'll think I'm this little wimp or something.''

"Once I started chattering, I couldn't stop. And I couldn't make any sense because my teeth were chattering. I just kept saying, 'I'm just trying to go back to Illinois. We're going back to Illinois.' He never reacted. He never even blinked."

"The coatless cop just handed me a ticket."