"Step inside, walk this way. You and me babe, Hey, hey!"

I woke up at 9 and wondered why I was taking work so seriously. It was my day off, but I was nowhere near ready to take it. A meeting with my boss the evening prior extended beyond the time I could stay. And since Paul and I were meeting to eat at Sweetwater Tavern, I needed to finish my work and go. As things turned out, I just finished my meeting and left for dinner. So when 9am came around on a bright sunny Wednesday morning, I abruptly smacked the snooze bar and prayed that I'd get right back to sleep.

It wasn't happening.

So, I stepped out of bed, got cleaned up and ready for my day. I had my typical morning breakfast and then got right back in front of my computer to work on some reports that needed to get done before I could officially take a vacation. After coming up with a big list for Friday's big phone meeting w/ Boston, I decided that I'd had enough and packed up the car for my two-day journey.

I hadn't packed much. Clothes for two days, my laptop, most of my little gadgets that travel with me in my laptop bag, some bottled water for the trip and my cell phone. Chris's guitar from this weekend was already in the back seat and covered with a blanket. I wrapped it again, to keep the sun off of the black case and snickered that it kind of looked like a body back there.

The trip was just like any other. I had actually just been down the same stretch of road with Paul this weekend, going to Natural Bridge, VA, and since this drive could be done by any Korte-family member with our eyes closed, I was confident it would be a nice drive. I had left the house at 11 (finally) and was doing the math in my head:

"Now, if I leave here at 11 and take Rt. 81 straight down to Staunton, I would be there at 2:30, and since I need to meet Jennifer at 3:30, it'd be cutting it way too close to assume I could skip over to Skyline Drive and still make it," I rationalized. "Crap. Shoulda left at 8."

I took 81 down to New Market, VA. To my amazement, New Market isn't new or a market. In fact, their only real claim to fame is that they have a Food Lion, and there's nothing new about Food Lion.

I followed the signs to Skyline Drive. The new plan was to get away with only 20-30 miles of the beautiful drive and then get back to 81 where I could be in Staunton by 3:30. I went up the familiar little backroad past Luray Caverns and right up into the Blue Ridge chain of mountains in Shenandoah National Park.

I stopped into the gate. The old park ranger was cordial and I made some small talk about the weather while he inspected my visitor's pass. (I'm getting awfully good at the weather small talk thing. Only took three years in the corporate world from detesting to adapting to embracing.)

I asked him which way would get me to Rt. 64 and he told me that I needed to head South for that. I thanked him and lifted my foot off the brake to move on when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a look in this old man that meant one of two things: He was about to get violently ill, or something was wrong and he didn't want to make a scene while he tried to figure out what it was.

He was peering into my back seat. My car (now clean of all the mud) had also been cleaned inside. Everything within (while maybe a little dusty) was otherwise spotless. What could he be looking at? I put my foot on the brake and turned my head to see. "Oh, shit." I thought.

"It's a guitar!" I said with a half smile, wanting him desperately to believe me. I knew instantly what he was thinking, since I had thought the same thing when I wrapped the corpse-sized guitar case earlier that morning. "Looks a lot like a body," the ranger said. He leaned closer to the car to get a better angle. I threw the car into park and turned full around to show him.

My swift move threw the already-suspicious ranger into a tizzy. I could tell he was getting nervous. He had that look... that look that told me any second, he'd have his gun out and yell something like "Hold it right there!" or whatever they yell to killers who take their bodies to the hills of Virginia for unmarked burial.

I reached back with my arm and threw the blanket off, as much as I could. It revealed a black fabric. When I tugged again, more was revealed. "It's a guitar. I promise," I said again, trying to assure him. He calmed down noticably. "Sure looks like a body," he said. "Sorry about the confusion," I said, desperately grasping for words that made me sound like an average citizen and not some 25-year-old mountain killer with BLOGGER plates. "So, I head South to get to 64?" I asked, knowing the answer was yes. I'd do anything to change the subject, but I was beginning to think that the time to leave was long gone. "Yep, it'll get you to 64," he said, still a tad weary.

"Thanks!" I said as I drove off. The next step was distracting away my tensions.

I turned on my iPod and started flipping through to find a good tune. It was gorgeous outside. My windows were all down. I had the day off from work and I was up in the mountains surrrounded by beauty.

By mile 3, I had already forgotten.

................

"Mirror queen, mannequin, rhythm of love. Sweet dream, saccharine, loosen up"

I was just beginning to tire from seeing the same old views. The trees, still dead from the winter, were several weeks away from waking up. The heat was causing too much atmospheric haze for any spectacular photos. And all the while, the clock was still ticking. I didn't want to leave Jennifer stranded at Shoney's, wondering where I'd be. I had a few more mile markers to drive before the exit to 33West would come up. I took it, double-checked myself on the map that I was indeed heading towards Harrisonburg, and then moved along with all the haste of a freight train.

I only encountered one "small pocket of resistance" in the Harrisonburg area, where construction was blocking a lane. People were mozying (love that word) along into other lanes, and there seemed to be no real logic to it all. I was through it before I could really figure out what was going on, and before I knew it, I was back on Rt. 81.

Timing could not have worked out better. I got to Shoney's at 3 and cleaned up the car a bit while I waited. Jennifer arrived soon after and we hopped in my car to Cracker Barrel.

Jen's been living at home while working on getting mortgage companies to finance her soon-to-be home in Fishersville. All of this happened within a few weeks- her move from Richmond to Bridgewater, looking and actually finding a home, working on the loan, and pretty soon- move-in day. It's been fun to watch the progress. I'm really happy for her. This is exciting!

This was one of the first times I'd been to Cracker Barrel where we walked right up to the hostess and they took us straight to a table. It was fun catching up with Jennifer and talking about first-time home buying. (I can't wait for my shot at it!)

After lunch, we drove to the house that she may be calling a home in the next week or so. It was really neat. (full gallery right here)

The place is perfect for her needs and extra space to boot! I went around getting shots with the wide-angle lens. This gives a more accurate look at the inside of a room, since photos really miss out on the peripherals. (Paul, I use my wide angle more than my telephoto... you'll love it)

Jennifer gave me the nickel tour and showed me where things would go and what she'd do here, there, etc. :) It was a lot of fun. I was really impressed with the layout of the place. She even has a deck with a backyard, a gas fireplace, etc. It's going to be great. :)

We drove back with a few minutes to spare before Jeff and Olivia arrived at the Shoney's parking lot. We swapped cars and Jeff led us (in Jen's Camry) to Roanoke. The mission was to get to the Roanoke Civic Center before the show started. There would be a shuttle to take us from a large parking garage over to the center, so our goal was to get to the garage.

We all got cought up in the car with this week's happenings. Most of them can't really be shared here (sorry!) but I can say that the rest of the talk was Def Leppard related.

Pretty soon afterwards, we were parked and catching the shuttle over to the arena. We passed the nail-file Nazi (my name for the guy who insisted Jeff's inch-long blade was a lethal weapon of mass destruction) and found our seats. Not too shabby!! We were 7 rows from the stage, directly on the floor.

Ricky Warbuckle came onto the stage. That's not really his name, but I still chuckle at it. He's a fella from Bailfost (that's Belfast to us Yankees) and came over to the states to tour with Def Leppard. To this day, I still don't know why.

His voice, strained to sound just like John Cougar Mellancamp, was forced. His stage presence (while admirable, standing in front of hundreds and playing/singing) was nothing impressive. And while he was wailing over his three-chord songs, I wondered what this guy's schtick was. See, you can't be a singer these days without it. Everyone needs something. Something to distinguish themselves from every other singer. Michael Jackson can dance. Madonna had her sexuality and pro-feminist charge that really revolutionized music. They're household names now. But other singers... Everyone's got some kind of thing they can call their own. Could you ever possibly NOT tell an Aerosmith song from a U2 song? Would there be any confusion about what is Green Day and what is the Cranberries? Of course not. So as I watched little Ricky Warwick play and really get into his G-C-G chord song, I kept thinking about his niche. He didn't have one. So while I wish him well, I don't really see a big future for the guy. Hopefully he'll find what he's looking for.

Def Leppard fortunately took the stage a few songs later and saved the day. Much like Olivia, I knew nothing about the band except that I knew a few songs and was pretty sure I'd have a good time. Although I likely recognized more than she did, I was still lost on a few of the songs played. It was a great show. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

With ears ringing, we left after the final encore and waited for the shuttle. I called Traci to see if we could meet up for some dinner somewhere in the area. We talked a bit about where to go and Jeff had a remarkably brilliant plan. MacAdoo's. Hell yea!

Traci met up with us as we scarfed down our Johny Dee's, Julius Caesar's, Black Bean Quesadillas, and Yankee Doodle's. We had some delicious desserts there too, where we discussed over ice cream the virtues of wet nuts. It's a long, drawn-out tale. :)

Jen took the wheel and got us back to Staunton where we parted ways and left for Richmond. I was exhausted. With a low battery warning on my iPod, I didn't really know how much juice it had left. I decided that if I needed it at all, it would be on the home stretch, so I kept it off and had an acapella John Mayer sing-a-thon in the car. After the first hour or so, it occured to me that I was singing myself to sleep. I know the songs so well that I was thinking about other stuff while singing, and eventually began considering giving the "let's pull over" phone call. Just for three full minutes of closed-eyes. That would have been enough. But I kept at it. I pulled the windows down to freeze myself out and cranked up the iPod. I did a genre search for heavy rock and was quickly greeted by the boys at Metallica and Rammstein. I reached back for my water. Head banging, I was quickly getting my second wind back.

We got to Jeff and Olivia's around 3:30 or so. What a fun night!