Tuesday: Traveled to Austin with Eva, via west Texas back roads, stopping in historic downtown Hico and Lampasas. Early dinner at Dairy Queen in bumfuck somewhereoranother 80 miles outside of Austin. Arrived in Austin just a little too late for a concert where a friend wanted us to meet him, so we went to the Driskill bar and had expensive martinis instead. When we realized we spent $50 in like five minutes, we mosied on down to a sports bar instead. It had a roof deck and $7 double jack & cokes, so... done. Got nice and toasted, hopped across the street for pizza, then stumbled back to the hotel for bed.
Wednesday morning it decided to thunderstorm. Eva, a native Texan who hardly ever gets to see the rain, was excited. I, a transplanted New Englander who gets to see the fucking rain all the fucking time, was pissed. This also appeared to ruin our plans to go swim in Barton Springs, one of the few really fun and really free things we were looking forward to. So we hopped in the car and ended up in another historic Texas town: Gruene. A few antique shops & one glorious hot dog later, it is nice and sunny and scorching out again and we head back to Austin for some swimming after all.
Barton Springs is apparently the place to take your dog to play when you live in one of the hottest places in the world, so there were a good 15-20 dogs in the water, and I was having a great time just watching them.
After an hour or so of this, we headed off to what would be a free dinner & glorious desert courtesy of a family friend, followed by drinks on 6th street (again!) with Eva's friends, and Eva's friends' really hot single friends. The good news is that Eva and I have enough of a taste difference in men that she liked the one and I liked the other. The bad news is that we had to get up at 6am so we left too early for any of that to matter. Damn.
Thursday: Eva leaves at 7am to get back to Dallas for a 12-5 shift, and gets stopped on I-35 for an hour. I check out of the hotel at 11am, take the dogs to Barton Springs, where they wore themselves out swimming for like 20 minutes. I don't have a towel, so we walk around in the sun for a bit until I'm dry enough to put my clothes on over my bathing suit, and then we take off eastward, toward Alabama. On a whim I decide it would be fun to see New Orleans, so at 11pm I arrive at a La Quinta in the French Quarter.
Friday I run out of money. I spend the morning walking around downtown New Orleans, taking pictures of the city and the river. I stop in a souvenir shop and try to buy my brother a housewarming gift and my credit card is declined.
So I guess it's time to get my ass to mommy's house, since I've acquired $3,000 worth of credit card debt in the last 10 days alone. I just hope it still feels worth it when I'm back in Boston working three jobs to pay it all off. Bah.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Dallas... sort of
Arrived in Dallas this evening & promptly escaped to Addison, TX, for drinks & apps at a place called The Flying Saucer with Eva & friends. A little out of the way, but they had a great beer list (I stuck to Brooklyn Brown Ale, but there were at least a hundred more, half of which were only $2.75/pint!), and some decent appetizers (buffalo wings for me, always, of course). I got hit on by two guys simultaneously and I was only wearing a t-shirt and jeans so I considered that a great compliment. Gave out my number because what harm could it do. I'm only in Dallas for the one night anyway.
29-year-old divorcé: "So what do you do?"
Jamei: "I'm a vet tech."
29-year-old divorcé: "I love you."
Oh, The South... you and your seductive attempts to win me back over. I will admit that I'm having fun on this trip. A lot of fun. Though I still think that New England will always have my heart...
29-year-old divorcé: "So what do you do?"
Jamei: "I'm a vet tech."
29-year-old divorcé: "I love you."
Oh, The South... you and your seductive attempts to win me back over. I will admit that I'm having fun on this trip. A lot of fun. Though I still think that New England will always have my heart...
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Details to Remember
Favorite text exchange of the day:
Jamei: "Aww now I want to get married. They played the Beatles as she walked down the aisle!!"
Johnnie: "Are you smokin again?"
Jamei: "No, I just finally experienced a truly beautiful expression of love. Hooker."
Johnnie: "I covered your shift last night. TRUE act of love. Do you want to marry me?"
Jamei: "Only if we can play the Beatles."
Favorite pictures of the day:
And God said, "You have twenty minutes, and then I am going to downpour again. aaaaand GO!"
WHEW! Finished just in time!
"Wait... we have to cut ANOTHER cake?!"
Congratulations, Seth & Kariann! You two are so cute I might puke. And those were definitely rain drops in my eyes, not tears.
Jamei: "Aww now I want to get married. They played the Beatles as she walked down the aisle!!"
Johnnie: "Are you smokin again?"
Jamei: "No, I just finally experienced a truly beautiful expression of love. Hooker."
Johnnie: "I covered your shift last night. TRUE act of love. Do you want to marry me?"
Jamei: "Only if we can play the Beatles."
Favorite pictures of the day:
And God said, "You have twenty minutes, and then I am going to downpour again. aaaaand GO!"
WHEW! Finished just in time!
"Wait... we have to cut ANOTHER cake?!"
Congratulations, Seth & Kariann! You two are so cute I might puke. And those were definitely rain drops in my eyes, not tears.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Traveling with pets
... is frustrating. I mean this specifically about finding pet-friendly hotels.
1. You can't call something a "deposit" if it's non-refundable.
2. These FEES range between $25-250 per pet. $250?? For real?? In most cases this is more than I'm even spending on the hotel itself.
3. Communication between hotels and their ads on Orbitz seem to be lacking, since whether or not the Orbitz listing says "Pets OK" seems be irrelevant to whether or not pets are actually allowed in the hotel.
Most Comfort Inns & Suites appear to be pet-bribable for a non-refundable "deposit" of $25 per pet over 25lbs per stay. The one I'm at in Memphis now let Echo slide under the weight limit even though I was honest about it. So okay, I'm not too put off by that. After all, it's still cheaper than the cost of parking my car in DC.
Who I really love right now though is La Quinta. La Quinta hotels are apparently pet-friendly with no fees or deposits or first-born children required. They also have affordable rooms. With free internet access. And sometimes even parking.
I feel like the more expensive the hotel, the more they charge you incrementally for basic amenities. Yes, you can stay at the Westin and have a bellboy and a valet, but it's an extra $10 to use the internet, and an extra $40 to park your car, and an extra $350 to get ice from the machine...
1. You can't call something a "deposit" if it's non-refundable.
2. These FEES range between $25-250 per pet. $250?? For real?? In most cases this is more than I'm even spending on the hotel itself.
3. Communication between hotels and their ads on Orbitz seem to be lacking, since whether or not the Orbitz listing says "Pets OK" seems be irrelevant to whether or not pets are actually allowed in the hotel.
Most Comfort Inns & Suites appear to be pet-bribable for a non-refundable "deposit" of $25 per pet over 25lbs per stay. The one I'm at in Memphis now let Echo slide under the weight limit even though I was honest about it. So okay, I'm not too put off by that. After all, it's still cheaper than the cost of parking my car in DC.
Who I really love right now though is La Quinta. La Quinta hotels are apparently pet-friendly with no fees or deposits or first-born children required. They also have affordable rooms. With free internet access. And sometimes even parking.
I feel like the more expensive the hotel, the more they charge you incrementally for basic amenities. Yes, you can stay at the Westin and have a bellboy and a valet, but it's an extra $10 to use the internet, and an extra $40 to park your car, and an extra $350 to get ice from the machine...
So I decided to do some self-grooming today...
Ladies! I have some recommendations and unrecommendations for you today.
Recommendation: Home waxing your lower legs. It's really not as painful as it sounds and after the first couple strips, you really just kind of stop feeling pain at all. It might take a little longer than getting it done professionally, but it can be done, and it's way cheaper to get the home kit than to pay salon prices, by far.
Unrecommendation: Home waxing your bikini line. It is not as painful as it sounds--it's worse. Way worse. Worse than you could ever imagine. And every strip hurts worse than the last. There are apparently no natural endorphins that go to your bikini line. Eventually, it will hurt so badly that your hands will refuse to rip the strips away from your body, leaving your hairy vag covered in fucking wax. You will then spend the rest of the afternoon pouring that blue oil all over yourself and trying to wash the wax off in the shower. You will still have hair on your bikini line. Where you don't have hair, you will have little capillary bleeders everywhere, which is probably equally unattractive. Alternative: wear fucking shorts to the beach. Oh. My. God.
Recommendation: Home waxing your lower legs. It's really not as painful as it sounds and after the first couple strips, you really just kind of stop feeling pain at all. It might take a little longer than getting it done professionally, but it can be done, and it's way cheaper to get the home kit than to pay salon prices, by far.
Unrecommendation: Home waxing your bikini line. It is not as painful as it sounds--it's worse. Way worse. Worse than you could ever imagine. And every strip hurts worse than the last. There are apparently no natural endorphins that go to your bikini line. Eventually, it will hurt so badly that your hands will refuse to rip the strips away from your body, leaving your hairy vag covered in fucking wax. You will then spend the rest of the afternoon pouring that blue oil all over yourself and trying to wash the wax off in the shower. You will still have hair on your bikini line. Where you don't have hair, you will have little capillary bleeders everywhere, which is probably equally unattractive. Alternative: wear fucking shorts to the beach. Oh. My. God.
Shelby Farms Dog Park
The first time I tried to find the dog park, I ended up at a prison. But the real funny part about that one is that my first thought was, "Oh, that's a nice big fence!"
The second time I tried to find the dog park, there were bison in it. That wasn't the dog park, either.
I finally stopped at the visitor's center and got a map, where I was told that yes, there was a large fenced-in dog park. And they weren't kidding about large... it's 250 acres. Fenced? Oh yeah. There is indeed a fence around the perimeter of the 250 acre park. The thing is, the fence is the thing that is supposed to prevent me from losing my poorly trained city dogs, and I'm not sure that I can keep track of all 250 fucking acres. I mean yeah, the North American continent is almost entirely surrounded by water, but I'm willing to bet I could still lose them in there.
Still, it was quite beautiful. There's a bunch of large, stagnant bodies of water, too, and Dizzy found a way to plop himself right down in a big ol' pile of mud before I could say anything about it.
The second time I tried to find the dog park, there were bison in it. That wasn't the dog park, either.
I finally stopped at the visitor's center and got a map, where I was told that yes, there was a large fenced-in dog park. And they weren't kidding about large... it's 250 acres. Fenced? Oh yeah. There is indeed a fence around the perimeter of the 250 acre park. The thing is, the fence is the thing that is supposed to prevent me from losing my poorly trained city dogs, and I'm not sure that I can keep track of all 250 fucking acres. I mean yeah, the North American continent is almost entirely surrounded by water, but I'm willing to bet I could still lose them in there.
Still, it was quite beautiful. There's a bunch of large, stagnant bodies of water, too, and Dizzy found a way to plop himself right down in a big ol' pile of mud before I could say anything about it.
D.C. to Memphis: Not a Great Idea
Miles: ~800
Detours: 1
Stops for gas: 1 - $22
Food I didn't eat: $8.17
As I'm sure most GPSes do, the TomTom likes to estimate the time of arrival at our destination, which I think is based on average speeds/speed limits on selected roads. However, since I don't go the speed limit, as I'm driving the ETA will slowly begin to roll back a minute or two at a time. I used this to my advantage in that I wouldn't allow myself to stop for a break until I "saved up" enough time to do so. For example, the original ETA was 11pm. Once it read 10:30, we stopped for lunch at the Pink Cadillac Diner in bumfuck Virginia. I got the fried mushrooms to go, with a side of fries and a sweet tea. In true southern style, the portions were entirely too large for me to finish by myself. I ate 5 or 6 fried mushroom balls and ended up throwing away the other 20 or so at the next pit stop. I finished the sweet tea, though.
Around 3pm I started to feel like I'd had enough driving for one lifetime. Made 3 illegal pit stops within the hour. Was hungry for anything not fast food but fresh out of luck, stopped at McDonalds for a snack wrap to tide me over. Gross. Took cute picture of Echo and Dizzy sleeping on each other in the backseat. While driving. Started running out of music I wanted to listen to. Tried the radio--oh wait, this is Tennesee.
Once we got to Nashville, though, I got my second wind. There were lots of lane changes, bearing right and left and so forth, that TomTom had to tell me about to make sure I stayed on I-40. I saw a skyline for a split second and smiled. Just after Nashville the sun started to set, and middle of nowhere Tennessee is actually quite pretty in the twilight. I passed through a town called Bucksnort as the sky turned pink. TomTom couldn't find any other roads for miles on either side of I-40. I passed the time by watching the Prius' MPG gauge and trying to drive without touching my feet to the pedals. It worked out well: we'd cruise at 70-80mph, depending on traffic, and whenever someone going slower than that got in front of me, I'd decel or cancel the cruise, if necessary throw her into engine break mode... then we'd go back to drive, set the cruise again and accelerate the cruise from there. At one point I was sitting indian style in my seat.
We arrived at the hotel at 10:30pm E.S.T. with exactly one block left on the fuel gauge and just over 500 miles on the tank I filled in Virginia. Perfect timing. Plenty of night left to sleep before the wedding tomorrow!
This morning the groom returned my phone call and told me the wedding isn't today, but Sunday. Oh well. The dogs and I are going to take the day to relax and check out Shelby Farms.
Detours: 1
Stops for gas: 1 - $22
Food I didn't eat: $8.17
As I'm sure most GPSes do, the TomTom likes to estimate the time of arrival at our destination, which I think is based on average speeds/speed limits on selected roads. However, since I don't go the speed limit, as I'm driving the ETA will slowly begin to roll back a minute or two at a time. I used this to my advantage in that I wouldn't allow myself to stop for a break until I "saved up" enough time to do so. For example, the original ETA was 11pm. Once it read 10:30, we stopped for lunch at the Pink Cadillac Diner in bumfuck Virginia. I got the fried mushrooms to go, with a side of fries and a sweet tea. In true southern style, the portions were entirely too large for me to finish by myself. I ate 5 or 6 fried mushroom balls and ended up throwing away the other 20 or so at the next pit stop. I finished the sweet tea, though.
Around 3pm I started to feel like I'd had enough driving for one lifetime. Made 3 illegal pit stops within the hour. Was hungry for anything not fast food but fresh out of luck, stopped at McDonalds for a snack wrap to tide me over. Gross. Took cute picture of Echo and Dizzy sleeping on each other in the backseat. While driving. Started running out of music I wanted to listen to. Tried the radio--oh wait, this is Tennesee.
Once we got to Nashville, though, I got my second wind. There were lots of lane changes, bearing right and left and so forth, that TomTom had to tell me about to make sure I stayed on I-40. I saw a skyline for a split second and smiled. Just after Nashville the sun started to set, and middle of nowhere Tennessee is actually quite pretty in the twilight. I passed through a town called Bucksnort as the sky turned pink. TomTom couldn't find any other roads for miles on either side of I-40. I passed the time by watching the Prius' MPG gauge and trying to drive without touching my feet to the pedals. It worked out well: we'd cruise at 70-80mph, depending on traffic, and whenever someone going slower than that got in front of me, I'd decel or cancel the cruise, if necessary throw her into engine break mode... then we'd go back to drive, set the cruise again and accelerate the cruise from there. At one point I was sitting indian style in my seat.
We arrived at the hotel at 10:30pm E.S.T. with exactly one block left on the fuel gauge and just over 500 miles on the tank I filled in Virginia. Perfect timing. Plenty of night left to sleep before the wedding tomorrow!
This morning the groom returned my phone call and told me the wedding isn't today, but Sunday. Oh well. The dogs and I are going to take the day to relax and check out Shelby Farms.
Boston to Washington, D.C.
So I decided to document this road trip, mostly for my own nostalgic purposes, but since I am such a voyeur, I thought I'd just post it somewhere public for everyone to see. Trust me, it'll be hilarious. You'll be glad you tuned in.
Boston to DC, Summary:
Miles: ~500
Gas expenses: $40 (1 tank Boston, 1 tank DE/MD)
Good samaritan expenses: $10
At a gas station in what was either Delaware or Maryland, some lady approached me with a gas can and a story entirely too detailed to be true, asking for some gas to help her get over "the bridge." So okay, it's not like I can tell her I don't have any money, and I'm not just going to say no, so I fill up her can. So that's where the "good sam" expenses come from, 'cause you better believe I'm keeping track, Karma.
I got to D.C. in record time--it only took the actual 8 hours it was supposed to take, for once--hitting only little pockets of traffic around the beltway as rush hour started. I arrived at the hotel I booked last-minute on Orbitz and realized all too late that it was one of those swanky, upscale places I can't afford. Probably the only reason I got a room here was that I booked it like 12 hours in advance and they just really needed to fill up the rooms.
So I got out of the car in my pink wifebeater and ripped jeans, where a nice bell boy loaded all my luggage (one suitcase and several Trader Joe's reusable shopping bags) onto a cart while I dragged my misbehaving dogs out of the back seat. Dizzy is deathly afraid of any major break in his routine, so he fought with me about the getting out of the car part until he finally fell to his demise, butt-first on the concrete, as everyone else on the city block stared at me.
A few more minor mishaps later, my dogs, luggage, and I made it to the room relatively unscathed. AC met up with me (right after he first went to the OTHER Westin on M Street) with plans to take me to an "I <3 Bonobos" pub crawl a few blocks away, but first I needed an ATM, since I gave my last $2 to the bellboy as my shitty excuse for a tip. Thinking I had $60 in my account, I took out $40, which it gave me, along with a receipt reading that my account balance was negative $6 and some-odd cents. Fuck.
Whatever. I needed to break one of the 20's for bus fare, and I was sweating balls, so I decided to buy an ice cream bar. AC took pity on me at that point and insisted on getting both the ice cream bar and the bus ride. Even though we couldn't even take the bus, because by the time we got to it I was still eating my $95 chocolate eclair. Whatever. It was good ice cream.
By the time we got to the place that the pub crawl was happening AC had a better idea. Just across the street was a hookah bar, where happy hour is 5-7:30 and all their yummy girly drinks are half price. My first question was, "What is a hookah bar?" and his answer was, "Let's go."
I had two watermelontinis, some kind of wonderful key lime thing, a Caesar salad, and an after-dinner Stella, while AC, Blair and I shared a jasmine-flavored hookah on the patio. It was absolutely just the thing I needed. And since I didn't pay for the hookah or the Stella, I got outa there for like $20.
The dogs miraculously didn't chew on, piss on, have diarrhea on or otherwise destroy anything in the hotel room by the time I got back, although I'm sure they were barking at every footstep while I was gone, because they barked at every footstep the entire night while I tried to sleep. I tried to explain to them that I had 14 hours of driving to do tomorrow, but Echo insisted that his barking was pertinent to our safety here on the 7th floor of the Westin Hotel.
Eight hours and one most-awkward-hotel-checkout-ever later, we are on the road approximately an hour and a half behind schedule. The GPS thinks this is a good time to take me down the wrong road and almost put me on a bike path. Not funny, TomTom, not fuckin funny. We make it onto the highway at 9am, two hours later than planned. Tom says we'll be driving until a little after 11pm tonight. But there's a time change between here and Memphis, so we'll probably get in around 10pm central. In my Starbucks-deprived state I start to wonder if that means I'll only be driving for 13 hours instead of 14, and then I decide not to think about it and turn up the iPod really loud instead. Ahh, much better.
Boston to DC, Summary:
Miles: ~500
Gas expenses: $40 (1 tank Boston, 1 tank DE/MD)
Good samaritan expenses: $10
At a gas station in what was either Delaware or Maryland, some lady approached me with a gas can and a story entirely too detailed to be true, asking for some gas to help her get over "the bridge." So okay, it's not like I can tell her I don't have any money, and I'm not just going to say no, so I fill up her can. So that's where the "good sam" expenses come from, 'cause you better believe I'm keeping track, Karma.
I got to D.C. in record time--it only took the actual 8 hours it was supposed to take, for once--hitting only little pockets of traffic around the beltway as rush hour started. I arrived at the hotel I booked last-minute on Orbitz and realized all too late that it was one of those swanky, upscale places I can't afford. Probably the only reason I got a room here was that I booked it like 12 hours in advance and they just really needed to fill up the rooms.
So I got out of the car in my pink wifebeater and ripped jeans, where a nice bell boy loaded all my luggage (one suitcase and several Trader Joe's reusable shopping bags) onto a cart while I dragged my misbehaving dogs out of the back seat. Dizzy is deathly afraid of any major break in his routine, so he fought with me about the getting out of the car part until he finally fell to his demise, butt-first on the concrete, as everyone else on the city block stared at me.
A few more minor mishaps later, my dogs, luggage, and I made it to the room relatively unscathed. AC met up with me (right after he first went to the OTHER Westin on M Street) with plans to take me to an "I <3 Bonobos" pub crawl a few blocks away, but first I needed an ATM, since I gave my last $2 to the bellboy as my shitty excuse for a tip. Thinking I had $60 in my account, I took out $40, which it gave me, along with a receipt reading that my account balance was negative $6 and some-odd cents. Fuck.
Whatever. I needed to break one of the 20's for bus fare, and I was sweating balls, so I decided to buy an ice cream bar. AC took pity on me at that point and insisted on getting both the ice cream bar and the bus ride. Even though we couldn't even take the bus, because by the time we got to it I was still eating my $95 chocolate eclair. Whatever. It was good ice cream.
By the time we got to the place that the pub crawl was happening AC had a better idea. Just across the street was a hookah bar, where happy hour is 5-7:30 and all their yummy girly drinks are half price. My first question was, "What is a hookah bar?" and his answer was, "Let's go."
I had two watermelontinis, some kind of wonderful key lime thing, a Caesar salad, and an after-dinner Stella, while AC, Blair and I shared a jasmine-flavored hookah on the patio. It was absolutely just the thing I needed. And since I didn't pay for the hookah or the Stella, I got outa there for like $20.
The dogs miraculously didn't chew on, piss on, have diarrhea on or otherwise destroy anything in the hotel room by the time I got back, although I'm sure they were barking at every footstep while I was gone, because they barked at every footstep the entire night while I tried to sleep. I tried to explain to them that I had 14 hours of driving to do tomorrow, but Echo insisted that his barking was pertinent to our safety here on the 7th floor of the Westin Hotel.
Eight hours and one most-awkward-hotel-checkout-ever later, we are on the road approximately an hour and a half behind schedule. The GPS thinks this is a good time to take me down the wrong road and almost put me on a bike path. Not funny, TomTom, not fuckin funny. We make it onto the highway at 9am, two hours later than planned. Tom says we'll be driving until a little after 11pm tonight. But there's a time change between here and Memphis, so we'll probably get in around 10pm central. In my Starbucks-deprived state I start to wonder if that means I'll only be driving for 13 hours instead of 14, and then I decide not to think about it and turn up the iPod really loud instead. Ahh, much better.
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