ohmygodohmygodohmygod
I don't much care for continuity at this point, so forgive the lack of the usual header.
(Sorry for not updating last night...we went straight from Grog Shop to a Days Inn and I couldn't get to a proper connection.)
We're in Davenport, Iowa, it's 1 in the morning on tuesday (Central time? Mountain? Whichever is one time zone west of EST), and I have never felt so relieved in my life.
The concert went great last night, Eisley rocked as usual and their opening bands were quite nice as well. (Lovedrug and ...somebody else.) We found a motel for fifty buckaroos and slept well on a giant giant bed (seriously we were both curled up with legs protruding and never touched each other). HOWEVER, scary thing #1 happened last night: I woke up 'round 4 in the morning with one of my usual coughing fits, dealt unhappily with the gunk in my eyelashes that used to be the mucus my eyes produced to protect themselves from the ten tons of cigarette smoke blowing into my face at the show (I miss California and their no smoking anywhere laws), and HEARD VOICES OUTSIDE. Yes, it's was a strip-style motel, so people go by all the time moving in and out, but I get paranoid easily, so I peeked through the...peekhole and saw some guy on a cell walking VERY SLOWLY past my car and looking at it closely. I got totally scared that he was going to break into it, because I get scared about stuff like that, and then I got even more scared that he was going to turn around and look at ME and come kill me. So I got back into bed quietly and hoped I didn't see a face through the curtains (I would have had a heart attack, no doubt). Then I heard a car engine start and a car drive off and I was afraid it was our car, but I was too scared to get up again and check. In the morning thank god once I chipped more gunk off of my eyelashes (and lost some in the process...*wah*) I saw that our car was in fact still there and all in one piece.
Today driving went well except for having woken up late on a 9.5 hour driving day (with city visits planned). We took a quick driving tour of Cleveland and then hit the road towards Iowa. I then realized that Indiana is actually located between Ohio and Illinois so we had a bit more ground to cover than I had previously thought, but hey, I already knew I was terrible at geography. :) Heck, I found out two days ago that Idaho is on my side of the country. (no joke.) I also used to think that Utah was over by the great lakes. I think my brain just automatically shoves all the states I don't really care a lot about over into that "middle" area so it doesn't have to deal with them. Aheh. I'm a terrible person. (Apologies to people from the midwest and Mormons.) In Indiana we stopped in Gary because I knew there was a song about it (I'd quote the lyrics but they're terribly redundant). At first I mistakenly thought it was where The Music Man was staged, but since the last time I saw that was during my family's Rodgers and Hammerstein binge back in middle school or something I didn't remember until we were already in front of City Hall that they were in River City [Trouble, oh we got trouble, right here in River City! With a capital "T" that rhymes with "P"and that stands for Pool!!] but we enjoyed finding out the city is sort of a heap, anyway. (***UPDATE!!! The Gary, Indiana song IS IN FACT from The Music Man, even though they're not from there, so I'm not so dumb after all! BUT, it ISN'T a Rodgers and Hammerstein, so for that I'm extra dumb. AND, River City isn't even real, so I couldn't have gone anyway, so...I don't know what that makes me.***) Next on the list was Chicago, which turned out to be totally sweet even though we spent most of the little time we had on the nice side of the river (which has all the famous buildings but happens to close down at 7pm). Sears Tower, the Monadnock Building, early steel-framed apartment buildings with ceramic decor beneath the windows...we missed a bunch of the ones that weren't within walking distance (including the abode of Mr. Wright himself) but it was still awesome to the nth degree. That's what I get for taking HIST 52 (was that the number? I forget now)...an appreciation for American architecture. :) (Even if I did totally resent having to memorize stuff about pediments and cupolas and the layout of early American abodes.)
SO, left Chicago after dark (but got back to our car before then because we're good little girls) and began the drive across Illinois to Davenport, Iowa, which ended up taking around 3 hours. We got low on gas right before we reached our destination so we had to stop and fill up at a sketchy deserted gas station (which TERRIFIES me), which brings me to the MOST SCARY PART OF ALL (the part that inspired the title of this post, though I think typing out all of the day's previous events has kind of brought me down, thank god).
Kina and I both had to go to the bathroom (because like good little girls we're also drinking a lot of water to stay hydrated), but we were going to wait until we got low enough on gas that we could fill up and make our rest stop at the same time, thus minimizing time spent in sketchy gas stations. However, we had more gas than we thought we did, so by the time we had to fill up (which was actually in Iowa) we really really had to go. While I stayed by the car and filled up the tank, Kina went into the little convenience store (and I'd go in once she came out, or we'd park the car and go in together, or what have you), and the whole time I was waiting there was a guy standing outside the store rattling change in his pockets and staring at me. Looked late forties, maybe, tall, thin, kind of scruffy. Just kind of paced around staring at me. I felt safe until the relatively normal looking guy filling up next to me pulled out of the station. If it hadn't been around midnight I might not have been so scared, but as it was I was beginning to worry (and the really having to go to the bathroom wasn't helping). When Kina got back we considered parking the car and going in together but the guy was still pacing and staring and by that point another, younger guy had pulled up in his car, looked at us for a bit, and gone inside (and there was no one else around), so we decided to look elsewhere. My urgency had subsided a bit, so we had a few minutes to spare, so we drove across the street to the motel there, only to find that there wasn't a public restroom available. We drove back across the street (this time with more urgency) in hope that the suspicious characters would be gone, and in fact they were, but as we crossed the street again and turned into the station we noticed a man on a bicycle who had been riding away, but who STOPPED his bike and TURNED AROUND when he heard our car. We went straight out the driveway again as he rode back into the station (that was our change-rattler, alright) really creeped out and (at least in my case) really stressed out (thanks to my potty emergency, to quote the Animaniacs). We decided to continue towards our destination, which supposedly wasn't very far away, and even though we passed a few gas stations along the way I was too scared to try that again. We made it to the apartments where my aunt's friend is so kindly letting us crash (and she's not even there...she left us the code and the door unlocked--and this free internet! :) ) and typed in the code she gave us (avoiding the cockroaches along the way and fingering the pepper spray in our bags as cars slowed as they drove past us) and it DIDN'T WORK!!! Ten, twenty times we punched it in and we couldn't open the door. It was past midnight, so we couldn't call the girl, so Kina called home as I entered panic mode. It seriously couldn't wait much longer. We decided to hop back in the car and find a gas station while we waited for a response. However, one way streets and the lack of open stores at 12:30 in the morning (and the lack of gas stations in a "downtown"-type area) meant we drove and drove and I got more and more desperate (to the point of almost pulling over once or twice and saying to heck with my dignity--oh to be male), even driving into the parking lot of a casino in the area (unfortunately it was the valet pull-up so I had to drive out the other side), and eventually we found a kwik-e-mart type thing (that was fortunately quite clean and non-sketchy) and the weight of the world was lifted from my shoulders.
After that we drove back to the apartments and tried the door one more time but this time with a suggestion from our aunt, and lo and behold--it opened!!! Then we checked the stairwell door, and--it opened, too!!! Then the apartment door, and--ta da!!! It was as if we had been put through tests of will and courage, and upon passing said tests we were allowed through the gates of heaven. A fully furnished, quite nice apartment awaited us, with free fast internet, a fluffy bed with fluffy pillows, a nice TV and a nice DVD collection, two showers...mmmmmm. I have never felt more relieved in my life. (No jokes...the double entendre was not my intention here.)
When I began this entry it was an hour ago and I was nearly shaking from the adrenaline. Now, thanks to the catharsis of typing much too much, I'm merely pleasantly tired. I think I'll go change into my bedclothes, brush my teeth, wash my face, and dream of interesting things. Then I'll inevitably wake up to cough violently for a bit, but I'll eventually get back to sleep and in the morning I'm sure I'll wake to find a beautiful little town. Sunlight really does a number for the character of unfamiliar cities, I'll tell you that.
So for now, goodnight, and I hope your evening was less harrowing than mine. Until next time.
(Sorry for not updating last night...we went straight from Grog Shop to a Days Inn and I couldn't get to a proper connection.)
We're in Davenport, Iowa, it's 1 in the morning on tuesday (Central time? Mountain? Whichever is one time zone west of EST), and I have never felt so relieved in my life.
The concert went great last night, Eisley rocked as usual and their opening bands were quite nice as well. (Lovedrug and ...somebody else.) We found a motel for fifty buckaroos and slept well on a giant giant bed (seriously we were both curled up with legs protruding and never touched each other). HOWEVER, scary thing #1 happened last night: I woke up 'round 4 in the morning with one of my usual coughing fits, dealt unhappily with the gunk in my eyelashes that used to be the mucus my eyes produced to protect themselves from the ten tons of cigarette smoke blowing into my face at the show (I miss California and their no smoking anywhere laws), and HEARD VOICES OUTSIDE. Yes, it's was a strip-style motel, so people go by all the time moving in and out, but I get paranoid easily, so I peeked through the...peekhole and saw some guy on a cell walking VERY SLOWLY past my car and looking at it closely. I got totally scared that he was going to break into it, because I get scared about stuff like that, and then I got even more scared that he was going to turn around and look at ME and come kill me. So I got back into bed quietly and hoped I didn't see a face through the curtains (I would have had a heart attack, no doubt). Then I heard a car engine start and a car drive off and I was afraid it was our car, but I was too scared to get up again and check. In the morning thank god once I chipped more gunk off of my eyelashes (and lost some in the process...*wah*) I saw that our car was in fact still there and all in one piece.
Today driving went well except for having woken up late on a 9.5 hour driving day (with city visits planned). We took a quick driving tour of Cleveland and then hit the road towards Iowa. I then realized that Indiana is actually located between Ohio and Illinois so we had a bit more ground to cover than I had previously thought, but hey, I already knew I was terrible at geography. :) Heck, I found out two days ago that Idaho is on my side of the country. (no joke.) I also used to think that Utah was over by the great lakes. I think my brain just automatically shoves all the states I don't really care a lot about over into that "middle" area so it doesn't have to deal with them. Aheh. I'm a terrible person. (Apologies to people from the midwest and Mormons.) In Indiana we stopped in Gary because I knew there was a song about it (I'd quote the lyrics but they're terribly redundant). At first I mistakenly thought it was where The Music Man was staged, but since the last time I saw that was during my family's Rodgers and Hammerstein binge back in middle school or something I didn't remember until we were already in front of City Hall that they were in River City [Trouble, oh we got trouble, right here in River City! With a capital "T" that rhymes with "P"and that stands for Pool!!] but we enjoyed finding out the city is sort of a heap, anyway. (***UPDATE!!! The Gary, Indiana song IS IN FACT from The Music Man, even though they're not from there, so I'm not so dumb after all! BUT, it ISN'T a Rodgers and Hammerstein, so for that I'm extra dumb. AND, River City isn't even real, so I couldn't have gone anyway, so...I don't know what that makes me.***) Next on the list was Chicago, which turned out to be totally sweet even though we spent most of the little time we had on the nice side of the river (which has all the famous buildings but happens to close down at 7pm). Sears Tower, the Monadnock Building, early steel-framed apartment buildings with ceramic decor beneath the windows...we missed a bunch of the ones that weren't within walking distance (including the abode of Mr. Wright himself) but it was still awesome to the nth degree. That's what I get for taking HIST 52 (was that the number? I forget now)...an appreciation for American architecture. :) (Even if I did totally resent having to memorize stuff about pediments and cupolas and the layout of early American abodes.)
SO, left Chicago after dark (but got back to our car before then because we're good little girls) and began the drive across Illinois to Davenport, Iowa, which ended up taking around 3 hours. We got low on gas right before we reached our destination so we had to stop and fill up at a sketchy deserted gas station (which TERRIFIES me), which brings me to the MOST SCARY PART OF ALL (the part that inspired the title of this post, though I think typing out all of the day's previous events has kind of brought me down, thank god).
Kina and I both had to go to the bathroom (because like good little girls we're also drinking a lot of water to stay hydrated), but we were going to wait until we got low enough on gas that we could fill up and make our rest stop at the same time, thus minimizing time spent in sketchy gas stations. However, we had more gas than we thought we did, so by the time we had to fill up (which was actually in Iowa) we really really had to go. While I stayed by the car and filled up the tank, Kina went into the little convenience store (and I'd go in once she came out, or we'd park the car and go in together, or what have you), and the whole time I was waiting there was a guy standing outside the store rattling change in his pockets and staring at me. Looked late forties, maybe, tall, thin, kind of scruffy. Just kind of paced around staring at me. I felt safe until the relatively normal looking guy filling up next to me pulled out of the station. If it hadn't been around midnight I might not have been so scared, but as it was I was beginning to worry (and the really having to go to the bathroom wasn't helping). When Kina got back we considered parking the car and going in together but the guy was still pacing and staring and by that point another, younger guy had pulled up in his car, looked at us for a bit, and gone inside (and there was no one else around), so we decided to look elsewhere. My urgency had subsided a bit, so we had a few minutes to spare, so we drove across the street to the motel there, only to find that there wasn't a public restroom available. We drove back across the street (this time with more urgency) in hope that the suspicious characters would be gone, and in fact they were, but as we crossed the street again and turned into the station we noticed a man on a bicycle who had been riding away, but who STOPPED his bike and TURNED AROUND when he heard our car. We went straight out the driveway again as he rode back into the station (that was our change-rattler, alright) really creeped out and (at least in my case) really stressed out (thanks to my potty emergency, to quote the Animaniacs). We decided to continue towards our destination, which supposedly wasn't very far away, and even though we passed a few gas stations along the way I was too scared to try that again. We made it to the apartments where my aunt's friend is so kindly letting us crash (and she's not even there...she left us the code and the door unlocked--and this free internet! :) ) and typed in the code she gave us (avoiding the cockroaches along the way and fingering the pepper spray in our bags as cars slowed as they drove past us) and it DIDN'T WORK!!! Ten, twenty times we punched it in and we couldn't open the door. It was past midnight, so we couldn't call the girl, so Kina called home as I entered panic mode. It seriously couldn't wait much longer. We decided to hop back in the car and find a gas station while we waited for a response. However, one way streets and the lack of open stores at 12:30 in the morning (and the lack of gas stations in a "downtown"-type area) meant we drove and drove and I got more and more desperate (to the point of almost pulling over once or twice and saying to heck with my dignity--oh to be male), even driving into the parking lot of a casino in the area (unfortunately it was the valet pull-up so I had to drive out the other side), and eventually we found a kwik-e-mart type thing (that was fortunately quite clean and non-sketchy) and the weight of the world was lifted from my shoulders.
After that we drove back to the apartments and tried the door one more time but this time with a suggestion from our aunt, and lo and behold--it opened!!! Then we checked the stairwell door, and--it opened, too!!! Then the apartment door, and--ta da!!! It was as if we had been put through tests of will and courage, and upon passing said tests we were allowed through the gates of heaven. A fully furnished, quite nice apartment awaited us, with free fast internet, a fluffy bed with fluffy pillows, a nice TV and a nice DVD collection, two showers...mmmmmm. I have never felt more relieved in my life. (No jokes...the double entendre was not my intention here.)
When I began this entry it was an hour ago and I was nearly shaking from the adrenaline. Now, thanks to the catharsis of typing much too much, I'm merely pleasantly tired. I think I'll go change into my bedclothes, brush my teeth, wash my face, and dream of interesting things. Then I'll inevitably wake up to cough violently for a bit, but I'll eventually get back to sleep and in the morning I'm sure I'll wake to find a beautiful little town. Sunlight really does a number for the character of unfamiliar cities, I'll tell you that.
So for now, goodnight, and I hope your evening was less harrowing than mine. Until next time.
posted by Sassafrassy at 2:03 PM
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