ECR Happenings 2
Jamie's entry Here's my thoughts on ECR.......... I wasn't sure what to expect when I headed out to ECR. I can say I wasn't nervous though(well, except about finding Jen at the airport! :)). I was very excited though! The people on the plane probably thought I was a psycho as much as I was giggling to myself! As soon as I walked into the airport and saw Jen and her sign, I know the weekend would be great!! The ride up was wonderful! Getting to know Jen was so fun (Jen....moo!). As soon as we arrived and were way laid with hugs (thanks Rock Creek!), I knew the experience I was about to have was going to be one of the best I'd ever had! It more than lived up to that! Meeting everyone was so much fun! I feel like I made 14 friends just by getting on a plane! There wasn't anything that I'd change about the weekend! Well.....there is one small thing....MORE TIME! :) Next year there will defineatly have to be more than just 3 days!!
JaMarie
~*~*~*~*~*~ Rhiannon's entry(not yet complete)
I am no where near finished... but I may never be, so here's what I have so far...
Rhiannon's Summary of her ECR Experience aka: It beats doing homework
Ah. the memories.
Thursday night I was supposed to expect nothing from Theresa and Liz, as Theresa was going to decide if they were coming on to Raleigh at the last minute after she decided how she felt after her drive from charlotte. As I held I homecoming banner up with one arm in a tiny room of an engineering laboratory my pocket vibrated, and I heard that Theresa and Liz were on their way. I told Theresa to call me on my cell phone when they got to town, and I would come out and meet them. 6:30 Friday morning I awoke hugging my cell phone in my sleep. Damn those two took a long time getting from Charlotte to Raleigh. I reluctantly went to class worrying about my friends (who for the life of me I couldn't remember either of their last names). When at 9 am my pocket had yet to vibrate, I started to think about calling the state highway patrol and ask if there were any major accidents between Charlotte and Raleigh. I figured the conversation would go something like this: "Highway Patrol." "Yes, I was expecting some friends to arrive in Raleigh last night, and I was wondering if they were possibly in a wreck or something, can you help me?" "Yes, just tell me what kind of vehicle they were driving?" "Um, I don't really know. It might have been black, or it might have been a two door with lots of animal hair." "Okay ma'am, what was the name of the driver?" "Uh, well, it was either Theresa or Liz, oh wait." "I need last names ma'am." "Okay, let me look here," I know I have Theresa's last name here somewhere. Was it part of her screenname? "How about Theresa Vader?" "No records of that name being involved in an accident last night." Vader, how stupid of me. that's because she's a Star Wars fan, what was her last name!!!??? "Okay, could you look up." click "Hello? Oh look. my pocket's vibrating again." So, they did arrive in Raleigh, and it turns out that they were just a couple of miles from my apartment at the hotel. So I threw my stuff into my car, and rushed over to meet Liz and Theresa. Well, I met Liz and waited for Theresa to get out of the shower. I was amazed when the phone queen got out that she does talk that fast in person, and its not just because she is trying to get in all she can in a phone call. It would have been freaky for her to suddenly have a slow southern drawl since she didn't have to pay by the minute. So, we got on the road, after a quick stop at my apartment to drop off Theresa's car. And we followed my ghetto directions from maps.com. How we know they were ghetto? Well the first place we ended up was the ghetto of Durham! This was only the first place we ended up in our trip that influenced our decision to arrive at the ECR and proclaim that we would never do this again unless it was in a location easily accessible by major highway from Raleigh. The mood was set. We had the sunroof open, the music blaring, and the doors locked. Eventually I was able to go as fast as 40 mph! Lets just say the route was bad. After a little bit of rural driving, we reached the mountains. Curvy, steep roads where every time we had to drive uphill we were coincidentally behind a large tractor trailer full of wood chips. After about 15 hours of this we decided to begin our search for a Taco Bell. The chances of finding one did not look good. We found one, and it looked great as I took the exit to miss it and head on down the road. Who knew that was the last taco bell for 50 miles? When we found that Bell, it was the greatest moment of the whole hour. Cheers erupted, angels trumpeted, I hit the brakes (which, thanks to some auto work earlier that week, worked!). We ate, and talked about recent online events and wondered how they would pan out through the weekend. And as we talked about people, and what we expected them to be like, we realized that they could be sitting at the table next to us, and we wouldn't even know it. ~Whew, I have filled a whole page and I haven't even gotten to Luray yet. This is why I don't keep a diary. ~ We did get to that little town. There was a little deer incident, and a car that was following way too close for comfort. Okay so I was convinced that the road was going to end and a scary redneck was going to get out and force us all out of the car and 'squeal like a pig,' but luckily that didn't happen. So finally, we made it to Rock Creek. We were prepared for our late arrival and the excitement that it would bring, mostly because we knew that the party wasn't going to begin until we arrived. (J/k we really aren't that conceited) So we climb out of the car, deciding to take our luggage out after all the hugging, and run up to the door which to our disappointment was locked. I could see the bottles of liquor on the table, and the sign for JaMarie, but all the pounding on that door didn't bring anybody to let us in. We didn't know where Spotted Cow was, but we knew everybody had to be there. Theresa called the number she conveniently brought along for the Spotted Cow (aka Sweetwater) cabin, as I looked through the woods at this other cabin that was making a lot of noise. I truly don't know what I expected to see, not like I knew who I was looking for. I guess seeing men would have ruled out the possibility of it being the ECR. So we headed toward the noise (in the car) and pulled up to a yard with a few girls standing outside. They were very loving to three girls they had never met, but I guess they knew what car to be looking for. We proceeded with introductions outside in the dark. Then we headed up and entered the cabin where there were many more people waiting. We then introduced ourselves again (because we couldn't see each other the first time). Then we started getting to know each other. "Okay, I just wanna know where everybody stands on this subject. What do you think?" I remember Jen asking as we stood around the bar. I was afraid a 'certain issue' would cause tension, but it turned out to be a unifying factor. Being the last people to arrive, we were filled in on drama we missed earlier in the day. Charla and Laura finally arrived with the pizza (was Amy with them? Okay, this writing my summary a month after the fact does have its disadvantages). Not that we were at all hungry (yum, Taco Bell), but we were wanting to meet the people with the pizzas. I said "Hi, I'm Rhiannon." "I know that!" Charla replied. So the gang was all there. Evidently we were holding up the process. They were waiting to meet us before they left for pizza, I feel so special! So the Outlaw game got started. I got two poker ships, and a little smiley-face sticker destined to go on somebody's shirt. Of course the name that went with the sticker did not match any of the faces I remembered. I didn't have a clue who to put my sticker on. The evening progressed. Sid fell out of her chair. Rae talked about Tucson. I tried to get names and faces straight. I still didn't have a clue who went with my sticker. I had decided it was a quiet person, and Jamie kept giving me this look, I thought she was my victim. I pretended to act natural. Then people started attacking. Killing everywhere. The horror! I was trapped, in the closet type area. This girl in a Nebraska sweatshirt was closing in with the look of a deranged killer on her face. I fought with all my might. For all I knew, she was the person I was supposed to kill, so I put my foot in her gut to push her away whiled I pulled out my smiley sticker. She pushed her weapon at me as I pushed mine at her. I was at a disadvantage, I was backed against a wall. I hesitated, thinking of the awkward situation that might arise over me trying so hard to kill the wrong person. In this brief hesitation she pushed forward, and in an instant I was dead. I handed over my weapon and pretended I was just trying to fight back, I knew she wasn't really Dee. Hey Dee, I know who you are now! Next time your butt is mine!!! Then we tried to match the quotes on the shirts with the characters that said them. At this point half the group moved to the porch. After realizing that I am a completely lousy fan because I didn't have the slightest clue who said "You low down mealy mouthed coyote!" I decided to join the group on the porch. Not to mention the quiz started to give me a headache from thinking. I would have to say it was the only time the whole weekend I came close to getting a headache, or thinking. The porch, ah the loved porch. I laughed so hard my face hurt. We made a couple of trips through the woods to get stuff, and leave stuff at the rock creek cabin. The woods were full of holes and trees, and in general not designed to be walked through at night with wine coolers in your hands. I do believe that one of those first trips to rock creek was when Jen came up with Thompson's Wet Goods. So inside jokes were passed around. E-Bitchslaps were created. I don't think ice ever existed between us, but if it did it was all dissolved outside on that porch. And the girls inside were having fun too. I am sure somebody else will give the porch justice when they write their summary, so I wont go into too much detail. I think I was just in shock that I was having so much fun. I think at some point we put in a tape and tried to watch an episode. We planned to start with "The Kid" and end the ECR with "Till Death Do us Part." I think we forgot to end it. I guess we will all have to get back together and watch that sometime. We decided to take the road to Rock Creek instead of the woods. It was safer, considering the Thompsons wet Goods that had been consumed. We went down a big hill, and up another. The bonding was great. Finally I think I crawled into bed and listened to Raye and Liz talk about something and thinking "How can they possibly still be awake?" At some point I woke up again and Raye said "We were talking about Ike, I thought of waking you up." Then it was Saturday morning. We discovered that drudging through the woods was much easier in the daylight. While we still fell in just as many holes, at least we could see where we were landing. When we got to the Sweetwater Cabin, Gail had breakfast ready. We ate, watched a video, and were amazed at Theresa's presence before noon. Then we piled in the cars to go horseback riding. The wonders of the roads near Luray. The one-lane bridges, steep hills, and randomly closed roads made it more of an adventure. I knew Amy's car wasn't going to make it up that final hill to the barn, and we would have to back all the way down so she could try again. (I was in JenDC's car, which was doing fine in Amy's dust) So we arrived at the horsey place where our trusty steeds stood lined up ready to ride. Well they were obviously ready, since we were a little bit later than planned. So we all paid, and John started assigning horses. He put a few people on their horses, then stopped and asked the dreaded question. "Who is has the most riding experience?" That may not have been his words verbatim, but it is the dreaded question. It always registers in my brain as "We have this demon horse here that we need somebody that knows a little about horses to ride so when it runs away bucking you have a better chance of staying on. We broke it last week." So I raised my hand and he lead me towards one horse that was tied on a log separate from the others. "Spunky" was his name. Okay, now I have a little bit of a control issue. I like to be in control of certain things, the steering wheel of my car when I am driving it, the movie that I am going to watch, or where my horse is going to go. I was therefore a little uncomfortable when they asked me to mount this "Spunky" fellow while he was still tied to a log. Visions ran through my head of all the horses that I have seen rear back and snap the halter while tied to the fence. But I didn't protest, and climbed on up just like everybody else. Pony Club would never approve. So we were off to our trail ride, which, happened to be a few very large circles around the main barn. There were some lovely mountain view to be seen, and there is no better way to see things like that then from horseback. I don't remember much of the conversation, but there was one point where all the girls in front of me started laughing a good bit. "What's going on?" I asked JenDC who was looking like a natural in her brown jacket on top of her horse in front of mine. She told me about John's famous line, which I am sure everybody that was there is putting in their story. "Are you all having a reunion or something?" So John was a very nice guy, and our little horseback riding adventure passed without any injuries to the crew. I did try to make Spunky jump a log, but it evidently wasn't a big enough log for him. He tried to rear up once, but that was all the spunkiness I saw. I think eat should be renamed Buttmunch, because the whole trip all he tried to do was take a hunk out of JenDC's horse's rear. Okay, so then we were on our way back. And I was feeling oh so nasty from not having my morning shower. We needed to restock form Thompson's wet goods, so we stopped at the local grocery store. I asked Jen to buy me some wet goods, but I wasn't sure yet if anyone in the group still thought I was of legal age, so I told her it was because I "didn't bring my ID." Jen knew the real reason. So Jen go the goods, and we headed to the cars when we noticed that there was a Taco Bell in the same shopping center. We invaded it. Theresa wasn't with us, and I seriously started to bring her back the two soft tacos supreme minus tomatoes and regular nachos that I knew she would have ordered. But I figured they would have been really nasty by the time we got back to the cabins, and she probably already ate. more coming soon........ |
