November 28, 2004
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Man, it feels SOOOOOOOOOOO good to be back home.
I will try to get the whole trip in this entry, and it might be long, so hang in there. I will start with Friday morning.
I did not sleep well Thursday night, as I was nervous about flying. We
left for the airport about 8:20 in the AM, and I was so nervous, I
seriously thought about taking one of the pills then, but held off til
shortly before boarding. We arrived and went through security. We were
selected special to have to be searched extra, I think it was because
we had a one way ticket. We had to take our shoes off, and at that
time, I was very happy that I wore socks without holes.We boarded the plan at about 10:30. I had already taken one pill and
was still very nervous. According to the board, the captian, and
everybody else, we would land at about 2:30PM EST. Josh told me that we
would land about 2:16, and I was HOPING he was right. Shortly before
take-off, the pills still had not taken affect and I was very nervous.
So, I took another one. We got in the air pretty much on time, and off
we went.The best part about being on Ted, is that we were able to listen to
some of Ted’s radio stations. I even heard American Pie, which I LOVE
and it was great to hear, but also ironic, since its about a plane
crash. We were also able to listen to the flight deck, which really put
me at ease, as I was able to hear when were were going to turn and
whatnot. It was very reassuring.John had the window seat, I was in the middle, and some old guy who I
swear was dead for most of the flight sat next to me. Overall, though
the flight was actually pretty good. It went very smooth. If only the
rest of the trip had gone as good as the flight, we would have been
sitting pretty. We actually landed at 2:17, which was only a minute off
of what Josh said it would be. He was very nice in reassuring me about
the flight, he had all sorts of info and it truely did make me feel
much better.One thing that really saved time was that we did not have to check any
luggage, so we did not have to wait at baggage claim. Instead, we
walked around trying to find the exit. We walked until we saw some
monorail thingy. I decided to take it, for if nothing else, it would be
fun to ride. We took it to another part of the airport and got out. We
wandered around and finally found our way outside. Sharon had called a
cab for us, so we had to meet up with him.For some reason, John, who as you might already know is ALWAYS hot,
only packed sweatshirts. I, on the other hand, packed 2 t-shirts and my
Nike hoodie. I figured, I wouldn’t need any other clothes, as I was
hoping to be back my late Saturday night, maybe early Sunday afternoon
at the latest. So, John was hot, so I gave him one of my shirts. I
figured I could get by on wearing the same shirt 2 days in a row. It
was actually only in the low 70s in Orlando, and by evening had dipped
down into the low 60s.It took us quite some time to meet up with the cab driver. He was on a
different level than us, but eventually we saw him. The first stop was
to the storage unit that had her car. I’m still not completly convinced
this guy was a real cab. He had a green Grand Marquis, had no meter and
was not in the best of condition. The check engine light was on the
whole time. We seemed to be in this cab for about 20 minutes, but it
cost $65!We arrived at the storage unit and I went inside to get the keys from
the dude. He gave me the keys and a location of the car. It was a long
walk from the enterance, but I walked it while John took care of the
cab. I found it and got it unlocked, but I was unable to get the door
open. Finally John showed up and was able to get it open, as it turns
out I was just being an idiot.There sat the car. It was loaded with shit. The window was open, so I
got in and turned the key. Nothing. Made no noises. No dinging. I
have had doorknobs that have made more noise. This thing was deader
than roadkill. Shit. We were supposed to drive this car to get the
U-Haul, which Sharon had not gotten yet. We called her and she said
that there were jumper cables in the trunk (which was full of shit by
the way). She suggested that we ask the worker dude to give us a jump.
Also, she had said that she got a U-Haul, which was not in the same
place as the stuff we were supposed to load it with. Anywho, I walked
back to the main enterance and the kid said he would give me a jump. He
gave me a ride back to the storage unit. His car was actually
immaculently clean. It was 6 years old, yet it was the cleanest car I
had ever been in. He had to be gay.He and John connected the cables and I turned the key. Nothing. They
did an adjustment on the cables and I turned again. The lights went on,
and it wanted to start. I turned again, and POOF! it started. We asked
him for directions to the U-Haul and went on our way. I drove the car
out and we arrived at the U-Haul place in about 10 minutes.We got the U-Haul actually pretty quickly. They offered us the
insurance, which I was about to take when John said not to because it
would be covered under our car insurance. The workers were going to
hook the car up to the trailer on the U-Haul for us. I had to drive the
car onto the trailer, which the worker poorly directed me onto. After
about 15 minutes, we got it on. It took another few minutes for him to
poorly hook this car up to the trailer, but eventually he got it. We
took off. It was very noisey for some reason. Really really loud
actually, and I suspected something wasn’t right and my suspicions were
confirmed when somebody told us at a light that our ramps were hanging
down off the trailer. The morons at the U-Haul place had forgotten to
push them up.We arrived at the other U-haul place, where her stuff was stored,
at about 5:30. They told us they normally closed at 7PM, but would stay
open til 8 for us. Sharon told us that it would only take an hour to
load stuff up, so I thought we had plenty of time. Her unit was
acutally up some stairs and we had to carry everything through, for
lack of a better description, a warehouse. There was a loading dock
that we would take everything too, but we could not pull the truck up
to it because of the car attached to the end of it.It wound up taking us til 8 to get the truck loaded. There was some
heavy shit in there too. The problem, was that we had not had a chance
to stop to eat or even drink much. I had not eaten since breakfast, and
only water I had was a small cup on the plane. My body was sorta
dehydrated, and we were carring this very large and heavy piece of
furniture and because of this, I had a very bad cramp in my
neck/shoulder of all places. It hurt like hell for a few minutes, and
still bothered me throughout the night, but I had to go on.We eventually finished and headed to Arby’s for dinner. Afterwards we
were trying to find our way back to the expressway when we had to turn
around in what we thought was a large parking lot. We had some
problems. He was trying to back up, and this is when things
went………..weird. Things did not sound good, at least as far as the
car and trailer were concerned. I got out to help direct things, and
this is when I noticed that when he backed up, the truck, car, and
trailer all went in 3 different directions. It actually looked like the
trailer was hitting or coming close to hitting the car. One of the
things that are supposed to go around the tire had come off. Those
fuckers at the U-Haul place didnt know what they were doing. I
suggested that we should call a tow truck to put it on the right way.
We called Sharon to have her get in touch with a tow truck company, but
she told us to call U-hauls emergency road service, so we did. John
spoke with them for a few minutes, and they said they would call us
back. Long story short, they went back and forth calling us. After
about 45 minutes, they called us back for the last time and said they
said they could help us, but it would cost $65. We said that was fine.
Then, they told us that because it was not an emergency, they could not
help us at all. So, we were back to square one. Sharon called a tow
truck and they arrived in about 45 minutes.The driver was sorta cute. I would definetly do him. He was also very
very helpful. He was able to give us a jump on the car and properly
hook up the car. He told us we were lucky we didn’t loose the car. He
also gave us directions, and only charged us $65, although we did tip
him. Unfortunetly, he gave us bad directions, but it was ok.We drove for about an hour and a half and decided to look for a hotel,
which was harder then it needed to be. We eventually settled on a Days
Inn. It was a dump, but we were both very tired and it was 1:45 in the
AM. In fact, not only did the one light in the room didnt work,
but neither did the phone or remote control. I was so tired though, and
I actually fell asleep pretty quickly.We got up about 10. I showered and got ready for the day. John then
showered and we were on our way to breakfast at a Waffle House. I love
Waffle House. The workers are always so…………interesting. They
were very loud and boysterous. After eating, I went to wash my hands in
the bathroom. One of the workers had just walked out from cleaning it,
so I thought it would be fine. Well, I guess her way of cleaning
it was pouring bleach all over the floor. The fumes were overwhelming.We got done and went on our way. Everything was rolling fine until we
hit Georgia, which I’m convinvced is the 3rd dimension of hell. The
last time I drove though Georgia, I swear, it rained from one end of
the state to the other end, and we seemed to be in it FOEEVER. This
time would be no different.We were in southern Georgia and had been on the road for about 3 hours
when it started to drizzle off and on. We had some construction, and
therefore traffic was sorta stop and go. We had stopped and started up
again. A red pick up truck in front of us stopped. John started to
stop, but it was hard, as we were carrying a lot of weight. It looked
like were going to hit it. I closed my eyes, hoped, and said to him
“please stop.” Then, I heard a crash. Shit. We hit it. It sounded
awful. I said to John “Damn, we should have gotten the insurance on the
truck. John and the other driver got out. So did a guy in front of the
truck. At first, I thought it was hit too, but it was not. John got
back in the car and he said that the pick up truck said we should get
off at the next exit. We did and pulled into a gas station. His truck
was not that damaged, it had some scratches on the bumper and his
trailer hitch was damaged but otherwise it was fine. The U-Haul, on the
other hand, was dented pretty good. Long story short, we waited for the
cop to arrive for about 2 hours. I remember thinking that we would not
get home until Monday.The other guy we hit was on his way back to South
Carolina, actually. The cop wound up giving John a ticket for
folllowing too closely.Damn, this is one hellva a long post. We continued on, but this time,
we were both very paranoid of hitting people, so John really took
things slow. He would be sure not to get too close to people and did
not speed. It continued to rain, for most of the way though Georgia.
Fucking state. Again. second time through the state, and it rained a
lot. Again, we seemed to be in Georgia forever. The best part about it
though, is that around Atlanta, there are 6 lanes. Sweet. We saw a
billboard for a radio station called Dave FM. Cool.We drove until about 8 when we finally stopped to eat. Subway. It was
actually at a TA travel place. It was huge. Great bathrooms actually. I
was even able to finally buy my sunflower seeds, and a road trip is
never complete until I have seeds.Finally, about 10ish, we were out of the shithole state of Georgia. Its
not that Georgia is all that bad, but its just that I have bad luck in
that state. Tennessee was beautiful, although it would have been nice
had it not been dark and we had been able to see the scenery. I have to
say, though, that driving through the mountins was sorta of nerve
racking. After the accident, I was sorta paranoid about hitting people,
and it was rainy, dark, and sorta foggy. Plus, we eventually were going
down the mountins, which was a steep downgrade.We drove until a town called Murphysborro its about 30 miles south of
Nashville. This time, we got a Ramada, which is usually a reliably good
hotel. Ironically, we had the same room number as the previous hotel we
stood at. This place was much, much nicer, although the remote control
didnt work. We arrived about 11:45PM. I don’t remember the last time I
was in bed before midnight on a Saturday night. I fell asleep pretty
quickly, though.We got up about 7:30. We grabbed breakfast at Pondreosa, which had an
average breakfast buffett for only $4. The food was ok, but they had
really good corn beef hash and browines. This post is getting very
long, so I should find ways to wrap it up.We actually were on a roll until we were about 45 minutes from home.
There was a very bad accident on I57, and backed up traffic for miles
on both sides of the road. Had we not been delayed, we would have been
home by 6. Instead, we arrived at Sharon’s about 6:30ish.My sister was there and she was going to give us a ride home. The first
thing she asked me was “So, did guys stay in an hotels?”. I know I
should have more patience with her, but sometimes, she just asks the
dumbest questions. It drove me nuts.We got home about 7:20PM. They had already started working on the roof
today and there are shingles all over my yard. They should be done by
tomorrow.
