Hooray! Chapter…Five? Yeah, five. We're coming to the end of the year at college, so I'll be home for the summer soon. Also, May 7th was my birthday! Yay! I'm twenty-seven now… I feel old…
Anyways, they're going to the Hoover Dam in this chapter. That will be fun. I'd like to thank the guest who left a detailed description of the Hoover Dam for me. Thank you, guest! I'd give you a shout out, but you are a guest and you know who you are. Love you!
"You look at me…"
Chapter Five – Why Did We Come Here Again?
Stan could safely say that the dinner (or lunch, whatever) was far less awkward than the one in the previous fan fiction. He didn't have to worry about anyone embarrassing him for one thing (except maybe his dad, but he was used to it by now). The restaurant wasn't super fancy, but since it was next to the Grand Canyon, it was on the pricey side.
There wasn't much offered in the way of conversation ("Did you see how big the canyon was?" "Wasn't it amazing?"), although Tweek did show off his new mug to everyone at the table. Stan was pretty sure that Tweek would be the only person on Earth who would ever be excited about souvenir mugs, but the way he showed it off was kind of adorable. Craig watched his boyfriend excitedly show everyone the mug with a loving smile on his face.
Stan was anxious to get going to their next location, but everyone at the table except for him and Craig decided to order dessert, holding them up for another hour. But at long last Gerald paid the check and they finished off the last of their food and drinks. The sun was high in the sky by the time they finally left the restaurant.
"Ok, let's get back on the road, folks," Randy said as they all headed towards the RV. "I'd like us to get to the Hoover Dam before the sun sets."
No one replied as they hustled back into the RV. Randy took his sweet time backing out of the parking space before finally driving off. The teens all settled down again, doing various things to distract themselves while they waited.
Kenny lay on his bed, pulling out a game from his coat pocket as he did so. Craig had climbed onto his bunk and had immediately fallen asleep while Tweek sat on the couch, admiring his new mug. Wendy was casually leaning against Stan with her eyes closed and a pleasant smile on her face while Stan sat there staring down at the table. Butters was sitting next to Kenny, watching him play his game, Kyle had pulled out a book to read, and Cartman was rummaging through one of his bags, looking for something.
Suddenly, Cartman let an "Aha!" and sat up, grinning stupidly.
"Hey Kyle," he said to the red head. "I just remembered something." Kyle gave him a skeptical look before Cartman dropped a stack of movies onto the table. "I brought my mom's romantic comedies!"
Kyle grinned at him. "Nice," he replied.
Four years ago, during "the incident" when Stan had been ignoring his friends, Kyle had gone over to Cartman's house one night for some reason. The two of them ended up sitting and watching terrible rom-com movies, making fun of them until they passed out. Ever since then, every other Friday the two of them would pick another terrible romance movie to watch and make fun of it. They never let Stan or Kenny watch these movies with them for some reason, as if only they were allowed to partake in the shitty movies they watched, and the two of them had a couple of inside jokes that made no sense to Kenny and Stan.
The two of them even did this when Cartman had been dating and breaking up with Heidi and then destroyed Kyle's relationship with her. Even though both of them had been angry at each other at the time, they went ahead and watched Mamma Mia anyways, and Stan was pretty sure that was the only thing that had kept them staying friends during that feud.
"Why do you two torture yourselves with those anyway?" Kenny asked, looking up from his game. Cartman rolled his eyes at him.
"It's not torture the way we watch them," he argued.
"Then why don't you ever invite Stan and me to watch these movies with you?" Kenny shot back.
"Because you two aren't ready to handle them yet," Kyle remarked, going back to his book as Stan glared across the table at him. Cartman laughed at that comment before shoving the movies back into his bags.
They sat in silence for a while as up-front Randy turned on the radio, flickering through the different stations. He eventually settled on an oldies station that was playing a bunch of music that only dads would like, earning a groan of annoyance from his son.
"Did you really have to pick the old man station, dad?" Stan called to the front of the RV. Randy gave him an annoyed look through the rear-view mirror.
"You know, when you have kids of your own, they'll think the music you like now will be 'uncool' and 'lame,'" he pointed out.
"We're going to have five kids," Wendy mumbled, still with her eyes closed, the pleasant smile still on her face.
"Yeah, but then your music is going to be even older-wait, what?" Stan asked, cutting himself off and turning to Wendy in shock, only now just realizing what she had said. Wendy didn't reply, but her smile did get bigger. Cartman couldn't help but burst out laughing as Stan continued to stare wide-eyed at his girlfriend.
"So, what is there to do at the Hoover Dam?" Butters asked as the awkward silence lengthened.
"Probably mostly just stopping and staring at how big it is," Kenny mumbled, still absorbed in his game. "We'll probably find out when we get there."
"Are we there yet?" Cartman whined.
"It's still three hours from here," Gerald pointed out, turning in his seat to look at him. "We won't be there for a while." Cartman let out a groan in reply.
"Quit whining," Kyle growled, not looking up from his book. "Why don't you actually do something to entertain yourself? We're in an RV, after all."
"Yeah, and you guys are all doing boring things that you can do anywhere," Cartman grumbled. Kyle sighed and rolled his eyes but didn't respond.
"What did you guys get at the gift shop?" Stan asked, snapping out of his shock. "I mean, I know Tweek got a mug and all, but did you guys get anything?"
"Kyle got a rock," Cartman replied in a dull tone. Kyle gave him a sideways glare before his eyes darted back to what he was reading. Cartman dug into his pockets as he continued. "I, on the other hand, got this." Then he pulled out a small, rubber donkey with big, bug eyes. Before Stan could ask what it was, Cartman squeezed it, and the donkey's eyes popped out of its head and made a high-pitched squeaking noise.
Stan flinched. "Really?" he asked. "You got something obnoxious? Why?"
"Does it annoy you?" Cartman replied.
"Yes!"
"Well, that's why I bought it," he explained. He then proceeded to squeeze the donkey repeatedly with a stupid grin on his face as Stan glared at him. He probably would have been squeezing it all the way to the dam if at some point, ten minutes in, Kyle suddenly couldn't take it anymore. He reached over and quickly snatched the thing out of Cartman's hand and shoved it into his pocket.
"You can have this back at the end of the summer," he growled, his eyes never leaving the pages. Cartman glared at him but didn't argue and instead just slumped back into his seat, folding his arms with a pouty look on his face.
Nothing of particular interest happened for the rest of the drive, except for Craig forgetting that he was on the top bunk and falling out again when he woke up. The author, desperate to be as factual as possible, took a rather long time trying to figure out how you get to the bottom of the dam (too long, if you ask her), so she angrily skipped the part of them finding a parking space and all that other bullshit and went straight to them standing at the top of the Hoover Dam.
The dam was impressive, standing at around seven hundred and fifty feet of pure concrete beef cake-ness. Behind them stood a wall of water that was begging to try and flow past and destroy life below it, but the dam wasn't having it. It sloped gently downwards, with a whole couple of buildings at the bottom, as if taunting the river, saying "try to break me! I dare you! You haven't done it yet, bitch, and you're not going to now!" The whole thing was impressive, to say the least. And they were just at the top of the dam.
"Not bad for a giant wall," Wendy said, looking over the side of the non-water holding side. Cartman rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything.
Craig was already leaning over the side and spitting, like he did at the Grand Canyon, and he stared in amazement as instead of gravity taking over, the awesomeness of a strong updraft instead took over and made his spit fly upwards instead.
"That is awesome!" he said in a tone of voice that hinted that he might have been mildly impressed.
"It's fucking disgusting," Kenny replied in a mutter.
"Ack! That's so creepy!" Tweek decided.
"Do we have anything else we can pour up?" Stan asked excitedly.
"That's the power of an updraft," said a voice behind them. They turned to see a rather chipper looking tour guide making his way towards them. "You see, all dams have powerful winds called updrafts that are stronger than gravity. So, when you pour a liquid like water over the side, it flies up instead of down."
"Wow," Craig said, looking bored and unimpressed once more. "Way to take all the fun out of it, dude."
Butters didn't think so, and was attempting to pour water out of the water bottle he had brought with him and take a picture of it at the same time. Wendy looked over at him with a slightly confused look on her face.
"Do you want me to hold the camera, Butters?" she asked him. "Or maybe the water bottle or something?"
"Nah, I think I got it," Butters replied, his tongue sticking out slightly in concentration.
"Come on, kids, I think they're starting a tour group over there," Randy told them. The teens let out slight groans at the prospect of learning something, but followed Randy anyway. Stan had to quickly go back and grab Butters by the arm since he was too wrapped in taking pictures, and he let out a huff as he fell into step next to Kyle.
"I really wish you hadn't invited Butters," he mumbled to his friend. Kyle gave him a look.
"I didn't invite him," he replied. "I thought you did."
"Why would I ever invite Butters?" Stan wondered with a slight growl.
"I don't know," Kyle replied, shrugging. "That's why I was confused that you would."
They didn't say anything more as they joined a group with another perky tour guide standing at the head, shouting out some random facts about the dam. They then slowly entered a building nearby that had an escalator because that was literally the only thing the author had found in her search on how to get to ground level, and she was going to use it, God damn it! She then noticed the pun and slammed her head into the keyboard in shame before going back to describing what was actually happening in the story. But not before promising her readers that she would stop making fourth wall jokes for a while.
The inside of the dam was really cool, with large turbines used for power and long, cramped hallways and junk like that. The tour guide continued to prattle on about "interesting" facts about the Hoover Dam, including how it was built and how it got its name. The teens were rather bored by it (it was summer! They didn't want to actually learn anything!), but Stan had to say that it was still better than zip-lining.
The group was led down one of the cramped, underground hallways like the one seen in Vegas Vacation, and the tour guide's voice echoed back to them. After a long moment, Craig leaned forward to look at Stan.
"I'm bored," he announced. Stan glared back at him.
"Suck it up," he growled. Craig continued to give him one of his blank looks before pulling back to press himself against Tweek.
Butters was still taking pictures of the unimpressive tunnels, before looking over at Kenny and giving him a sheepish grin. "I just remembered," he said nervously. "I'm kind of claustrophobic." Kenny gave him an incredulous stare.
"How do you just remember something like that?" he snapped at him. Butters just replied with a quick shrug of his shoulders and grabbing onto Kenny's arm with a tight grip.
"Can I just hang on to you until we get out of here?" he asked him. "I'll be able to handle myself better." Kenny narrowed his eyes at him.
"Hang onto Cartman," he growled. "I can't feel my arm!"
Wendy let go of Stan to pull her hair up into a ponytail (it was kind of warm in these tunnels) and she looked back to see Kenny trying to pull his arm free from Butters' grip. She smiled knowingly for a moment.
"I ship it," she remarked, mostly to herself. Kenny over heard her comment and glared at her, but she just gave him a sweet smile.
"Shut up," he growled.
I'm going to end this chapter here, because I don't want all of the locations to just be one chapter long in the first few places they go to. Also, I wanted to get a new chapter up soon, because it's been a while and I'll be starting work soon. Thankfully, we still have a week or two before we start work, so I'll be trying to update as much as possible in that time. So, enjoy and until then remember, a bird in the hand tastes just as good as the one in the bush.