Our wake-up call came at 10:30. Finally, at 11:09, I dragged my ass out of bed and showered. Joe followed suit, while I packed, and took a load to the car. He finished, we checked out, and ran his stuff up to the car. Oh yeah, I never mentioned the ridiculous parking situation at the Wyndham Garden Hotel in Downtown Atlanta. We had to pay $12 a day to “self park” in this parking deck adjacent to the hotel. Hotel guest had to park on the 9th floor, while there were no more than five cars on each level. SO, we had to wind up and around and up and around to the 9th floor every time we left and returned. Further, there was never anyone in the cashier’s booth the entire weekend. The arm went up when you got in front of it. Stupid.
After putting Joe’s stuff in the car we walked down to the 8th floor of the garage (the elevator only went to the 8th floor), and caught the elevator back down. We walked over to a Starbucks, which was about three blocks from the hotel. We had coffee and a bagel, and then headed back to the car.
We left Atlanta at about 12:45. We listened to some tunes and sang some songs on the way back, and before Charlotte started looking for a Quiznos on the “Food” signs to stop and eat in. We had seen a couple on the way down. About an hour and a half later, I needed gas, and we were so hungry we decided to stop at a gas station that also had a Dairy Queen (and a Wendy’s) in it, and have dessert first. Joe got a Heath Bar Blizzard, and I got a plain vanilla ice cream cone.
Of course, not the next stop, but the one after it, had a Quiznos at it. We pulled in there and had dinner. Once back on the highway, the next stop had a Quiznos, too. Go figure.
We sang a lot of ABBA songs in that stretch, listening to the soundtrack from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Then, we put on a Michael Bolton CD and sand the shit out of those songs.
We came across a four- or five-car pile-up accident in one stretch that caused bumper-to-bumper traffic for about three or four miles. It sucked because it happened in the left lane, where the cars still were, and everyone had to merge into the right lane.
We got back close to 7:30. I dropped Joe off, returned home, worked on my homework until 9:30, and then met Joe out at Flex. We weren’t there but about 10 minutes, when the same old people came there, some of whom just bug us, and we began saying, “Tell me again why we did this?” Eventually, we did get a pool table, though, and played a few games of pool.