On The Road Again

Let me just start off by saying how excited I am to finally be able to have something to write about again! It’s been a long 6 months since we last had any adventures that involved Straight No Chaser.  I would also like to add that Mother Nature was NOT on our side for this adventure…..

Time seemed to stop as I eagerly awaited the arrival of 5:00pm Thursday afternoon. I had to work all day and Megan did not, so while she was able to get things ready to go, I had to sit and watch the minutes slowly pass by. When 5:00 finally rolled around all that could be found outside was rain, not light rain, heavy down pour complete with thunder, lightning, and hail! Megan decided to wait for the storm to pass (or at least the heavy stuff) before coming to my house. It wasn’t a big deal if she got here late though because A) I wasn’t packed and B) we weren’t leaving until midnight anyways. When Megan was finally able to make her way to my house it was around 8 and we needed to find a way to kill time or else we would have left for Gettysburg right then and there (and arrived at around 4 am) so we went out to get some dinner and force ourselves to sleep a little before leaving. NO SUCH LUCK! We didn’t end up falling asleep until 10:30 and when my alarm went off at 11:45 the whole thing just seemed a little pointless.

           

At 12:01 am, Friday June 10^th, our adventure to Gettysburg finally began. It was super dark and still gross out from the rain earlier but we made ourselves two strong coffees and headed out. About 2 minutes into our drive we decided to disregard our GPS. What a way to start off! But to be fair, it was taking us the most round about way to the highway.

Visitors Kiosk in daylight

It was smooth sailing until about 2:30am when a bathroom break was needed (Perhaps coffee was a poor choice.) We saw a sign that said “Visitors Kiosk”, well that MUST have bathrooms, right? Wrong. We followed the sign and found a big open parking lot with what looked to be an old trolley car. It was a super creepy place complete with scary cemetery across the street and I’m almost positive it was the type of place that visitors went in but never came out. That might seem a bit dramatic but at 2:30 in the morning, when you’ve had very little sleep, and it’s dark and foggy, it’s a very logical thing to think.  We opted to search for an alternate bathroom. It was only moments later that we found a 24-hour gas station. Our first clue that this gas station was not much better than the “visitors kiosk” should have been the “Chester’s Chicken on the Fly” sign outside and pretty much plastered everywhere you could think of. We of course chuckled at it and proceeded to go inside. At first glance one might have thought the bathroom was a bit fancy for the establishment it was located in but upon further inspection it had some hidden treasures that made it fit right in. First on that list, the GIANT can of red bull. It looked as thought it was a cooler or some sorts which is fine, but why was it in the bathroom? Second, there was an oddly placed red watering can (and yes, it was filled with water) but there were no plants in the bathroom or anywhere else in the store for that matter (I checked). I guess it’s good to be prepared? You never know when someone is going come in with plants needing IMMEDIATE attention. Third, this bathroom came complete with ONE extremely large ant. I think it had eaten the rest of the ant colony, that’s how big it was. He didn’t seem out of place though because of the giant red bull. Everything is bigger and better in that gas station apparently. And finally, it had the creepiest gas station attendant known to man. He didn’t say a single word to either of us, just smiled and watched us on his security camera. On out way out the door, I went to say thank you but accidently made eye contact with him. I haven’t been the same since.

GIANT red bull

Getting back on the road became a difficult task. The GPS wanted us to go one way and Megan wanted to go another. We chose to go with the GPS; I mean really that is her one and only purpose in the world, to get us where we need to be! We also had back up google directions so that we could reroute our GPS because we didn’t want to take the George Washington Bridge (or go anywhere near New York City for that matter) The Red Sox Swept The Yankees only hours earlier and we didn’t want any problems *coughGOSOXcough *. Not that there really would have been but it’s fun to pretend ;) anyways, our google directions said we needed to take exit 20. We did exactly that. Unfortunately about 10 minutes after we realized that we had taken the wrong exit 20(no wonder the GPS kept telling us to make a U-Turn).  We weren’t on the right highway. Woops, that was my fault, but I’m using the early morning and lack of sleep excuse.

During our ride there we played a fun game. We put my iPod on shuffle and then whatever song came on we tried to decide who we thought would sing lead if SNC were to cover that song. Some of them were HYSTERICAL

1.     Paula Abdul – Straight Up: Mike (me & Megan)

2.     Jessica Simpson – With You: Tyler (Megan) I let her pick because I was too busy laughing hysterically because I had just exclaimed “Come on iPod, give us a hard one” Touché, iPod.

3.     Meat loaf – I Would Do Anything For Love: Tyler (Megan)

4.    Martin Sexton – Diner: Jerome (me) or Tyler (Megan) * anyone else starting to see a pattern here?? *  We settled on a combo of the two and decided to give them the celebrity couple name, “Romeler.” We laughed for a solid amount of time about that. Some other names that were thrown out for this song were Ryan and Walt (Ryalt?)

Even with the getting lost, bathroom breaks, coffee stops, etc. we managed to get to Gettysburg by 8:00 am. Without any stops the drive should have been 7 hours and 41 minutes, one would think we would have gotten there well after 8:00. Megan has been appropriately named Speed Racer (our arrival time is no coincidence.)

When we arrived at The Gettysburg Hotel, I believe both Megan and I exclaimed “THERE IT IS!! Where do we park?!”. Luckily this didn’t provide too much adventure because we found the answer to that rather quickly. At this point though, we were so exhausted that no adventure was a VERY good thing. There was a parking garage out back for guests. It’s honestly the first hotel I’ve ever been to that you had to pay to park, but at that point I just needed to be out of the car and would have paid whatevah! (That was for Ryan.) When we got to the counter and told the lady we wanted to check in, she kind of gave us a dirty look. Yes, we know check-in isn’t till 3 and Yes, we are aware it’s 8:30 in the morning not 3 in the afternoon, but check our file before you give us dirty looks! We were prepared, we had called ahead and they had made a notation in our file that we would be arriving between 8 & 10 and wanted an early check in. (how do you like them apples? Don’t judge me and do your damn job! Sorry, I’ll compose myself.) Even after we won that battle, our room still wasn’t ready so we took up residency on the hotel lobby couch. It was comfy, but at that point I’m pretty sure I would have found a large rock comfortable. An hour later, we heard a yell from across the room “Your room is ready!” we weaved through the hallways trying to find our room (I felt like a rat in a maze looking for cheese. Pure torture.) Once we found it, it didn’t take long for us to completely pass out, that is of course after my phone went off about 15 times…….

Stay Tuned For More. Being back in the real world and not in the realm of chaserville it’s hard to get these done quickly. I Basically only have time at night, so please have patience; I’m going as fast as I can.