DAL to ATL and back again

Most of you probably didn’t notice, but I was gone for a few days over the weekend. It wasn’t anything terrifying or horrifying, nothing life threatening, and nothing much to talk about…so I’m going to write a blog about it. Why not? I don’t often write specifically about the events in my days, so this will be an exciting foray into what my life is actually like (now is the time to quit reading if you don’t really care). So, I left bright and early Thursday morning on a four day, three night journey halfway across the US for my best friend’s kid’s baptism. I didn’t travel alone, I went with my other best friend, Jon. The plan was actually for three of us, Jon, his wife, and I, but because of some extenuating circumstances, she was unable to go. That meant it was just two pretty big guys in a pretty small car (Bekah’s Chevy Cobalt Coupe…it is also yellow, by the way) driving 12 hours to a foreign land (Georgia). Like I said, we started bright and early on Thursday at 5AM. Being that it was just the two of us, it wasn’t that big a deal to get out of town. Jon was driving (he said before we even left that he would handle all the driving…I wasn’t going to argue) and though he is a competent and safe driver, I did find that at times he wasn’t as aggressive (offensive) in his driving as I would have. We were haulin’ it pretty much and got out of Dallas before the morning rush, which meant we were already ahead of everyone else’s rush, as well. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it did to me, so I am sticking with it.

The thing about driving anywhere in or out of Texas comes down to the sheer fact that it takes forever to get out of this state. It is huge! It takes almost three hours to get from Dallas to the eastern border of the state. So for the first three hours, we were still in Texas. We stopped somewhere in East Texas to fill up, Lindale or Tyler, and I found the most amazing thing…the truck stop we were at sold large pocket knives at just $5.95. To me, that is incredible. You shouldn’t be able to get something you could potentially kill someone with for under $10.00. But, this is Texas, so you should be able to get anything you want for under $10.00 (plus, not to stereotype, but East Texas is full of strange/scary phenomenon like this). Once we were back on the road after that, we were rollin’. I don’t suspect that many of you have gone on long road trips such as this, but you find yourself stopping a lot, especially if traveling with women or children. But, Jon and I were able to stay on the road through the full tank of gas, which got us to Newton, Mississippi. Where’s Newton? Just west of Chunky (yeah, there is a Chunky, Mississippi, which sitting alongside the Chunky River). We went to the McDonald’s in Newton and found that we were surrounded by redheaded women. To the point that Jon made a comment about it and I was forced to take further notice beyond a passing glance. Aside from the strangeness of numerous redheads, we were able to fill up our stomachs and the car and get back to the journey.

That tank of gas and some pretty extreme patience was able to get us into Atlanta. We didn’t even stop anywhere in Alabama! There is so much to see, but we skipped over it because by the time we had made it to Tuscaloosa we were ready for the trip to be over. When we got to Atlanta we didn’t have a chance to calm down because Jon was in charge of directions and he is not good at directions. We did, however, have a great journey through some scenic parts of Atlanta (even got to see our first gay and lesbian bookstore). We did finally, after three or four phone calls, make it to Fernando’s office after driving around Atlanta for thirty minutes. We were able to finally get out of the tiny (yellow) car and sit in normal chairs for a while. We did get into a little bit of trouble while we were in his office, but that is a need to know story (frankly, ya’ll don’t need to know). That night we were able to get dinner, at Jon’s request, at McDonald’s (I didn’t want Micky D’s twice in one day, but the big guy was in charge of the show). Then we stopped by Fern and Claudia’s place for a quick look (past her bedtime) at Katelyn (the baby) before being shuffled over to our place of residence for the weekend. Claudia’s folks are renting a corporate apartment (furnished) type place in the same complex as Fern and Claudia. They were not going to be there this weekend, so we got to take that place. Other than being freezing cold (thermostat seemed broken) all the time and having to sleep on an air mattress (not sharing a bed with Jon), it was quite a nice place to be able to call our own. Thus ended day 1, traveling day, Thursday.

Friday I was up at 8AM, on only 5 hours of sleep, but Jon didn’t get up till almost noon. Fernando was off that day, Claudia was working, and Katelyn was with the sitter, so we had a boy’s day. Fern took us on a driving tour of Atlanta that included some of the more touristy sites and some of the not so tourist friendly places. We had lunch at Waffle House (Atlanta is the home of the Waffle House). We went to the CNN Center so Jon could buy a Braves cap at the Braves’ Clubhouse shop there. We saw the MLK site and a used record store. Finishing it all off at the nearby mall where Fern had to pick up baby pictures from Sears and I coerced into buying a shirt. It is a pretty cool adidas shirt stating “The King of ATL”, which is how the two of them referred to me for the rest of the trip. That night we and two of Fern’s friends took in a Braves game. It rained pretty much through the entire game. I was soaked. We had three umbrellas with us, two were big enough for one person and one was big enough for two people. That covers four people…there were five of us…I was the odd man out, by choice, but mostly because the other guys didn’t seem like they could handle walking through the rain unprotected (not questioning their manhood, necessarily). Needless to say with the rain delays the game took forever, and for someone who is not a Braves fan, that isn’t the best thing in the world. There was some great pizza at the stadium, that’s the plus. After the game we went to The Varsity (largest fast food restaurant) for postgame chili dogs and onion rings. Then on back to the apartments to get some sleep. Day 2…boy’s day…Friday.

The next morning we were both up about the same time and went over to Fern’s for lunch. He was making burgers for us and Claudia’s sister had made it into town. It was the day of the baptism so we had to get situated for everything. After lunch we all got dressed and ready to go. We left pretty early for the baptism because we had to stop at Kroger and get the food for the reception, Baskin Robbins to get the cake, and Jon and I needed to fill up the car. Once we got to the church we got everything set up for the reception and then got into the sit around and wait scenario. Jon and Fern played video games and then we got Katelyn dressed in her baptism gown. The baptism was beautiful. It was a private ceremony in a nice ornate chapel at the church. There couldn’t have been more than thirty people there and everyone seemed completely into the whole experience. Afterward at the reception, I found myself taking charge of most of the logistical issues concerned with throwing a party. I brought over food, organized and set up tables, refilled punch, pulled out and thawed the cake, and cleaned up empty cups and plates lying around. I didn’t do that much, everything mostly took care of itself, but I did try to make sure everything was moved together, cleared up, and sorted so that the end of the party/clean-up would run smoothly. When we got back to the apartments we played chicken foot dominoes until we couldn’t handle it anymore and then went to bed. Day 3…baptism day…Saturday.

Jon and I planned on being able to get over to Fern and Claudia’s apartment for breakfast and then to Mass at a local church before heading out. That didn’t happen. As we were almost ready to go to their place for breakfast, they texted to let us know to wait a while before coming over (thirty minutes). So, Mass was out, but breakfast was good. We finished up the complete round of chicken foot just in time for us to be able to leave in a timely fashion to get back to Dallas before too late. Getting out of town was pretty easy on a Sunday morning and we were back on the road in no time. The drive back was just as memorable as the drive there, except for the fact that we stopped in Talladega so I could get a picture of the speedway. We arrived back in Dallas just about midnight, a twelve hour drive yet again. Jon dropped me off at my place and I tended to some unforeseen duties and then shuttled off to bed for a quality night’s sleep on a real mattress. Day 4…traveling day…Sunday.

That sums up the majority of my trip. There are a lot of things I didn’t talk about for fear of being boring or repetitive. But, I thought I would just write about my day(s) for a change instead of tackling a subject. Let me know what ya’ll think.