Some swore it was only two turns past the I-12 while others claimed it was more like five and one of them said if I reached the I-12, I had gone too far. Not wanting to incite a panic, I didn’t tell any of them that the others couldn’t remember either. I assumed that a general sense of shame would keep them from admitting it to each other, which was pretty dumb of me.
“Shame is for Nerds!” might as well be on the Farrelly crest.
That following Saturday, there were about 20 of us in a caravan of cars crossing the Causeway bright and early so we could spend all day trying to locate the Covington house. There were even a few times when I was sure we had found it, but no such luck.
Once the sun set, we were finally forced to give up the search and start back to our side of the lake. I had been with Jude, in his truck and he was so sick of looking at the road by then that he actually took me up on my offer to drive us back.
Even though we had gone pretty far into Covington by that point and still had a fifteen minute ride just getting back to the bridge itself, I cued up the special playlist I had made for our lengthy return-trip across the Causeway titled “MUSIC TO DRIVE ACROSS A TWENTY-FOUR MILE LONG BRIDGE TO (AT NIGHT)” and which consisted of Phil Collins’ greatest hits followed by the soundtrack to Conan the Barbarian, naturally.