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Oh no! Not Again! We're running out of catchy names for vacations!
They said it couldn't be done. They said it was "the week that surpassed the weekend that shall live in infamy." They said it couldn't be beat! THEY WERE WRONG!
Here is the fundamental problem with that week. KYLE WASN'T THERE! The other problem was that we were there on weekdays. Not even GOOD weekdays. Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. What the heck is there to do anywhere on those nights? Especially during finals week! Well, we have remedied both of those situations. Although we are only passing through for a short time, we plan to make the most of every one of those 48 hours!!
Wanna know where we're going? Here is the map with some dates!
Live along our route? Want us to come see you? Email us!
TIME FOR AN INTERACTIVE STORY! Click on the hyperlinks for pictures. :)
We left Jenny's house at 2:38pm on Friday, March 23rd. Our intended destination was Applebee's in Blacksburg to meet Kiliaen and Peter for dinner. We got a later start than anticipated, and so it took awhile to find everyone once we got there, but then life was all good. Jenny got carded and nobody else did, so everyone made fun of her. That seems to be a theme in her life, but she's a good person so she deals. Plus, they all got carded later anyway! We planned to just stay for dinner and then drive on to Nashville. But we looked at the clock and did some mental math and realized the sun would rise before we got there. So, Kiliaen being the wonderful person she is, invited us to stay the night.
Jenny reaffirmed that she should never introduce different sets of friends to each other, becuase they all get along and gang up on her. Such was the case this time, as Natalie and Kiliaen instantly bonded and decided that Jenny would be their target for the evening. We played games and talked til very very early in the morning, when some people had to leave and some people had to collapse from exhaustion. Saturday morning, bright eyed and bushy tailed, we drove to Nashville. We should mention that when we got in the car at noon at Tech, it was 66 degrees out. That was the last time we would see pretty weather!
We arrived in Nashville Saturday evening just in time for dinner at Chili's. Jenny parked the car way out in the middle of nowhere and mistakenly embarked on a walking trip across Vandy by herself. We know better than to let Jenny walk around alone down there! It was all safe though. We ate at Chili's and read the newspaper, while all being impressed with Kyle's crossword puzzle skills. She never ceases to amaze us! After admiring the cool race car cake Kyle bought for Ally's party, we blew up 29384793 balloons for Ally's surprise party. There were some pretty weird balloons in that bag! After decorating the common room in James's suite, practicing our "SURPRISE!" on all inhabitants of said suite, and waiting for 3 1/2 hours, we decided to go get ready to go clubbing. Unfortunately, the long weekend and ride had taken its toll and we were all kind of dead. Therefore, we watched Remember the Titans instead. Sleep shortly followed.
We woke up the next morning, ready to have some more fun. First we took a driving tour of Nashville, on our never ending search for the little peeing boy statue. Jenny knows where it is, the traffic lights and roads just don't cooperate! We called Kevin while we were at the football stadium so that he too could enjoy the beautiful Nashville day. I hope that Patrick enjoys the digi pictures we took for him! When in Nashville, a day is not complete without a side trip to Greece. So, we had a picnic at The Parthenon. It was quite the cultural experience! There are all kinds of strange things in the Park. We called Ilysa and she taught us how to get to Love Circle. (FYI: Take West End towards 440, turn left at the ATM vestibule, make a quick right, go about 50 feet to the fire hydrant, turn left right there onto the hidden road, and wind your way up to the top! It's an awesome view of campus!) We admired the stadium complex, pointed out cool buildings, and saw downtown from far away. Of course the green grassy hill had to be rolled down. (Even the boys did it!) Then we found a purple door! How awesome is that? Once we were done with that, we decided to make Kevin his video.
The video begins at Kyle's car. We found a nice map with a YOU ARE HERE sign. We found that a fitting beginning to a video tour of Vandy. As we began to walk, we found the Vandy sign. Seeing as though Jenny and Kyle don't have a picture of themselves on top of the sign, we remedied that situation by all lumbering up on top of the 10 foot tall brick structure. (Getting down was a different story!) Back on the tour, we found a suicidal water bottle, someone with Direct TV hanging out their window, and the ominous Invisible Man. Natalie put her own life on the line, tackling him and trying to keep him from hurting us. Unfortunately for her, he jumped all over her. We left before any further harm could be done. Shortly, we found our next object of amusement. A squirrel seemed to have attacked a pizza delivery guy, because he had a whole breadstick clenched between his jaws. The squirrel amused us for awhile, but then we ventured forth into the jungle that is Vanderbilt.
We meandered around for awhile, everyone taking equal turns at trying to show up The Blair Witch Project in nausea inducing scenes. We found the math building, an engineering building, and the smarty pants Tree of Knowledge. After being pointed at and laughed at by the copper sculpture, (We DO go to public school and all...) we kept walking. Our next destination? The Chemistry and Engineering library.
Of course we couldn't go inside, because we're not special enough to possess Vandy cards. (Jenny would like to point out that she does have quite an extensive collection of college ID's and doesn't really think that Vandy is being fair here!) Kevin got a nice look at the people studying, Matty made a pathetic attempt at grabbing a tissue, and we learned all about heat exchangers. Kevin's highlight was getting to see the inside of the girls bathroom (VIA camcorder of course!). A locked door kept us from getting to the room with all the "cool" chemistry history stuff. :(
We went back outside, saw more statues of weird naked people and dead people, and got to go up a weird twisty staircase. We arrived at the chem building on a different floor. After we went downstairs, we realized that we were on the other side of the aforementioned locked door and smack dab in the middle of a chemistry palace. All kinds of silly stuff to look at! That kept us busy for awhile, cause we knew how much Kevin wanted to look at all that junk, err, stuff. After the water machine ate our money, we continued on our journey.
Kyle showed us where the sick people go, and we saw a sign that told us to be careful. We're always careful, moms. We pretended to be a precision team outside the medical library. Then, we saw it. Glistening in the setting sun, waiting for us. A wheelchair! Our very own amusement park ride, in the parking lot of the VA hospital. We took a spin. Kevin took a spin. Then we kept walking.
We approached the dorm complex where the ex's reside. Matt wanted to go look for Kevin, (Vandy Kevin, that is) but we decided that probably wouldn't be the smartest idea, seeing as though we're not much liked there. We instead decided to intently study the side of the parking garage. We considered scaling the wall since there were bricks sticking out, but one brick structure a day is enough, I guess. We got out of that deep dark ravine quickly and without harm.
Now, we may have forgotten to mention our scavenger hunt. Kevin told us that we needed to find a giant sign that started with an X. Luckily, Kyle is smart enough to think about Greek letters. (Also, coincidently enough, Jenny had made fun of someone for having a Chi-O sticker on their car the day before) :) So, being the smart cookies we are, we took a picture of the Chi-O house for Kevin. Oh no! We're almost at the end of our tour!
We walked up towards Sarratt, showed Kevin all the cool stuff there is to do in there, my personal favorite being the baseball glove lounge. As we walked by the dining hall, we waved to Melissa, but we don't think she knew who we were! Jenny's hair is short and permed and all, so no very many people recognize her right away. After checking Kyle's mail and running into Bryan, we talked to Polar Bear Dan for awhile. All of a sudden we realized it was time for the Oscars!
As we ran back towards Towers, Jenny remembered that she wanted to show Kyle the Heaven 'n' Hell staircase in McGill. After a mistaken entry into the wrong dorm, we finally found what we were looking for. Fuzzed out porn in hell, the Simpsons in heaven. What can I say? Interesting people made those decisions. ;) We also found a "Wall of Shame" in this dorm - a place for people to post their rejection notices. It made us giggle. That is pretty much the fun stuff for the day. We watched the Oscars, Julia Roberts won which made us happy, we realized how incredibly hot Russell Crowe is, and did a really bad job at predicting who was going to win. After a stop at the slowest Wendy's on the planet, we went to sleep.
The next morning brought tears of sadness, as Kyle said goodbye to her dear "Dels." As soon as she was out the door, the Dels quickly packed all their belongings and took showers so they could run and surprise her after math class. (We listened when she told us where her math class was!) :) So, we trek over to the math building. Natalie keeps practicing what she is going to say in case we run into anyone we know. While we waited for Kyle, we went to get a soda at the same machines that just a day earlier had eaten our money. This day the Gods were smiling upon us, because they gave us 2 Snapple's for the price of one! While the boys and Natalie fought with the soda machine gods, Jenny went outside to look for Kyle.
Once Jenny refound Natalie and the boys, since they had moved from being near the soda machines, they really did find Kyle. We jumped and had a bunch of fun since we surprised the heck out of her! Then, we walked to the car and continued on our way. It was 1030 in the morning, which quickly turned into 1130 in the morning, since we were going to change time zones in a few hours anyway. Thus leg two of the trip began.
Natalie and Matt slept in the back because they're boring. Matty talked to keep Jenny awake and everything was all fine and dandy. At one point we got off to get food. Trying to get back on Route 40 was quite difficult, as the road crews had set up a slalom course on the entrance ramp. Luckily Jenny is a wonderful driver, and safely navigated the barrels. After a long horrible traffic jam with people with no break lights, Jenny and Matty made an executive decision. Yes, we know that the scenic route always takes longer. But after passing all those signs for Gatlinburg and the fact that pretty much everyone Jenny knows has been there, she couldn't resist. So off we go to the casino-less Vegas of the east.
Gatlinburg was dumb. It's a couple stores, a couple ski lift rides (ugh) and a Hard Rock Cafe. WHY is there a HRC in Gatlinburg? That's so dumb. We took some pretty pictures of the Smokey Mountains though. That was nice I suppose. They show you signs right by the trees so you know what's what. I walked a whole 10 feet on the Appalachian Trail! Up and down and around mountains we drove. 30 miles that took 2 hours. It was really pretty, and there was snow, and we ate icicles, but it was a long trip. There was about 6 inches of snow on the ground at the highest point - about 1 mile above sea level. After we got through the mountains, we went to an Indian owned casino. We thought it was going to be 18+ but it was 21+ so we just played a couple minutes and then left. Rather disappointing if you ask me. More pretty scenery on the way down but then quickly it got dark out.
There is no way to put into words how boring the last half of this leg of the trip was. It was dark, there were no cars to look for license plates, and we were getting bored. We did stop at Cracker Barrel though, so that was a glimmer of light in an otherwise dark evening. Eventually, we arrived at Slick's house!!
Yea! We're in Myrtle Beach! Time for sun, sand, and surf! Did we forget to mention it is FREEZING? I can't believe it is possible for it to get that cold at the beach in the south at this time of the year. We walked on the beach, just to say we did it. We even took off our shirts for about 2 minutes. The inviting Atlantic Ocean caused us to rip off our shoes, roll up our jeans like it was the 50's (the decade, not the temperature) and splash in the puddles. All in all, it was quite enjoyable! Just a little windy. :)
Ever seen those old time photos? We did that! Natalie and Jenny got to dress like barmaids and the boys were cowboys. We got to hold Jack Daniel's bottles and guns! The nice girl even let us wear fishnets. It was so awesome! After Slick's car broke and got fixed a couple times, we planned our evening out. We searched long and hard, debated equally long and hard, and decided to go to a seafood buffet for dinner. It was actually quite good, even for those of us who don't eat seafood!
The next day, unfortunately for Slick, he had to go to school. So we had to fend for ourselves. We had heard about this great place, Broadway at the Beach, so we went there for the day. It was so neat! There are all kinds of shops and restaurants set up around a lake. The lake is full of these gross weird fish. However, there were animals that were actually meant to be climbed on. So we took full advantage. :) The most fun activity of the day was making our teddy bears! We picked them out, stuffed them, made a wish, gave them a heart, and sewed them up. Then we wrote a story about them! You'll be happy to know that the Annie bridge is safe and sound in Myrtle Beach. (Look, you'll know what we mean!)
That night, Natalie won all of our quarters, nickels, and dimes playing poker. Considering she doesn't know how to play poker, that's pretty good for her! We got an early night of sleep so that we could get up bright and early for the ride home.
The ride home wasn't too bad, only about nine hours. We stopped at South of the Border. It is the gaudiest, most tacky place we've ever been. But I suppose it was worth a 20 minute stop! And thus ends our break. I hope you enjoyed it. We'll add more when we get more pictures developed. :)
The License Plate Game
God Fish Count: Approximately 1 an hour on the trips, a little more than that when in downtown Nashville. Plus 1 Darwin fish and a God truck.
Interested in our Mileage? We didn't think so. Here it is if you cared. :)
There were 82 miles on the trip meter when we left home. Here are some more interesting mileage markers. 82 miles - Home 319.9 - Gas Stop #1 (Middle of Nowhere, VA) 620.9 - Gas Stop #2 (Cookeville, TN) 810.9 - Arrive in Nashville 904 - Gas stop #3 (Somewhere in TN) 1231 - Gas stop #4 (Random Gas Station in the middle of nowhere) 1420 - Arrive in Myrtle Beach 1489 - Leaving Myrtle Beach for Home (We drove around while we were there) 1550 - Gas stop #5 (By South Of The Border) 1859 - Gas Stop #6 (By Kings Dominion) 1962 - Home!
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