I'm back! Whew! It was a long weekend. Thanks, Paul, for filling in for me when I was out. So you wanna know what happened this weekend? Good. I'll tell you.

I left work a bit early on Thursday to get home in time for the trip. My brother Mike was home, so he dropped me off at the Metro station. I took the metro into Washington National Airport, and made it there within an hour. No driving-- It was wonderful. The Metro took me right into the airport, just as Paul had said. I'm glad I chose that method of transportation. It worked out perfectly.

I arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare. That was a good thing considering that American Trans Air is by far the most obscure airline in the country. And because of its obscurity, it was situated in the most obscure part of Reagan Airport, "Historic Field 'A'." Apparently the airport began with just this one area, known as "Field A." It was obvious that this one was older. There was old Washington D.C.-style flooring (standard govt. issue tiled checkerboard, flecked with some kind of rock) and a very plain series of gate areas with lots of concrete.

I didn't feel like sitting down. Instead, I walked around the airport and watched people as they met their loved ones, and boarded their planes to wherever they were going. After waiting a bit, I got on board. I was seated at the window. In my row, there was this really big dude. He was funny as shit. We were joking about how they should never seat three big people in the same row, and were both hoping as people boarded that no one would be crammed in between us. --Or as he put it, "Well, only if it was a pretty lady or something."

Once we were in the air, I pretty much kept to myself. The fella had a laptop and was watching Enemy of the State. I read a lot-- a whole lot. I was reading a book on finance and was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was doing every single thing the author was recommending. The really cool part was that the book was written for a middle-aged audience, and here I was, already on-track to what he referred to as "financial success."

The plane landed at Chicago too early and we had to wait on the runway for 20 minutes. It was okay, because I started talking with the fella next to me about Chicago. I have never seen someone hype their hometown more than this dude did. He was so excited. He told me all about Chicago. Nightclubs, blues clubs, jazz clubs, sports clubs, restaurants- I got the scoop on everything.

The wait at Chicago Midway sucked. I had about two hours to kill, so I opened the maps for the road trip and calculated just how long this trip was going to take us. I did some more reading, and watched CNN headline News to kill more time until I finally boarded the plane.

This flight was really empty. Almost every row had only one person, so I found my seat and hoped I'd be the only one there too. Sure enough, I was alone. I was beginning to get tired. It had already been a long day.

To the left of me was this old guy. He looked like Roger (a buddy of mine) and had to have been in his late 40's. He had a John Deer hat on and a little pot belly. The only reason I noticed him was because he was dying. Or at least that's what it sounded like. His head was completely down over his chest, and he was blurting out coughing and gagging and wheezing noises. When I looked over, he was gurgling bubbles of snot and drooling profusely onto his shirt. "Oh Christ," I was thinking. "If this guy's dying, I've gotta do something." I glanced back over there, and he had woken up. He looked around, sniffed, sucked the drool back up, looked around again, then began bobbing his head back to sleep. Within 5 minutes, our plane was beginning to taxi, and he was doing the whole gurgling/bobbing/slurping/coughing/gagging/drooling thing again. (After the flight, I learned that he was piss drunk and severely sick from smoking his whole life) Fuckin' wacko. I whipped out my camera to get a shot of this drunken SOB, but the cabin lights went down right before I could. I thought you'd get a kick out of seeing his drool-stained "Big Johnson" Tshirt. Oh well.

Things were quiet this time in Denver. It was 11:50 on a Thursday night. The airport was closing, and Mike Sos couldn't take the train to my gate since they had blocked it off. I gave his cell phone a call and we met up in the main lobby area. It was good to see him.

We got back to his place and looked over the map. I was so tired by that point (it was 3am, my time), htat I had to get some sleep. I hit the sack and got up around 7:30am or whenever it was that his sister was getting ready for school. Fortunately, I was tired as shit, so I was able to get back to sleep. :) It was a shame I didn't get to see his brother or sister, but I knew they had work and school, respectively. It was a Friday afterall.

After a few more hours of packing the Beetle, we headed to Walmart for a long-sleeved shirt. I forgot a jacket, and really needed something to keep me warm--just in case. I'm glad we stopped too, because it gave me a chance to try Code Red, a new cherry-flavored Mountain Dew. Oh man-- that's good stuff.

We started our trip on Route 70 right outside of Denver, Colorado at noon on Friday. At a few hours after noon on Saturday, we were pulling into Jeff and Olivia's parking lot in Glen Allen, Virginia.

The trip began with lots of traffic surrounding the Denver area. It took us about 20 minutes to get past what turned out to be a rear-ending accident and then we were on our way. The land in South-Eastern Colorado is flat, and wide-opened. Kansas was much of the same. I got some great photos of the trip, so be sure to check those out when I'm done here.

Our first stop was midway through Kansas. We switched seats at the gas station, and headed on out. It was so nice outside, and the Beetle was a pleasure to drive. I was grinning like an idiot when we pulled onto the highway, proud as hell that after 8 years, I still remembered how to drive a car with a manual transmission. The last time I had done that was when I had my learner's permit, and my mom and I went out with Dan's Ford Tempo. So anyhow, Mike was thrilled to learn that it had been 8 years, and I got that really uneasy vibe for a while, until finally everything settled down. To my credit, I only had one "amateur moment," and that was in West Virginia trying to merge into two lanes from 5 after a toll booth while getting the window back up and the change back in my pocket. If I had a manual transmission, I'm sure I would have been able to master that kind of multitasking, but since I was a born-again newbie, it was hard to hide the engine revving up a bit. Oh well. At least we didn't stall.

Our second stop was in Missouri (I think it was Missourri). We stopped at a Waffle House for dinner and gas, then switched and kept on going. The plan for Friday was to get to St. Louis and stay over at a motel or something. When we got to St. Louis, we learned that there was a hockey tournament, and that there was "no room at the inn" anywhere. We decided to drive on and look elsewhere, and after we got further away (like I mean an hour away) there still wasn't anything available. So, we did what any other pair of early 20-something year olds high on caffiene and sugar would do in the first leg of a road trip at night-- Keep on going!

Mike continued driving throughout the dark hours all through Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. Somewhere in there, we stopped for gas and switched again, and I got the West Virginia shift. I took us from West Virginia to Lexington, Virginia, where we gassed up and switched to finish off the last leg of the trip.

By this point, we were exhausted. I had slept about an hour or two (from what Mike tells me) but I could have sworn it was 20 or 30 minutes at the most. Mike managed to get about a half-hour of sleep too, but for the most part, we were just zombies-- Zombies who wanted to be done with the trip.

When we called everyone to let them know that we were in town, we got a lot of shocked reactions. Sure, it was crazy to go 25 hours, driving 1,530 miles stopping for one meal and 3 gas fill ups, but hey-- history was for the making and we siezed the opportunity to get there.

I called Paul up and he headed down to Richmond. Lauren came over too, and by dinner time, we were all together again-- (Me, Paul, Jeff, Olivia, Mike, Lauren)-- The gang reunited. We went to Chilis, and hung out there for the night. It felt so good getting a shower and brushing my teeth. I was replenished.

We took it easy on Sunday, hanging around. We had a late lunch at a Mexcan restaurant near J&O's place. Good stuff. I imagine we'll be there again. After lunch, we toured some houses and watched the Sopranos' season finale. Then it as time to head home.

Today at work, the 24-hour thing finally caught up with me. I'm exhausted. In fact, I'm still exhausted, and I need to get some more sleep (I've been napping all evening). This was a great weekend. I had lots of fun. Now Mike begins the job hunt in Richmond, and we all go back to our regular day jobs. :) I imagine I'll spend a few weekends down that way in the future. It'll be cool to be back together with Jeff and Mike and Olivia like we used to be.

Sleep well everyone. And if you're still reading, I applaud your attention span. I wish I had that talent sometimes. The lesson learned this weekend is that friends are what is important in life. They become an extension of family, and can sometimes be closer than family. Cherish your friendships, and always work to keep them. You'll find it's worth the effort. Seeing us all together this weekend and knowing I helped that happen was just a great feeling. It really makes life worth living.