Time Tours
I do not own anything in Back to the Future. So there.
June 2004
Hill Valley, California
Driving around one fine day, travel agent Benjamin Cohen discovered a flux capacitor, along with notes pertaining to it. This was near the old house of the vanished local eccentric, "Doc" Emmett Brown. After reading through the notes and thinking about what they said, Ben was euphoric. "Egads! A time machine! Who would've thought! I'll patent this and set up my own time-tourism agency! What a miracle! We'll take everyone to ride aboard the "Titanic"! Or see the Declaration of Independence get signed!"
Unfortunately, Dr. Emmett Brown had already beaten Cohen to patenting the flux capacitor, but, fortunately, he had vanished mysteriously. Ben Cohen decided to proceed with his time-tourism business, not thinking of the consequences. Within a few months, he had set up business on Main Street, near the courthouse, and bought an old farm to serve as a "runway" to the past or the future. Subsequently, Cohen and his friends built a "time machine" consisting of a "trolley" with improved seating.
The "trolley" in question was actually a bus, disguised as a trolley. This variety of bus is common in any vacation land in the USA, more or less; it is generally cramped and uncomfortable, with wooden seats. Thus, ordinary motorcoach seats substituted for the usual benches.
September 2004
Hill Valley, California
"All go for the test run, folks. Welcome aboard the "Dawn Electric", our time-trolley ready to rocket you back to the early 1900s! Like the spaceship that is aiming for the X-Prize by achieving commercial space flight, we too are achieving history by doing commercial time travel! Stephen Hawking said it couldn't be done. Let's go ahead and prove him wrong!" a glowing Benjamin Cohen exhorted his passengers, including Marty McFly and his family, including a young Martin Jr. and Marlene.
The time trolley left the Main Street "terminal" at about 3:30 pm, September 11, 2004, local time, and swerved through numerous streets and sundry lanes, passing the Lone Pine Mall in the process, until it reached the racetrack. Meanwhile, Cohen lectured the passengers on the rules.
"History is a delicate thing. If you kill your mom before you are born, then you could prevent yourself from being born, thus producing an enormous paradox. Therefore, go easy on your parents. We will not invite murderers back on our trolley again, anyway. Be careful if you run into your great-grandparents."
"Item number two. STAY WITH THE GROUP. Time travel is a new technology. If we leave without you, we cannot guarantee we'll be back to pick you up. If you change history somehow in the meantime, there's even less chance we'll be back to pick you up. Please try your hardest not to change history in any way."
"Item number three. We will be visiting Hill Valley, as it was, exactly one hundred years ago. Some parts of town, familiar to you, will seem utterly different. Also, some landmarks you are familiar with, such as the courthouse and clock tower, will seem out of place with all the changes around them. People, of course, wear different clothes, so we have costumes from the turn of the century for you to wear."
"Item number four. Time travel is a bumpy ride, so buckle your seat belts and hold on tight!"
At the end of that last sentence, the time-trolley turned onto the speed track, parked at one end of the runway –
And then Ben yelled: "Okay, everybody ready? NOW – LET'S GO!!!" –
And, thus having spoken, Ben buckled his seat belt, gunned the motor, and pushed the petal to the metal. The flux capacitor surged with 1.21 gigawatts of electricity, generated by the heat deep inside the earth (and carried to the time-trolley). At 88.6 miles an hour, a great boom ensued, followed by two more, as the whole time-trolley was plunged into darkness for a split-second. The thing shook and rumbled slightly. Shortly thereafter, the contraption appeared on the barren terrain of 1904 California...and started running into trouble.
September 1904
Somewhere just outside of Hill Valley, California
The first problem was the bumpy nature of wild territory. As passengers and crew hastily donned period costumes, the extraordinary vibrations sent everybody tumbling into each other, including Marty, Jennifer, and their kids. This prompted, naturally, a lot of giggling, and Ben Cohen decided to halt the time-trolley. Ben announced, "Okay. We're here in the Victorian era. (Author's note: Queen Victoria passed away in 1901, making Cohen's statement incorrect. It was actually the Edwardian era.) Please get dressed in your Victorian clothes, and don't forget to be VERY CAREFUL with history. As we time traveled to an unimproved spot, we're going to have a bumpy ride to the main road – so, beeeeewaaaaare!"
After about an hour of driving over rough terrain, the time tourists arrived on the road to Hill Valley, and proceeded without incident into town itself. Marty gazed for the first time upon Hill Valley of 1904, some nineteen years after he saw it in 1885. Marty and his family had no intention of staying with the time-tour group: they intended to meet up with Doc Brown and his family. This fact led to the second problem, as you shall see.
After the time-trolley came to a stop in Main Street, on a busy afternoon, the tourists filed out of the time-trolley and the guide led them around. "This is the courthouse square. The clock tower won't get struck by lightning until 1955" – Marty grinned at that memory – "and the park in front of it is not nearly as seedy as it will be in the 1980s and early 1990s", Ben Cohen continued. Cohen, and, for that matter, everyone else, including Marty and Jennifer, were unaware that the time-trolley's presence in public also caused a problem – the third of the problems of this trip.
Stay tuned for more: the second and third problems explained, Marty meets Doc, Marlene and Marty Jr. get in trouble with Jules and Verne, and the time tourists make their impact on the future...