Well, it's been a while (did anyone else just read that as if Aaron Lewis was sing-talking it?). Anyway, please forgive me for my absence and for getting Stained stuck in your head.
Our road trip to Graceland was awesome and most definitely filled with some "wtf" and "did that really just happen?" moments that still make me laugh when I think about them. On Friday, April 10, 2009, I packed the car and picked up Shana at an ungodly hour of 4:30 AM...it's just plane wrong and unnatural to be up before the sun. For the most part, we sailed smoothly (despite my "check engine" light coming on about an hour in to our drive and lasting till we got back home on Tuesday) to Dinosaur Land in Winchester, VA. We got lost along the way and wound up at that sketchy bait & tackle place where there were cameras monitering the bathrooms and they sold Clamato....you get the picture (and apparently so do they...of my ass).
We finally made it to Dinosaur Land where we were greeted by these magnificent, 20 feet tall, violent, figurines. And a Totem Poll.
Check out the Dino in the background here. He's such a creep...just sitting there, scouring at the camera. He looks like the tall angry kid that's stuck in the back row of your third grade class photo, just plotting ways to ruin the picture. If you think this is disturbing, you shoulda seen the Brontosaures dieing in the sand pit, or the group of Hillbillies that were trailing behind us. Ehhllll.
Learning about all those precious dinosaurs made us hungry, and this amazing thought popped in to our heads - "We're out of NY...there must be a sonic around here!" - man were we right. I was so excited to get a Cherry Limeade,
I got caught speeding. Doing 57 in a 35 is looked down upon and considered "Reckless Driving" in Virginia, probably because I could hit someone on a tractor. Thankfully, my officer decided he didn't feel like taking me to jail, I passed GO and collected $200.
Big apology going out to the homegirl at Sonic that brought us our food. "Ooops, I think there's some hair stuck to those pennies." I bet she really wished she could have spit in our food.
Once we ate, we were back on the road and on our way to the Shenandoah Caverns.
It cost $20 to get in, and we had seen stalagmites before, so we decided to just hang around the gift shop and then go explore this abandoned barn that we found next to the Tyson Chicken plant down the road.
We were going to drive all the way to Nashville that night, but after 13 hours of driving and a tornado warning in Knoxville, TX, we decided we should pull over and get a room in lovely Bristol (Palin) Tennessee. "Let's stay at a Howard Johnson says Shana. I say "Sure! They're cheap! Let's do it!".
BIG MISTAKE.
Unforgettable things about our HoJo experience:
- As we were running out of my car to the "lobby" in the pouring rain, Shana slipped on the pavement and slid right into the hotel. Had we been playing baseball, an umpire would have called her SAFE and she would have scored a run.
- Boomhower from King Of The Hill was definitely in a room a couple doors down.
- The word "Fuck" was carved on the bathroom wall.
- There were ciggarette burns in our sheets. I tried so hard not to move during the middle of the night because I was afraid what my feet would find.
I don't think I've ever left a hotel room as quick as I left that horrid filth trap, and lawd knows I've had to gitty up and go0o0o a couple times in my day. Get your mind outta the gutter...I've overslept check out times. A quick couple hours later we made it to Nashville, checked in to what felt like a 5 star Best Western hotel, got picked up by the Kenny Powers cab driver and headed over to
Yazoo Brewery. We were the first people on line for the 5:00 Brewery Tour and missed half of it. Once the tour was over and I chugged a Dos Perros Ale, we got back in the Kenny Powers cab and headed to downtown Nashville. We had dinner at the lovely
Big River Grille & Brewing Works and by "dinner", I mean nachos, Patron Silver Margaritas and shots of Crown that we were forced to take and then pay for. This lead us to the tattoo shop down the street and I'm now the proud owner of a cute little music note tattoo. YAY! As we walked out of the tattoo shop, we hailed a cab that was sitting right on the corner. We told the driver that we wanted to go back to our hotel and as he made the right turn in to the cross walk, he hit a girl crossing the street. She got up & was fine, but talk about AWKWARDDDDD. I am the queen of awkward situations (see: my "Nana died in my house on New Years eve when I had friends over "story) but this one kinda took the cake. The rest of the ride home our driver just kept talking about how he was going to have to tell his wife & kids he lost another job and asked if we were going to call & complain about him too. I just wanted to go to sleep.
Easter Sunday we woke up bright and early and finished our drive to Memphis. Elvis' interior designer deserves a medal. Graceland was definitely cool and I'm glad I got to see it (plus I got inspiration for my next Halloween costume), but going to Sun Studios gave me chills. I didn't think it was going to mean that much to me, but I got there and it was like BAM! This is the reason why you are where you are in life.
We headed back to Nashville in the torrential rain to go see We The Kings & The Cab play a show at Rocketown. Shana gets 4 Gold Stars for keeping us alive in that weather. I didn't believe the song "Walking In Memphis" held any truth in the lyrics until I actually touched down in the pouring rain, myself. After the show a couple of us wound up back downtown. We went to a bar that was filled with lots of dudes and I thought "Yes! My odds have skyrocketed!" Then I looked around and saw that all these men were really friendly towards one another. I thought "Hey! Maybe it's a southern thing." Then I heard some guys singing Elton John and Madonna and thought "Well that's strange." Then I realized, we were in a gay cowboy bar. From there we wound up in a weird penthouse bar where a dance battle ensued and we were threatened and immediately had to leave before we got beat up. We shared a taxi back to the hotel with the loveliest gay man I've ever met, who once we stopped at the gay club he was going to, ran out of the cab like Speedy Gonzalez on crack.
The day after that was spent driving to DC and stopping at a couple
Sheetz so Shana could get Mac & Cheese. And that was pretty much our trip minus a couple other incriminating tales. Spring Beak OH TEN!!!!!
Ok that's all I got for you, I am sleeeeeeepy! But before I got, please meet my new little lady, Lily. I didn't get 2 arms full of Siamese kittehs. Just one handful, and I couldn't be happier. awwww.
I'm taking flying trapeze lessons on Friday, Shannon's graduating from college soon and memorial day is coming up, so I'll have a lot to report in the upcoming weeks.
Night!
<3
It was really nice to see them after not being around for a few years. Growing up, I made it my business to see the Macy's fireworks. Because summer camp was always used as a threat in my house, my fireworks were pretty much the one thing I looked forward to every summer (and lightning bugs of course). There were the years I watched from my bedroom window, while I had the tv on in my room for comparison, and the years we'd go to the dock with sparklers and Goldfish and blankets and just sit on the grass or in the car and watch, and the year we took the boat all the way to Hell's Kitchen and had ashes falling on us, and the other year when we ran out of gas on the way back in. Ahh to be young again.
