*NOTE* This is pretty much what happened over my spring break. Some events were probably left out, but I can't remember every single thing that happened. It's long, and get's a little boring. The most entertaining part seemed to during the car rides. Enjoy.
Friday, March 1, 2002
The last day of classes marked the first day of Spring Break. I was staying at the cross country house over break because I had a lot of work to do (which I wouldn't have done if I were home), and I wanted to get in a good week of training. I went for a run before heading to the house and my achilles felt like it was grinding every step I took. Definitely not a good sign. I went to the house and we played horseshoes until our fingers were numb. Well, they played horseshoes, I was pretty much just throwing the shoes and hoping to at least hit the sand. Later that night after Trumbull fixed his world-famous stromboli, Sven, Trumbull, and I went to see "We Were Soldiers" with Mel Gibson. It was pretty good, but I thought that it was a little bit over-dramatic at parts.
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Saturday, March 2, 2002
Woke up after one of the coldest nights of my life. Trumbull, Fu, Scans, and myself went to eat at the all-you-can-eat Chinese food place in town. I realized that it was the first time I had ever eaten in a Chinese food place in my life/ eaten Chinese food period. While there, Fu asked if we wanted to go to Florida because Jamie, Erica (Rica), and Katrina were going to be staying at Jamie's dad's house and said that we could come down. I said I would go and Trumbull did too. We got all excited and tried to get a fourth person so that we could use their car. That didn't work out and we almost didn't go at all, but Trumbull checked weather.com and saw that it was 81 degrees in Florida while it was 45 and cloudy in Lock Haven. At this point I was desperate to go, but the problem was that Fu's Jeep Wrangler was an manual transmission and he was the only one that could drive a stick. At this point I lied and said that I could drive a stick (Fu and Trumbull, this is also another first experience that I had on my trip). I had tried it twice with my parents almost three years ago when I first got my Learner's permit, but my parents got so frustrated with me that I haven't tried it since. Anyway, Fu took me to some back road so I could prove to him that I could indeed drive a stick. By some miracle I got going without stalling and it was on. We were going to Florida. We went back to the house, made some phone calls, sent some emails, threw some clothes in a bag (the absolute bare minimum) and took off less than 30 minutes after we decided we were going. It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment type deal. I didn't even ask my parents if I could go. I tried calling but there was no answer, so I sent them an email sayng that we would be stopping by on our way to Florida. Right away our bad luck followed us out of Lock Haven as we drove all the way to I-80 only to realize it was closed, so we drove back up 220 through Williamsport, then down 15 to 80. We needed to go to Fu's house outside of Philly to pick up a spare tire and drop off a Gecko at Paul's house. Fu's house was hilarious as the verbal bashing between relatives left me speechless. We stopped by my house at around 11:15pm. I basically just wanted to say hi and pick up a pair of shorts (I hadn't packed any). The roof in the Jeep leaked like you wouldn't believe, so the roll of paper towels that we picked up at Fu's house were already gone by the time we got to my house. My mother gave us some old towels to use to try to stop the waterfall that was flowing down the inside of the jeep. The seemed to help. It's a good thing because it rained pretty much from Pennsylvania to Florida. We rolled out and were officially on our way to Florida.
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Sunday, March 3, 2002
I went to sleep and woke up somewhere just north of Richmond, VA. It was about 1:45am and my turn to drive. I tried to get started and it lurched forward and stalled. It looked like we were on a bucking bronco at a rodeo or something. Fu and Trumbull are laughing hysterically. I think I stalled again and they kept on laughing. I finally got going and pulled out onto 95. This was the first time I had ever driven on 95, and I was driving an manual transmission. You can imagine how my nerves were feeling at the time. I drove all the was through southern Virginia and through North Carolina until I was about 60 miles from the South Carolina border. At this point I would like to explain the "Not It" game that we played. As we pulled into each gas station, the last person to yell "Not It" had to pump the gas. This game led to controversy later on in the trip, but I'll just say that I had to pump the gas 80% of the times that we stopped. According to Fu, I don't know how to pump gas and that's why we were getting bad gas mileage. It was his turn to drive, and then I took over somewhere in South Carolina and drove all the way into Georgia. By this time the sun had come up, and we drove over the Savannah river which smelled like chemicals and trash. Fu and El Capitan decided to blame the smell on me, and would haunt me with this for the rest of the trip. Fu drove all the way through Georgia and into Deerfield Beach, Florida, just outside of Ft. Lauderdale, and about 40 or so miles north of Miami. The entire trip we had been keeping in contact with the car of girls via Fu's cell phone. We had been lying to them about our location the entire trip. Just telling them that we were a state behind the one we were actually in. For example, when we got to Florida, we told them that we were just getting to Georgia. It finally got sunny when we got just south of Jacksonville. I'm not sure if Jacksonville is a red-neck city or what, but we were listening to this radio station while going through and every commercial break, they made sure to say "and no rap." It was just another little thing that I thought was amusing. It was also Bike Week in Daytona Beach. We saw motorcycles along 95 for the entire trip. They were also from all over the country. California, Washington, Michigan, Vermont. It was awesome. This was the last sun we would see until we left on Thursday. We decided to put the top down since the sun was out, and I thought that I was going to get whip-lash with the wind. This trip was also the first time that I had a serious fear of going deaf due to the undescribable noise inside the jeep. Imagine the sound of the wind in a tornado, multiply that by 10, and add a speaker pumping out music to a noise level to drown out the tornado. Everybody kept saying to be careful not to fall asleep at the wheel, but you couldn't fall asleep in that jeep even if you got hit in the face by a Mike Tyson hey-maker. The entire time we were in Florida, the sun was nowhere in sight, and there was a constant wind to go along with the 60 degree temperature. We finally arrived at the house, went for a run (bad idea on my part), went swimming in their pool, and hung out for the rest of the day. I also saw a shark's fin in the little waterway that bordered their backyard. I wanted to see an alligator. The girls had gotten massively sunburned, and were basically in pain with every move they made. We played cards that night which produced some hilarious moments.
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Monday, March 4, 2002
Woke up to 60 degree temperatures. We went to the ocean which was about a mile or so away and walked around in the little shops they had there. It wasn't warm enough to go in the ocean, so we sat on the beach for a while and then went back to the house. They went for a run. We ate at the house and hung around for the rest of the day. That night, they decided that they wanted to go to a club after much deliberation and indecision. By the time everybody got ready and a certain somebody finished whining and moping, it was 11:30pm. I stayed in and studied.
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Tuesday, March 5, 2002
Fu and Trumbull slept late, so I went with the girls to some shops in Ft. Lauderdale. They were nice. We were there for a while and went back to the house. They were going to be going to the same club again this night, so we ate and proceeded to get ready to go. At this point, my frustration with the entire female population boiled over. Why is it that they take so unbelievably long to get ready to do anything? This wasn't really the only reason, but it triggered it. We went out. It was ok. I'm not much of a dancer.
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Wednesday, March 6, 2002
Woke up and the six of us decided to go back to Ft. Lauderdale and go to the Swap-Shop flea market and circus. On the way there we saw this pink big-pimpin cadillac with it's system bumping. Another missed photo opportunity. I got my picture taken with some statues of the Blues Brothers. I had never been to a market like this before, and felt like the only non-Spanish speaking person in the entire place. We then watched the circus that was there (I had apparently been to a circus one time when I was three, but didn't remember it). The circus was surprisingly good and I got a few pictures. Pretty funny when one of the elephants dropped a deuce right in the middle of the show. The entire audience was watching it and let out a collective groan when it happened. Funny stuff. We went back to the house, and they went for a run. Fu was on the phone at the time, so we went to the costume shop where we found some awesome costumes. He took my picture while I was trying to look like a pimp, then we ate at McDonalds. We got back to the house and they we decided to eat at Olive Garden because it was our last night there. While waiting to leave, we saw the Seinfeld episode that I got my nickname of "Cocoa" from. Pretty coincidental. After waiting forever for the females to get ready, we finally left and proceeded to get lost. Jamie's driving led me to say a little prayer in the back seat. We finally found it. I wasn't even hungry, so just got some soup, and salad with breadsticks. Delicious. After we went back to the house, there was some tension and some more whining. Nobody could agree on what to do. I wanted to get naked and start the revolution, but nobody wanted to join me. I'm glad Jamie was able to stay so up-beat about everything or else it would have been a miserable week. We decided to just go to the beach. It was about 60 degrees with a 40mph wind. I ran out into the ocean just so I could say that I swam in the ocean. We stood around for a while, then left.
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Thursday, March 7, 2002
We got up and were pretty much dreading the trip back. We left the house at like 10:30am and Fu got an oil-change at some thugged out Jiffy Lube. He made sure to explain to the people working there not to touch the ignition lock because he had forgotten his keys back home in Philly, so he could start the jeep without them, but if it got locked, we were going to be in big trouble. That got done and we left. Fu started driving and was flipping out within an hour into the trip about how bad this drive sucked. I took over after we got to the Cocoa Beach exit. I took a picture of the sign, but it was from the back seat so I don't know how it will show up. I found that the time passed a lot quicker when you were doing the driving instead of just watching. This wasn't true today though. I made it all the way to Jacksonville where the sun finally came out. We got to the city. Fu asked if we thought there was going to be bumper-to-bumper traffic, and as soon as he said it, we go around a bend and it was pretty much at a standstill. I got off at the nearest exit so we could switch seats. Somehow, I made my way to a drawbridge that was up so all traffic was stopped. Here we did a Chinese firedrill as the people all around us looked on in shock. We made our way back on to 95, made fun of some high school kids running along the road, and were on our way. I was never more happy than when we saw the "Welcome To Georgia" sign. We stopped in Georgia to get gas. I was the last person to yell "Not It" again, so I had to pump gas. I didn't know how to use his credit card thing in the gas pump, so gave him his card back and went inside and got a 40oz. smoothie. I came back out and they accused me off ducking out of my duties, so I had to pump gas for the remainder of the trip. They then took off as I was about to get in the jeep. I sat on the curb for a few minutes and missed a perfect photo opportunity. Here we were in the dirty south, and I saw some redneck looking guy wearing a jersey that said "Dirty South" on it. I had left my camera in the jeep. By the time they came back, the guy was inside. They threw my camera at me out the window and made me walk over to the jeep. We got going again, I finished my smoothie, and was daydreaming. about 140 miles into the drive, Fu asked if I had to pee yet. I didn't, but the thought of it made me start to feel it. I didn't say anything until he asked me at 220 miles. I told him that I had been holding it for the past 80 miles and he lost it. We had to get gas anyway, so we stopped and I found a urinal made for people of my height. We were well into South Carolina at this point and I started driving. I'm pretty sure it was at this point that I was pumping gas, and let the tank overflow. I yelled and got everybody in the entire gas stations' attention, including this group of Mexicans hanging out by a van. It was my turn to start driving, and everybody was still watching me. Another pressure situation. Fu and Trumbull watched in anticipation because they knew what was coming. I started the jeep, lurched forward again, and stalled. The Mexicans were losing their minds laughing, and the fact that Trumbull and Fu were pretty much screaming in my ear wasn't helping the situation. I tried again, stalled again, and the laughter continued. The third time was a charm as I peeled out of the gas station and didn't stop for the stop sign. I drove through South Carolina and almost all the way through North Carolina, 8 miles from the Virginia border. When it was time to get gas, I got off at the exit but there was a light at the end of the exit. I of course stalled at the intersection. The car behind me was beeping the horn. Trumbull and Fu were laughing giggling like school-girls. I finally got going and pulled into the gas station. Fu then drove until just south of Fredericksburg where they decided that I needed to drive again so Fu could rest because they were going to be dropping me off at my house. They got boiling hot-chocolate at the rest stop and burned the taste buds off their tongues. Now it was my turn to laugh at them. They wanted to finish before I started driving so they didn't spill the molten hot chocolate all over themselves when I got started because I was sure to stall. I had to back out of the parking space and did it without stalling. I'm pretty sure that I scared the life out of the man on the phone directly in front of the jeep. I stalled again shifting into first, then got going on my second attempt.
Friday, March 8, 2002
I drove all the way up to the DC beltway where we ran into a traffic jam on the Maryland border as they only had one lane open due to construction. How is it that there is a traffic jam at 2:00am? I pulled over and we pulled another Chinese firedrill. Fu drove all the way from there back to my house as I gave directions. We got gas at a gas station 2 blocks from my house. This is the same gas station that we stopped at on the way down. It was the robbery-proof window spinning mechanism. We rolled up at around 2:55am to find the doors locked. Some black guy came walking around the corner of the gas station asking me for change and said that he had been trying to get into to the inside for 20 minutes. The foreign guy came out of the back and upon seeing me, unlocked the door but quickly walked behind his armored counter. He must have thought that this other guy was going to rob him or something. I went back outside, and so did this guy asking me for another dime. I gave it to him and he went back inside. I made a comment that it was good to be home, dealing with the bums and whatnot, which seemed to lighten the mood. We pulled up to my house at 3:00am and my trip was over, 16 hours after we left Florida. We made awesome time. Fu and Trumbull were going on to Fu's house and then back to Lock Haven. I couldn't imagine being in the car for another 5 hours. I crashed on my couch.
More To Come