Tuesday, October 10, 2006

My Weekend

Friday night I helped Ell get ready for her "Silent Weekend" camping trip. [She is taking some sign language classes as part of her nursing degree and part of the semester grade for the class she's in now was to take part in a camping trip with deaf people. Normally I wouldn't think of camping when it came to activities deaf people participate in. Wow, that makes me sound like a jerk; like I'm discriminating or something. Anyway, way off track...] So after I saw Ell off, I threw in a load of laundry and headed to Starbucks to see some friends. I got home around 10pm, put the clothes into the dryer, watched an episode, and went to bed.

At 3am some noisy thing on the other side of the room woke me from a great dream. After I threw it against the wall I realized it was my alarm clock; so I decided to stay up. After a shower and some packing, I headed to Columbiana to pick up my friend Chip who had gotten even less sleep than me. We headed out towards New York City where Chip had a library show that afternoon in Westhampton Beach. He just made it to the first RT. 80 sign, about 15 minutes into the trip, and then he crashed in the back seat. I drove the next 5 hours in almost complete silence. I stopped once for gas which turned out to be the only highlight of those 5 hours. The rest of the day in a nutshell.......

Saw the NYC skyline from Manhattan
Walked on the beach
Strolled through an Art's Festival in the Hampton's with all the pretty people
Helped Chip at his concert
Watched and heard him get mad when they didn't pay him
Had dinner, drinks and a pipe at a great Irish Pub in Stroudsburg, PA
Pissed off an Irish guy b/c we wouldn't give up our seat [And why would we? We were watching college football, smoking our pipes, drinking great Irish Ale, all while sitting in an Irish Pub. All we had to look forward to was driving......Why would we want to hurry that along?]

We never did make it to the city so nice they named it twice. We were supposed to meet up with this guy that ran the longest continuously operated Irish Pub in all of New York State. He was going to treat us to dinner and then we were going to take in the city nightlife. We had planned on staying at a hotel and driving home Sunday, but when the guy called and said he couldn't meet us, we decided to just head home.

I took a nap from 11pm to 1am in the back of the van. [Chip only made it one hour driving before he pulled over and fell asleep too.] After I woke up we got some bad Rest-Stop coffee and hit the road. We told jokes for an hour or more; the majority of which probably wouldn't have been as funny if we weren't so tired. I took over the driving around 3am and drove the rest of the way home. I was missing Ell pretty hard the whole trip. She didn't have any cell signal where she was, so we didn't talk from Friday night until she got home around noon on Sunday. And then we were both so beat that we ended up taking a nap instead of talking. I really don't like not being able to see her or talk to her for that long. It pretty much sucks let me tell you!!!

When we woke up we decided to go see our dearest friends Mike and Ginny, so we drove the 40 minutes to their house and spent the evening there. We had dinner, drank some really good seasonal beer, smoked for a while, discussed how to fix the world and the church in general, played some cards, and had a great time doing it all. Ell and I left around 12:30am and were in bed by 1:30.

I got up at 5:30am and took a shower and packed the car. As I told you last week my 99 year old Great-Grandma died and her funeral was Monday. After Ell got ready we headed to Starbucks for some coffee [actually I had a pumpkin smoothie with a double shot of espresso.....So tasty] and free wi-fi access to get directions from Mapquest. After Ell saved the directions on her laptop, we headed to New York. [The state, not the city.] Even with our fancy directions, we still got lost. It's a recurring theme with us when we travel, so we always leave a few extra hours in our plans. We ended up only being lost for 15 minutes, so we got to spend some extra time with my family. The funeral was simple and nice. She looked so nice laid out. They did a really good job making her look natural. Afterwards, we had a dinner at my aunt's church. Eventually all the camera's came out and we had good time with parents, children, grandkids, great-grandkids, great-great-grandkids, and a hodge-podge of other pictures thrown in as well. After the dinner we went back to my grandparents house and spent some more time with family. We hit the road around 7:00pm. Ell slept for a long time on the way home. Have I ever mentioned how dang pretty she is when she sleeps? She is one of those rare people who can wake up from sleeping and still look great. I never have to worry about a monster in my bed in the morning.

We had heard that a new Chipotle restaurant had opened in Niles, Ohio. Chipotle is probably our favorite place to eat in the whole world! So we took a little detour into Niles and had an amazing meal. [If you've never eaten at a Chipotle, you have got to try it. It's absolutely the most food you will ever eat for $5. They have salads and bowls and other stuff too, so everyone can find something they like. They also serve Nantucket Nectars which are hands-down the best juices made.] With full stomachs we headed for home. What a weekend!!! I tallied up the numbers and I was in a vehicle for over 1200 miles and 26 hours in just three days. I drove almost two thirds of those totals. Crazy, crazy crazy. But all-in-all it was a good time.

7 Comments:

Blogger Laura said...

Did I tell you that I am still SO stuffed from Chipotle. That burrito was one of the best that I have every gotten. Yum! Anyways, I just wanted to let you know that I never have to wake up to a monster either, just monster breath!!! Love You Babe!

3:15 PM  
Blogger Kimmy said...

We just heard about the Chipolte in Niles and were thinking of trying it. Thanks for the review:-) I'm sure we'll make it a point to check it out now.

By the way, your busy weekend has me exhausted! Sounds like you had a lot of fun mixed in there though. And that Irish Pub sounds great!

3:41 PM  
Blogger Adrienne said...

I must be tired because all I could think to say was...It'd have to be a darn good signal to hear your wife signing through your cell.

12:23 AM  
Blogger kimw said...

Did I ever mention how much I dislike the word "Chipotle"? It almost pains me to have to type it. I do so love the restaurant, though. Delicious! If only it had another nameā€¦

Other words I dislike:
"toiletries"
"slough"
"discharge"
"copacetic"
"valiant"

Don't ask me why. There is no good reason. These words just aren't pleasant to me. Which has nothing to with the meaning. It's completely sound-oriented. Weird, huh? Why oh why do I say these things out loud!

Anyway, it sounds like you had a very busy and tiring weekend. Your family funeral sounds like it was very special, though. My grandpa died last year, and even though it was a sad occasion, it was happy at the same time because we knew where he was and how happy that would make him to see Jesus, and it was just so good to see everyone and spend some time celebrating his life after we mourned his death.

Can't wait to have dinner at the "C" burrito place in Niles :)

9:27 AM  
Blogger Kimmy said...

Hey Kim,

Interesting word list, maybe I'll use those on the next writing challenge so you can read them over and over again.

Don't worry, I'm not that evil:-)

6:48 PM  
Blogger Sam said...

Adrienne, you just made me laugh right out loud! That's not always a good thing in a bank filled with Blue-Hairs, but I couldn't help it! Very, Very funny!!!!!

2:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm not exactly sure of who "adrienne" is because you all use aliases, unlike me, but I also laughed loudly after I read what you said and finally understood it after a couple of seconds.

5:36 PM  

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