The Return of the Ramblin' Roadmaster
I love to drive.
Back in the mists of time known as 1998, I earned my Bronzer title "Ramblin Roadmaster" by driving all over the Eastern Seaboard. Ah, that halcyon era of attending four or five Bronzer gatherings per year, in the glory days of the Gumby Rescue Squad! Anyway, visits changed to permanent relocations. Eventually I made the ultimate drive, from Boston to San Francisco, by myself. All 3000 miles of the US of A, in my Geo, all my possessions that were of any value crammed in behind me. Even after I reached the Pacific, I kept roaming the coast, from San Francisco to LA.
In the past year, I haven't had many opportunities to travel. School has that effect. Life revolves around the semester and when school's not in session, the only thing on the mind is how much sleep can be crammed into a 24 hour day.
So, when the summer of 2003 started, and I was planning many, many trips, I ignored people who cautioned me that I was taking on a lot. I had spent pretty much the entire fall, winter and spring cooped up in Ohio. I was compensating and preparing for another listless winter.
Possibly I overcompensated.
In any case, the summer is done, and here are the highlights of my adventures, also known as "The Return of the Ramblin' Roadmaster."
Chicago, May 9-11th, 2003
This was supposed to be the first trip of the documentary project. I was all set to finish finals week and get the hell out of Dodge, and make KitCat a star!
I went in to Student Tech the morning of my departure and was told they weren't signing out any equipment that week, even though I'd reserved a camera three weeks prior to that.
There may have been some cursing in the car as I got on the turnpike. In fact, quite a bit of cursing.
One thing I learned which will be handy for the future is that with the time difference, even though it takes four hours to drive to Chicago, I only have to leave three hours in advance. Woop!
As I drove into Chicago (for the first time - I'd only ever been there through airports) I nearly wept. Tall buildings! People! Civilization! It had been such a long, cold, lonely winter.
Closet Buffyholic had booked a hotel room at a very posh hotel right in the heart of Chicago. I was utterly furious because it was a perfect spring day and we were right near the El tracks. The shots I could have gotten if I'd had the camera!
We went bowling on Friday night, and I once again proved that although I'm perhaps not the World's Worst Bowler, I'm probably in the top 10%. At one point my hand was so numb, when I drew my arm back to prepare to throw the ball, the ball dropped backwards from my hand and rolled right at my friends. KitCat put out her foot to stop it and they all mocked me heavily, and frankly, it was much deserved.
After bowling we went to the Map Room, a favorite spot of CB's Boy. We drove there in the Boy's hatchback wagon, and there were about 9 of us in the car (with only one token male and he was driving) including CB and SarahNicole scrunched down in the hatchback. We arrived at the bar and the bouncer laughed his ass off at our clown car o'women extricating themselves from the vehicle.
There were many drinks and much food and laughing the rest of the night. On the way back to the hotel everyone in the car started making weird repetitive sounds because they were driving SarahNicole crazy. She then turned to me and made one of several Foucault-related jokes we shared that weekend. Good times.
Saturday we went shopping. Ordinarily this would've made me cranky, as I'm not much of a shopper, at least for things other women tend to shop for. However, we were looking for a necklace to replace KitCat's lost one. As a colleague at school observed once, while there's part of my brain that can be feminist and analyze what jewelry represents for women, etc., there's that other part of my brain going, "Ooh, sparkly!" Unfortunately it was pouring rain on our way to lunch and we were forced - forced! - into Barnes & Noble for an hour.
Saturday night was the actual Chicagopalooza at Dave & Busters. Our waitress rocked beyond the telling of it. She could've sat right down and blended in with us no problem. She won CB and greengirl's eternal love by informing them that Jeremy Piven was only a few blocks away. Also I met several people, such as goldspike. Yes, I said meeting, as in for the first time ever. I've been a Bronzer since 1997, attended every PBP weekend and a bunch of other gatherings not to mention lived in four places inside of 5 years, and after all that time and all those people, it is still possible for me to meet a Bronzer face to face for the first time in 2003.
I think CB wanted the party at Dave & Busters just so she could keep saying, 'House of the Deaaaad!" all night. KitCat introduced us all to video snowmobile racing - which I also sucked at but the vibrating seat was fun. They had skeeball, which restored my self respect a bit. Also we all got cool toy surprises by pooling our tickets. I got a squeezable purple blowfish and CB an inflatable hammer.
There were these frightening children roaming the hotel Saturday night, looking like skeery dissolute Cuban gangsta wannabes. Also someone on the 19th floor was having sex that night. Hopefully not with one of the Cuban gangsta children.
After a long and deeply philosophical discussion we decided that there are certain words in foreign languages everyone knows because of the movies. Which is why anyone who was present that weekend is now bound to randomly yell at each other like this: