16 Dads Gone Wild

Chapter 16 Dads Gone Wild Coke and Pep leaned over the message, staring at it as if the words might change if they looked at them hard enough. "What is it with this house on a rock?" Coke whispered. "I don't know," his sister replied. "But we have to figure it out. Somebody wants us to be there on our birthday." "And don't forget; we need to get to the ball of twine, too," Coke noted. "We promised Bones." With so much on their minds, the twins went back to bed but slept poorly. They were groggy when their father woke them up early. He seemed anxious to check out of the campground

寇克和佩普俯身看着那张字条，盯着它看，好像只要他们仔细看，上面的字就会变似的。 “这座建在岩石上的房子是怎么回事？”可口可乐低声说。 “我不知道，”他妹妹回答。 “但我们必须弄清楚。 有人想让我们去那里庆祝生日。” “别忘了；我们也需要进入线球，”科克指出。 “我们答应过骨头的。”带着这么多的心事，这对双胞胎回到床上，但睡得不好。 父亲一大早把他们叫醒时，他们还昏昏沉沉的。 他似乎急于离开露营地

and get on the road. Northern Utah didn't look much different from the eastern part of Nevada. Flat. Hot. Dry. There wasn't a whole lot to look at, at least not along I-80. It was going to be one of those staring-out-the-window kind of days. After a few miles, a sign appeared. Dr. McDonald veered off the highway at exit 4. "Ben, where are you going?" Mrs. McDonald asked. "You'll see." He drove a few miles into the state park without saying a word to anybody. Mrs. McDonald and the twins shot nervous glances at

然后上路。犹他州北部和内华达州东部看起来并没有太大的不同。 平的。热。干了。没有什么可看的，至少80号州际公路上没有。 这将是那种盯着窗外看的日子。 走了几英里后，一个标志出现了。 麦克唐纳博士在4号出口驶离高速公路。 “本，你要去哪儿？”麦克唐纳太太问。 “你会看到的。”他开车进了几英里的州立公园，没有对任何人说一句话。 麦克唐纳太太和那对双胞胎紧张地瞥了他一眼

one another. It wasn't like Dr. Benjamin McDonald to do impulsive, spontaneous things. He was a planner. He liked schedules and lists. "This is a state park?" Pep asked, looking at the scenery. "It doesn't look like any state park I ever saw." "Yeah, what's so great about this place, Dad?" Coke asked. "There are lots of cooler state parks we could go to. This place looks like a lot of nothing." "A lot of salt," Mrs. McDonald added. "That's exactly what it is," Dr. McDonald agreed, smiling as he pulled off the access road and onto the white salt flat itself. "Thirty thousand acres of salt. Nothing but salt." "And we came here for what reason exactly?" Pep asked. "Do you have a sodium deficiency in your diet, Dad?" Coke asked. "Look around you," Dr. McDonald told the family. "It's so flat here that you can almost see the curvature of the earth. It's so barren, even

一个另一个。这不像Dr。 本杰明·麦克唐纳做冲动，自发的事情。 他是个有计划的人。他喜欢时间表和清单。 “这是州立公园？”佩普看着风景问道。 “它看起来和我见过的任何州立公园都不一样。” “是啊，爸爸，这个地方有什么好呢？”可口可乐问道。 “我们可以去很多更酷的州立公园。 这个地方看起来什么都没有。” “很多盐，”麦克唐纳太太补充说。 “事实就是如此。” 麦克唐纳同意了，他微笑着把车驶离通道，开到白色的盐滩上。 “3万英亩的盐田。 除了盐什么都没有。”“我们来这儿到底是为了什么？”Pep问道。 “爸爸，你的饮食中钠缺乏吗？”可口可乐问道。 “看看你的周围，”麦克唐纳医生对这家人说。 “这里是如此平坦，你几乎可以看到地球的曲率。 它甚至是如此贫瘠

the simplest forms of life can't survive. It's like another planet, an alien world of potassium, magnesium lithium, and sodium chloride." The twins looked at each other. There was a good chance that their father had lost his marbles. "Thousands of years ago," he continued, "Lake Bonneville covered a third of what is now Utah. When the lake evaporated, salt and minerals were left on the bottom. And over time, the surface became flat and hard." "Okay, can we go now?" Pep said, shielding her eyes from the blinding sun reflecting off the salt flat. "It's probably a hundred degrees. If the RV broke down, we could die out here." "Yeah, this place is lame, Dad," Coke added. "This place is for me," Dr. McDonald said dreamily. "You get to go to your yo-yo museums and your Pez museums. You get to see your giant ball of twine and all those other goofball places Mom wants to visit. The Bonneville Salt Flats is a place I always wanted to go to ever

最简单的生命形式无法生存。 它就像另一个星球，一个由钾、镁、锂和氯化钠组成的外星世界。” 这对双胞胎面面相觑。 他们的父亲很有可能是疯了。 “几千年前，”他继续说，“博纳维尔湖覆盖了现在犹他州的三分之一。 当湖水蒸发时，盐和矿物质留在了湖底。 随着时间的推移，表面变得又平又硬。” “好了，我们现在可以走了吗？”佩普一边说，一边挡住从盐滩反射过来的刺眼阳光。 “大概有100度。 如果房车坏了，我们会死在这里的。” “是啊，这地方太逊了，爸爸，”科克补充道。 “这个地方是给我的。” 麦克唐纳梦幻般地说。“你可以去溜溜球博物馆和Pez博物馆。 你可以去看你的大麻线球还有妈妈想去的那些好玩的地方。 博纳维尔盐滩是我一直想去的地方

since I was a little boy." "Why, Ben?" Mrs. McDonald asked. "What's here? Is this some sort of midlife crisis for you?" "Yes, it is," Dr. McDonald admitted. "Do you guys know what the Bonneville Salt Flats is famous for?" "I do," Coke replied. Of course, Coke knew all about the Bonneville Salt Flats from a Saturday morning TV special he'd seen years earlier. He remembered every detail. It turns out that back in 1914, a daredevil named Teddy Tezlaff brought an early car—a Blitzen Benz—out to the Bonneville Salt Flats and drove it 141.73 miles per hour: the world record at the time. Ever since then car buffs from all over the world have come to the salt flats to see how fast they could drive. Over the years they bumped the world land speed record up to 300 mph, then 400 mph, and eventually past 600 mph. "When I was a kid," Dr. McDonald told the

从我很小的时候就开始了。” “为什么,本?”麦克唐纳太太问。 “这是什么?这对你来说是某种中年危机吗？”“是的，是这样的。” 麦当劳承认。“你们知道邦纳维尔盐滩以什么出名吗？”“是的，”可口可乐回答。 当然，可口可乐对博纳维尔盐滩的一切都是从他多年前在周六早上的电视特别节目中看到的。 他记得每一个细节。 事实证明，早在1914年，一个名叫Teddy Tezlaff的冒险家就把一辆早期的汽车——Blitzen benz开到了Bonneville Salt Flats，并以每小时141.73英里的速度行驶，这是当时的世界纪录。 从那以后，世界各地的汽车爱好者都来到盐滩，看看他们能开多快。 多年来，他们将世界陆地速度记录提高到300英里/小时，然后是400英里/小时，最终超过600英里/小时。 “当我还是个孩子的时候，”麦克唐纳博士告诉记者

family, "this guy named Craig Breedlove brought a jet-powered car out here and broke the sixhundred- mile-per-hour barrier. I still remember the name of his car: Spirit of America. Ever since then, I wanted to come to Bonneville." "I understand, Ben," Mrs. McDonald said, patting his shoulder. "So we're going to watch a race here?" "No," he replied. "Same sentence. Take out the 'watch a.'" "We're going to race here?" Pep asked, alarmed. "That's right," Dr. McDonald said. He had a devilish gleam in his eyes, and he gripped the steering wheel tightly. "Are you out of your mind, Ben?" his wife asked. "We're going to see how fast this baby can go," Dr. McDonald said calmly. "Yeah, let's do it, Dad!" urged Coke. "This is insanity," Pep said. "It's a recreational vehicle, Ben!" Mrs.

“一个叫克雷格·布里德洛夫的家伙开了一辆喷气动力汽车来到这里，打破了每小时600英里的障碍。 我仍然记得他的车的名字：美国精神。 从那时起，我就想来博纳维尔。” “我明白，本，”麦克唐纳太太拍拍他的肩膀说。 “所以我们要在这里看比赛？”“不，”他回答。 “同样的句子。拿出手表。“我们要在这里比赛？”佩普惊慌地问。 “没错，”麦克唐纳说。 他的眼睛里闪着恶魔般的光芒，他紧紧抓住方向盘。 “你疯了吗，本？”他的妻子问。 “我们要看看这个婴儿能跑多快。” 麦克唐纳平静地说。“好啊，就这么办吧，爸爸！”可口可乐催促道。 “这太疯狂了，”佩普说。 “这是一辆休闲车，本！”夫人。