Beach Boys, part two

The bottle of Budweiser was sitting on the car park by our photographer Ray as Matt and I dropped down as it seemed a suitable time to get back to the Ramada.

I nominated myself to drive, but was in no condition to drive, none of us were. However, things seem simple when there's no one else around, so we jumped in the car and, if I'd had any sense whatsoever, would have ambled out of the car park.

No, I drove around in a couple of circles, trying unsuccessfully to squeal the tires in the Escort sluggo, and accelerated towards the bottle of Bud. I'm not sure if I hit it, but we seemed to come out of the car park onto the main road on two or three wheels.

What happened next was incredible, confusing and frightening, all at the same time.

There were two or three police cruisers around us, lights flashing and short sirens sounding. I stopped the car and almost pulled the key, but just wound my window down.

An officer, standing about two feet from the car, flashlight in his left hand, looked in and said "Is anyone in this vehicle sober?" and for what seemed like a long second or two, we said nothing and then I chirped "I am, I'm the designated driver".

There was an "ok!" moment, and then the officer asked us all to get out of the car and lean against the vehicle, a light search of each of us, a short interrogation and then a search of the car. The cop strolled up to me, a discovered Cocoa Cola can in his hand and through my fisheye lens, he leaned in and asked if there was any cannabis in there.

I refrained from the obvious can of piss joke.

There was a short discussion between the cops that we could not hear, the officer came back and asked where we were staying and how long we were going to be in the country. We only had days left and there appeared to be a communal shrug between them.

I'm sure there was a short sermon, and then the officer asked me to follow him, as we were escorted "in our escort" back to the Ramada Inn, with a highway patrol cruiser in front and one behind us, we drove at 20mph until we arrived safely, a hushed silence in the car.

It was later discovered that the police department was across the road, in direct view of the car park where the UK beach boys tried to surf, they had probably been watching the entire thing and were just waiting for the ambush.