The Wedding Convoy (Van On The Run)

Houston Texas 1978

Riding in a convoy from Houston headed up to Chicago to get married in 1980 was fun.  We drove in a three vehicle convoy conveying the bride and groom (me) along with family and friends to our wedding venue.  Starting off, my brother led off in his car  taking up the 'front door' position in this convoy.  I drove my 'Street Van' (see my earlier posts The Street Van Man); along with my bride to be, a bridesmaid and a wedding guest. We were in the precious cargo middle vehicle position. A cousin drove his car with his wife and other wedding guests taking up the 'back door' car position. In a convoy the lead car's job is to keep the front door open for the convoy and the last car's job is the keep the back door shut! During our long ride the cars in our convoy would take turns being the lead car.  We all had CB radios in our cars, talked in CB slang and we had typical CB radio handles like Geronimo, Outcast and Phoenix (these are fictitious names our real CB handles are now classified).  It was an eighteen hour ride straight through to Chicago and we were driving faster than the nationally mandated 55 MPH speed limit. This is where our CB radios came in handy; we kept up constant radio chatter with each other because our convoy was on a mission to make good time.   With our CB(s) we 'kept our ears on' to stay on the lookout for and get advance warnings about speed traps from truckers and other drivers on the interstate. This was called getting  ‘Smokey’ reports.

Smokey The Bear

We received lots of willing help over our radios from truckers and other drivers and we would all slow down to the posted speed limit when we received a  ‘Smokey (or Bear) in the grass’ report or heard a ‘Smokey's on the prowl, taking pictures’ report. We could actually zero in on the Smokey’s exact location on the road by asking the reporting driver what his ‘20’ was (his location by mile marker) where he saw that Smokey.

Our route took us out of Texas by way of Texarkana then through Arkansas and a small part of Missouri then all the way through Illinois.  Once we did get threatened by a  Missouri State Trooper over the CB radio who said: “Y’all stop it or I’ll hunt you down!” We did cool it for awhile after we heard that; but got right back into our speeding routine after we crossed the state line into Illinois. We made it to Chicago safely and we made very good time without once getting pulled over and 'bitten by a bear!' After the wedding was all over our convoy headed back the other way to Houston but now we were not quite in so much of a hurry.

Chicago 1970