I just got back from a vacation with my husband, John, and so here I am to give you the scoop. You might remember that I did this once before - please note that last time was in 2002, and no, I didn't fail to write about our vacation last year, John just failed to take me on a vacation last year. So, anyway, without further ado...
Friday, May 21, 2004 - Road Rage
We left Kansas City after John got out of work on Friday and went to St. Louis to stay at his parents' house for the night (they weren't there and John is cheap). Just before we got to St. Louis, though, we ran into a huge traffic jam. We sat for about 45 minutes and barely moved. Then, just as we could finally see the next exit about a half mile ahead, a car came flying past us on the right shoulder of the highway. I was driving at this point and I could see the guy coming up from behind. Unfortunately for this asshole, however, there was a car stalled on the shoulder right where we were stopped, forced the short-cutter to try and merge back into the line of traffic. This was unappreciated by those of us that had been sitting in traffic for some time, I mean, who the hell does this guy think he is, cutting around all of us? The car in front of me did not let him in, even though the guy started edging into our lane. I got right on the bumper of the car in front of me and I wans't going to let him in either. Still the guy edged closer and closer. Finally, we were 3/4 of the way past him when he edged a little too close and hit my car. I was pissed, but before I could get out and beat the guy's ass, John jumped out of the passenger's side and started screaming at the guy. I heard the guy call John an asshole, which just about started a brawl right there and then. Then the guy claimed that he hadn't hit us, but that we had hit him instead. In the end, John called the guy a motherfucker a couple of times and lectured him about his over-inflated sense of self-importance, then checked our car to make sure there was no damage (there wasn't) and we left. Not a good start to our vacation.
Saturday, May 22, 2005 - White Trash
The second stop on our road trip was Nashville, Tennessee, where our friends Drew and Jess live. After John breifly got us lost driving into Nashville (more on this continuing theme later), we met up with Drew and Jess. We hung out for a while at their apartment and then headed to our hotel to check in and clean up for a night out. We were staying at a Marriott (somehow we got a decent deal) and we had to valet park our car. John had this "great idea" for the trip of buying a cooler and stocking it with soda and sandwiches and other stuff that we could eat on the road so that we wouldn't have to stop so much and spend as much money on the road. Well, of course he wanted to bring the cooler into the hotel to drain off the water and fill up with more ice - so there we were, with our big cooler being carted up to our room by the bellhop in the middle of this swanky hotel. Who would have thought that we'd go to Nashville and we'd be the ones to look like white trash. Also, between the cooler and that fact that we had packed for ten days and there were essentials in each bag, we had a hell of a cartload of stuff for the bellhop to bring up. On the elevator the guy asked John how long we were staying. John answered: "Just tonight." The guy looked up and down our stack of crap and kept his comments to himself.
Anyway, we spent the night drinking beers and throwing darts with Drew and Jess (and marvelling that Drew had run 20 miles that day in training for a marathon) and generally had a pretty good evening. I was just upset that the pool on our floor of the hotel was closed when we got back after midnight.
Sunday, May 23, 2004 - Jess' Breakfast
Jess, who works as a pastry chef (which is why Drew has to run marathons to keep the pounds off), insisted on making us a breakfast before we headed out of town on Sunday. We packed up our things from the hotel and got to their apartment at about mid-morning to find that Jess had prepared us a feast. She made steak, eggs, bacon, English muffins, blueberry muffins, and they had bought some Krispy Kreame donuts. It was awesome. We ate until we thought our stomachs would burst. Then, before saying our goodbyes, Jess made us a care package to take with us that included homemade cookies, the leftover muffins and donuts, cokes and bottled water. We left wishing that we had planned more time to spend with Drew and Jess and vowed to find some way to show them proper thanks for their hospitality.
Monday, May 24, 2004 - Cockroaches and Ghosts
We arrived in Savanna, Georgia about midday on Monday and checked into our Bed and Breakfast. The room we stayed in was supposed to be haunted by a ghost of a servant that had worked in the place in the 1800's. The story is that her lover left her to be a merchant sailor and the day he sailed away she threw herself headlong from a third story balcony into the courtyard and broke her neck. Since then she is said to haunt the place, especially her old bedroom - which is the room John requested that we stay in when he made reservations.
After we took a tour of the city on a trolley, during which we saw some of the most gorgeous houses I have ever seen, we had dinner at a place called The Pirate's House, which was built in the 1700's and has been an operating restaurant ever since. In an attempt to walk off the wonderful dinner we had at The Pirate's House, we decided to check out more of the historic district around our Bed and Breakfast on foot. We walked for about fifteen or twenty minutes when I noticed a cockroach on the sidewalk. Then I saw another... and another. It seemed like every five or six feet there was a cockroach crawling around on the sidewalks. I didn't like it very much, so we decided to head back to the Bed and Breakfast. The whole way back there were cockroaches everywhere. Just as we got the the corner of the Bed and Breakfast, two cockroaches scurried towards me. I grabbed John's arm and pulled him towards me. Just then, a man was walking his doberman towards us on the sidewalk. When John moved suddenly, the dog thought he was going to attack its owner and the dog lunged at John and tried to bite his leg. Luckily, the man pulled back on the leash just in time and the dog missed John. After apologies were made on both sides, we headed up to our room for the night.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004 - Coastal Driving
We left Savanna at about mid-day on Tuesday and headed up the coast to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It was a rather uneventful day, except for John having no clue where he was going most of the time. We thought that we'd be able to see the ocean during the drive up the coast, but, since John refused to really check a map to see where things were, we were never really that close. Oh, and did I mention that he turned at two wrong stoplights on the way to the resort?
Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - The Ocean
John got up at a ridiculous hour to play golf (like 7:00 am or something - didn't he realize this was a vacation?) and I slept in. After he was done we gathered our things and headed to the beach. John, again, couldn't find decent directions but just decided that if he headed East we'd have to find it eventually. Well, it should have been that simple, but wasn't. John wandered around for about an hour - LOOKING FOR THE OCEAN. I hate to yell, but I mean, seriously...
We spent the rest of the afternoon laying around and occasionally swimming in the ocean. John, my moron husband, somehow smashes his toe into the ground while swimming and it immediately turns weird colors and swells to twice its normal (and already huge) size. This reminds me - John has the weirdest toes I've ever seen. His big toe is massive - it looks like he's got Arnold Schwarzenegger's thumbs grafted onto his feet or something. Anway, I'm going to try and post a picture of his weird, bruised toe here at some point so you can see what I'm talking about.
Thursday, May 27, 2004 - Gimp Shopping
We went shopping at the outlet mall on Thursday, which was a joy with John gimping around complaining the whole time. Then, brilliantly, he decides that this would be the appropriate time for him to purchase a couple of new pairs of shoes. While his toe is twice the normal size. Uh huh.
Anyway, after shopping we went back to the beach (it didn't take so long since he knew where he was going this time, oh and since I was driving because his toe hurt too bad). That was nice and enjoyable, although gimpy took it a little easier in the water this time.
Friday, May 28, 2005 - Brad Pitt's Ass
We left Myrtle Beach and started to make our way back home on Friday. We had planned on staying in Charlotte, North Carolina Friday night, until we realized that the NASCAR race was scheduled to be at Charlotte that weekend, so we decided to just bypass the city altogether. We ended up staying in Ashville, North Carolina. It was a very interesting little town - as we were driving around looking for a place to eat dinner we saw two chickens walking along the side of the road. We assumed that they must be wild chickens because they were completely unsupervised. One had such bushy, wild and unkempt feathers on its legs that it looked like he was riding some sort of small dog. Bizarre.
Anyway, not having much of anything to do in Ashville, North Carolina, John convinced me to go see a movie. It seemed like such a stupid thing to do while out on a vacation, but it paid off when we chose Troy as the movie to see because I got to see a couple of nice views of Brad Pitt's ass. That was like the cherry on top of my vacation. I'll try to get John to put up a picture of Brad Pitt's ass here, too, but I wouldn't count on that one happening.
Saturday, May 29, 2004 - Test of Marriage
On Saturday we drove all the way from Ashville to St. Louis (and staying with John's parents again). We hadn't really planned to, but we were getting tired of the road and didn't feel like extending the drive any longer than necessary. So we kept going. And going. Eleven hours in the car with John was quite a test of our marriage. I guess we passed since we are both still alive and no divorce papers have been filed.
In the end, it was a pretty good vacation, regardless of the bad omens to start out with. The worst part was going back to work when it was over. Oh, and by the way, two weeks have passed and John is still complaining about his damn toe.