NASHVILLE...in a little over 24 hours. Complete with pictures!
Before I begin, there's a little bit of back story to this adventure. In the summer of 2008, my roommate Evie worked at a regional theatre for her summer job with a whole bunch of people who were already working professionally. One of these people was Andrew. After the summer, his next gig was playing Joseph in a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in Nashville, TN. Nashville is about 8 hours from Harrisonburg, and so when Ev came back to school in September she told all of us that she really wanted to go see him in this show and that a lot of her cast was planning on it, because they missed him and it would be great to see him perform. Because in college we were crazy music majors involved in thousands of clubs, there was only one available weekend she could go, but none of her cast from the summer ended up being able come down, so she decided not to go (since she didn't want to go all the way to Nashville alone).
Which is where our story begins.
The madness began on October 11, 2008, around 11:00am. It was your typical Saturday in 499. We had no real plans, maybe baking something or watching a movie mid-afternoon. It was actually a really chill weekend and none of us had much planned, but we did have tickets to see Chess in Theatre II that night. When I woke up I decided that since we had the whole day in front of us I was going to make cinnamon rolls for my roommates and me. After I popped those bad boys in the oven, I went upstairs to see if Ev was awake to make her hang out with me (looking back, I have NO idea where Laura was, although I'm sure I knew at the time. Maybe she went home that weekend??). Luckily for me, she was awake...but when I walked in her room and sat on her bed, I witnessed maybe one of the most pathetic sights in history...Ev, in her PJs, sitting at her desk, just staring at Facebook pictures, clicking next and not even actually paying attention to the pictures. After silently watching this for about a minute, I decided to attempt conversation. It wasn't too productive. I told Ev I made cinnamon rolls, to which I'm fairly sure she replied with "Oh...ok..."
Girlfriend was depressed.
We talked about how she was really bummed she couldn't go to Nashville and that that's where she'd be at the time if people had been able to go. We talked for a little while longer, and then I went back down to take out the cinnamon buns and check my email. While doing the latter, I sent Ev an IM that said:
Lionsforthecup (11:34:31 AM): if you can get our chess tickets changed to tomorrow
Lionsforthecup (11:34:45 AM): i will go with you to nashville
sweetdreams1680 (11:35:09 AM): lol you're amazing. but i'd have to leave in 30 minutes since it takes 8 hours and the show is at 8...
Lionsforthecup (11:35:25 AM): tell me what you want to do and we'll do it
sweetdreams1680 (11:35:35 AM): you're an amazing best friend. :-)
I was simultaneously IMing Ash as well:
Lionsforthecup (11:38:10 AM): we have to go to nashville
TinyDncer12 (11:38:23 AM): ....what?!
Lionsforthecup (11:38:23 AM): she's miserable
TinyDncer12 (11:38:31 AM): awwww....
TinyDncer12 (11:38:40 AM): i would, but don't we have chess tickets
TinyDncer12 (11:38:45 AM): for tonight
Lionsforthecup (11:38:49 AM): she's best friends with becky
Lionsforthecup (11:38:54 AM): i bet we could switch them for tomorrow
TinyDncer12 (11:39:01 AM): i'm down
(back to Ev)
Lionsforthecup (11:40:37 AM): ash is down too
Lionsforthecup (11:40:48 AM): evie it starts at 7:30
Lionsforthecup (11:40:53 AM): if we leave by noon
Lionsforthecup (11:40:55 AM): we can make it
Lionsforthecup (11:41:03 AM): esp. if you let me drive for part of it
sweetdreams1680 (11:44:09 AM): 730??? we can't make it
Lionsforthecup (11:44:14 AM): we're going
sweetdreams1680 (11:44:16 AM): it takes 8 hours
Lionsforthecup (11:44:20 AM): i'm printing directions
sweetdreams1680 (11:44:24 AM): haha
Lionsforthecup (11:44:25 AM): evie. it's the highway
sweetdreams1680 (11:44:27 AM): you guys we can't
Lionsforthecup (11:44:37 AM): ash and i are both changing
Lionsforthecup (11:44:39 AM): we CAN
Lionsforthecup (11:44:42 AM): and ARE
Lionsforthecup (11:44:44 AM): get dressed
sweetdreams1680 (11:45:21 AM): worst that could happen we stop at richmond and shop
sweetdreams1680 (11:45:26 AM): omg i love you girls
Lionsforthecup (11:45:35 AM): that's not a stop on the way hahaha but get dressed
sweetdreams1680 (11:45:35 AM): okay lets do it :-X
And Nashville trip was born.
We all got off our computers at 11:45...Ev and I were in her car leaving to get Ash at noon. This meant that none of us showered, we all threw on "evening" clothes since we were seeing a show at night and needed to be a little dressy, and no one ate. I threw a sheet of aluminum foil over the cinnamon buns and put them in the car...they were our only sustenance. We didn't even bring water. I also printed directions and decided to hide a very obvious fact from Ev...
We picked up Ash, and by 12:15, we were on the road.
Here's the thing about spontaneous road trips. They start out AWESOME! "Wow, I can't believe we're doing this, how crazy are we?! OMGZ LOLOLOLOL!!!!!!"
But all road trips inevitably lead to the same thing...being SUPER BORED, stuck in a car for the entire day. After we each ate one of the delish cinnamon buns (Ev only ate half), we settled in for a car trip that didn't really have a determined time length. Ev drove and listened to obscure Broadway musicals with the occasional Legally Blonde song thrown in, I took pictures of the nearby scenery:
...and Ashley passed out IMMEDIATELY. In fact, over the entire trip, which ended up being roughly 16 hours in the car, Ashley was asleep for 13 of those hours. We had these extravagant plans to make our first draft of the parody TV show we planned on producing, Hearn's Anatomy (starring our friends as all the characters...Evie was the dog) during the long hours in the car. This never came in to fruition. I blame the cinnamon buns.
The next five hours followed a fairly predictable pattern. There were 6 jumbo cinnamon buns. We consumed 2.5 of them at the beginning of the trip. After Ashley's first hour long nap, she arose, and decided that she was STARVING, and she ate another cinnamon bun. She would then experience an INSANE sugar high, flip out for fifteen minutes, and immediately crash. An hour later, same thing. In total, she ate FOUR AND A HALF CINNAMON BUNS. This day is easily number one of the "Ashley Bacon is more hyper than an ADD four year old who's just eaten an entire box of red dye popsicles" moments...and there are more of those than you might think.
We honestly had no idea what time we'd end up getting to Nashville. You see, this is before any of us had phones with internet or GPS...it was olden times when you had to print directions from the internet. And since none of us had driven to Nashville, better yet, not even farther than Virginia Tech on I-81...we had NO idea how long this was going to take, what traffic could be like, etc. I let Evie drive the first three and a half hours....but after we stopped for gas...I knew what I had to do.
I took the wheel.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that I drove 90 MPH for three straight hours. I was determined to best google maps. But there was still no way we were going to make it by 7:30. I thought maybe there was a chance we could make it by 8, but even then, it was only a chance. Plus at this point we were out of cinnamon buns, and to put it kindly, Ashley was quite verbal when it came to expressing her displeasure us refusing to stop for food beforehand (I recall it sounding something like "WHYYYYYYYYYYYY HUNGERRRRRR")...things were tense.
But then a miracle occured.
Ashley, rousing briefly from her everlasting sleep, checked her phone to see what time it was. At this point I was driving with a slightly crazed look in my eye, and the car had been dead silent for over an hour with nervous tension. I do not exaggerate. So Evie and I both jumped when Ashley asked:
"Hey guys, what time is it?"
Me: "It's 6:20"
Ash: "Really? My phone says it's 5:20"
I was slightly confused. My first thought was "What the heck is wrong with Ashley's phone?" So I checked mine. It also said 5:20. Now I was REALLY confused. Until it dawned on all of us pretty much at the exact same time...
(this was yelled simultaneously in various sentence forms): "IS THERE A TIME CHANGE BETWEEN HARRISONBURG AND NASHVILLE?!?!?!?!"
Of course this was pre-Droid days, as I said, so we had no way to look this up. So we turned to our trusty friend Sarah Davis for some help. This is how that conversation went:
Ash: "Hey Sar!"
Sarah: "Hey what's up?"
Ash: "Hey what time is it?"
Sarah: ".......what?"
Ash: "What time is it?!"
Sarah: "Ashley you are ON A PHONE. WITH A CLOCK. How have you not figured this out by yourself yet?!"
Ash: "SARAH WHAT TIME IS IT IN HARRISONBURG!??!?!"
Sarah: "It's 6:25! What is WRONG with you?!"
Ash: "IT'S 6:25!!! IT'S 6:25!!!!!!!"
Annnnnd the three of us screamed for five minutes and then finally explained to Sarah why we needed to ask questions that third graders can figure out the answers to.
We were elated. Ev was happy we were going to make it not only on time but EARLY. Ash was happy that we would be able to get her McNuggets. And I was happy that I no longer had to stalk the highway for cops to make sure I didn't get pulled over for driving 90 MPH.
You'd think this story could end here and still be excellent, but you'd be missing the best part, which is soon to come.
We FINALLY got into Nashville, sent Ev to run and buy our tickets, and got our McDonald's. Soon it was time to park and walk into the theatre. The show was actually Lipscomb University's fall musical, so it took place on campus. None of us had ever heard about this school before, so we just (wrongly) assumed it was a normal school. It was a university after all. But as we walked through campus to the theatre, it became very clear that we did not blend in at all. Everyone on campus was a)not attractive, b)wearing long pants, muted colors, and generally nothing that could ever be considered fashion forward, and, c)STARING at us. We were all wearing above the knee (at least) dresses, I had bright red heels, and best of all Ashley was wearing this:
I shouldn't have been surprised, based on our IM from earlier in the day:
TinyDncer12 (11:50:43 AM): hey are we dressing up for the show
TinyDncer12 (11:50:48 AM): WHAT
TinyDncer12 (11:50:49 AM): JOSEPH
TinyDncer12 (11:50:55 AM): THIS SUCKS
TinyDncer12 (11:50:58 AM): I LOVE EVIE A LOT
Lionsforthecup (11:51:06 AM): i'm dressing up
TinyDncer12 (11:51:41 AM): how muc?
Lionsforthecup (11:52:03 AM): heels
TinyDncer12 (11:52:49 AM): gotcha
TinyDncer12 (11:53:10 AM): can i just look really slutty?
Lionsforthecup (11:53:23 AM): duh
We knew we didn't fit in, but we weren't sure why. We knew that JMU wasn't the only school where people knew generally how to look cute. What was off about this school? It wasn't until the following Monday when I did some research that everything made sense...
Established in 1891, Lipscomb University is a private, co-educational institution of higher learning whose primary mission is to integrate Christian faith and practice with academic excellence. This mission grows from principles articulated by the founders: “The supreme purpose of the school shall be to teach the Bible as the revealed will of God to man … and to train those who attend in a pure Bible Christianity. … Such other branches of learning may be added as will aid in the understanding and teaching of the Scriptures and as will promote usefulness and good citizenship among men.”
This became even more painfully clear when we walked into the theatre, a room full of old people and families with small children. Who ALL STARED AT US. I think it was at this point that Ashley and I decided to throw all social grace out the window and have the most epic time ever.
The show was NOT good. My personal favorite part was the Pharoah's costume. When he made his first entrance Ash and I cried with laughter for probably five minutes...see if you can figure out why (guy on the left)...
What an unfortunate place to put a "P" ....for pharaoh....
After the show Ash and I met Andrew for the first time. I think it's fair to say that he disliked us immediately. We were so exhausted (although I don't know how Ashley could have been), still hungry, judged by everyone around us, and reeling from the performance we had just seen. You would think that meant we were grumpy...quite the opposite. We were INSANE.
Luckily for us, Andrew, who was impressed by how far we had come to see the show, told us we were welcome to stay at his house and sleep for a few hours before we had to turn right around to get back (we needed to be back in Harrisonburg by 2 pm the next day). So we grabbed food with one of Evie's friends who lives in Nashville, and took Andrew up on his offer to stay at his "home"...
I say "home" because it wasn't actually his home. Since he was an artist they brought in just for the show, the school put him up in one of their houses that they use for visiting artists/clinicians/etc. We followed Andrew down a sketchy, pitch black, serial killer-esque dirt road to what I could only assume was our impending death. Instead, we found ourselves at a log cabin I know I will NEVER forget. In fact, it might not be fair to call it a log cabin. We were spending the night in a taxidermy museum. I actually have been to a taxidermy museum before, thanks to what my Aunt considered a "fun family outing" during a vacation she took me on (that's a blog post for another time...have you ever seen a stuffed elephant? Because I have...), and I can attest that this house came REALLY close.
Ashley walked in first, with me behind her. She looked left, I looked right. My first view was a balcony with a bear skin rug draped over it. Pretty tame (comparatively). Ashley saw something a little different...something that merited an audible gasp. When I turned and looked at what made her react like that, I was NOT prepared for what I was about to see:
We could not BELIEVE this house. It was straight out of Little House on the Prairie...and not in a good way. Instead of being polite and thanking Andrew for letting us sleep here for three hours, we ran around screaming and taking pictures of the insanity:
And the best thing to come out of this trip hands down:
Finally we decided to try sleeping in this house of horrors. Ev and Andrew stayed up talking, and Ash and I slept for three hours and then woke up at 3 am (4 am in Harrisonburg) to drive back. This trip lasted a little over 24 hours. We went to Nashville and back in that time. I still cannot believe this weekend. I cannot believe these pictures are real. I was more tired after this weekend than maybe I ever have been in my life. But the weekend was ABSOLUTELY glorious and hands down one of the most ridiculous times I ever had in college. Ashley summarized it best in her away message the Sunday we got back
TinyDncer12 (8:18:43 AM): psyched not to be sleeping next to half a goat
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