So anyways... the post:
We made it!
As should be perfectly obvious, we made it. I can't remember most of what I typed here. There was a whole argument about ho---!!! I remember now!
As should be perfectly obvious, we made it to Oregon! Actually, we also made it to Washington, briefly, having driven over what MA describes as the "big ass bridge." But that's a story for later. Actually, all of it is a story for later 'cause later can't be now since now is now and it can't be two things at the same time. (Help, they're tormenting me again. Why me? I’m nice and sweet and innocent and they're all... well, being corrupted by MA!) Anyhoo, taking up where we left off.
Saturday night we all piled into two cars (we all being Velchan, her father, Kheltan and myself in Vel’s car and Mikel, bob, and Moridin in Mikel's car) and took off for a car rallye titled Rallye: Impossible 2. It was a lot of fun and now we all use slang from rallye like "right first opp" and "we're onto so when can we get offof?" We drove around for many an hour looking for signs and exclaiming "Hey, look! [insert name of friend from high school]'s house is right there!" Okay, I’ll admit I was the only one doing any yelling but it's not my fault the rallye took us miles from where we started into the same neighborhood where I went to high school. Despite the fact that everyone you know on the BBS/chat lives about 15minutes-1.5hrs (depending on traffic) from the school there are people we went to school with who could walk there if they wanted to.
(Sorry, Kheltan is telling a story about "Minnesoadta" so I’m slightly distracted from my story. Ignore any incongruities about deer, blood, or shotguns.)
At the end of the rallye we met back at a pizza parlor and they tallied the points. Guess what, Mikel, Bob, and Mori won first place! In the first timers category that is. Vel and the rest of us were in the intermediate category 'cause Vel's father was in the car and we got second place in our category. We were only 60pts behind the overall winner, which I think is cool. It was a ton of fun so you should all go do a search for car rallye's in your area and go! You'll make a billion-and-a-half mistakes but that's part of the fun of the first time. You have to look for instructions that are wrong or misleading or all sorts of other fun stuff. We doubled back over just about every road we went down to make sure we hadn't missed a sign or a direction we were supposed to find and we were doing fun illegal stuff like shinning flashlights out of a moving vehicle into oncoming traffic. Now I don't know how much detail I went into with our cover stories for the 'rents who just wouldn't get it but Khel and Mori are my friends from college who happened to be in the south bay for the weekend. Khel was in our car and got the 3rd degree from Vel's father. His detailed cover story is that he's from Minnesota looking for an apartment 'cause he just loves the bay area that much. So Vel’s father stopped at every house with a For Sale sign in the front yard, made Khel run up and get the flier, and then lectured on how expensive it is to live in the bay area. Poor Silk!
Nobody wanted to take me home so I wound up crashing on Vel's sofa overnight and borrowing pants that didn't fit (she's a few sizes smaller than I am) so we could go horseback riding on Sunday morning. And that was an adventure and a half in itself. Poor DK had this dumb little pony who did not want to have anything to do with the rest of us. He kept lagging behind and then when we passed other people he'd try to turn around and follow with them. No matter how DK kicked the dumb thing it would not go any faster. When we tried trotting (and man was that painful) we really left her in the dust. (now Kelanin is telling us a story about how Trees are a Menace to Mankind.) After an hour of horseback riding we had to return the horsies and try and walk again. (For those of you who are reading these posts to find out what people are really like, Kel's nervous habit is tugging on the front of his open buttoned shirt).
What else did we do on Sunday? There had to have been a lot 'cause it feels like about 10 days passed between the car rallye and now... Oh, I know! Vel was nice enough to take me home so I could put a pair of my own clothes on, feed my cat, water the plants, and other assorted stuff that needs seeing to when your parents are out of town and your brother's an idiot. Vel was really happy 'cause she got to hold my snake, Leo who despite the groans and faces from Caly is a real cutie and even sweeter than he is cute. We reconnected with the gang at DK's cafe where she was starting to get over the annoyance of her stupid horse. All together again (plus a few people you guys don't know online) we headed off to a pizza lunch (Kel just experienced a chatkill in real life. Who invited Hurtta and didn't tell me he was here?). We Tried to go to japan town but everything closed at 4:30pm and MA and Khel insisted on walking on the vaguest direction in the world. Vel and I doubled back for them and tried to make them get in the car. This is where Vel and I learned an important lesson that we seem incapable of actually grasping: MA does not follow directions and he will not, under any circumstance, follow orders. However, entries won't always fall on deaf ears. Japan town being closed, we tried a mall which was a big mistake being incredibly boring and insanely stupid. Avoid malls like the plague. Having had no luck entertaining ourselves we split up. Khel and MA went back up to SF and apparently have plans to go back when they're both old enough to go bar hopping. Mori went back to the hotel to sleep, DK had long since ran off for a cousin's wedding (or something), Vel went home to pack, our other assorted friends retired to their respective abodes (Jarihn's advice of the day: save the hacksaw until after all the people from the internet have left). I think I breezed over all of this the other day so I’ll skip over the boring details and move right along to Monday!
Monday Monday, dah dah, dah dah dah...
It was terribly early and unfortunately (hold on, have to add another detail to an earlier incident). Okay, where was I? Ah yes... Monterey Bay Aquarium. We drove down in three cars and took two different routs so the fact that we met up at all is quite frankly a miracle. MA, Khel, Vel, and I were waiting in the really really long line (with a jelly fish, sea otter, and decorator crab). Then Mori, Mikel, Jat, Dk, her cousin, (Caly just admitted that she deliberately, underhandedly sabotaged the Gryffindor house by encouraging Rhodric to nominate himself for housemaster) and Bob caught up with us. Everyone but Jat, Vel and myself wound up with a membership card or a guest pass and got to waltz in the non-existent line leaving us to our own devices. Some while later we finally made it in through the door and didn't see anyone we knew. So we wandered off and didn't find them again for about half an hour. Turns out they'd been waiting outside and we'd been looking around inside. Go fig. Half the people ran off one way to eat and the other half wandered off the other way and wouldn't you know it, Vel Jat and me by ourselves again. We managed to hunt down MA and Khel (who seem inseparable) and took them on a tour of the place, with a special stop to pet the bat rays. MA cheated -- he's tall and could reach about a foot further than the rest of us normal people. Speaking of how tall MA is, he's not actually that tall. He is however, taller than average and you'd think he'd be easy to spot in a crowd. He's not. I've never seen a man disappear faster or easier than that frustrating, evil man. And I swear to you, he is evil.
We finished looking around and spent half an hour trying to find everyone else. It's rather difficult. The people at the information booth refused to page anyone who wasn't a child or the parent of a lost child, no matter how we explained that DK is incredibly short. Turns out, when we found them, that they just got back from lunch and wanted to look around the aquarium now so we gave up and wandered up and down Cannery Row, with our newfound tag-along, Moridin.
It’s pretty late now and I’d hate to lose what I’ve typed so I’m posting it now.