Back To Virginia Beach Roadtrip

August 09, 2002

Melissa and I went to the beach on a Sunday twoards the end of July here in Wesport, MA (Horseneck Beach) near home. We had just returned from a hot day at Virgina Beach where Braad lives. Horseneck beach wasn't bad, but they don't allow boogie boards; probably too many wusses complaining about being run over. So, Melissa and I were floating in the ocean bobbing over the waves having a great time. The incredible urge to paddle hard and catch a wave on a boogie board hit me everytime a nice size wave crashed through us. As the seaweed wrapped around our bodies and the fog started rolling in to the point that you could barely see the beach, much less where our towel was, I said "We need to try and squeeze in another trip to Virigina Beach before the Summer is over." Melissa, and her brother Mike were both into the idea, so we started discussin leaving on the next Friday and coming back on Sunday. It is about a 12 hour drive to Virigina Beach.

The work week rolled by, and Friday came along. We still weren't sure if we were going. Mike had to work, so he wasn't going. Melissa's parents were babysitting Samantha, and Mike was watching Missy. Melissa had to work late, so it was 10:30pm on Friday when I told Braad "Melissa's not home, so it doesn't look like we're going." Braad was bumming I thought, but he understood. Just in case, I decided to get some sleep. Melissa woke me up at 11:30pm after an hour of sleep. First waking up, I voted for not going, but I got up and Melissa and I discussed whether to go or not. We thought "what the hell else are we going to do?" So, it was 1:30am when we left. We took Melissa's free rental Toyota Corolla beater. The car was free from the insurance company as her car was being repaired. The little gold car has dinky doors about the width of a spiral notebook, no power windows, no cruise control, nothing. But, we headed at anyway with Melissa sleeping the first shift rolling down I-95 south.

I started getting pretty tired at about 4:30am. We were on I-287 in New Jersey, and I was nodding off bad. When I would weave into another lane or off the road slightly, I would be wide awake for a while. But, it was getting bad, so I decided to give it up and pull off to get some rest. I pulled off I-287, and found myself on an access road. Not knowing where exactly I was, I began worrying that I had taken a road that was going to veer us off our path. Afraid to take any turns that would cause me to stop, dig out the map to figure where the hell I was, I headed back for I-287. The access road led me right back to where I was. All of the concern about getting lost somewhere in New Jersey was enough to wake me up for a while. I kept on driving with no problems for a while. I stopped after I got to the Garden State Parkway and had some coffee and a smoke. By now, it was about 5:30am, and the sun was beginning to appear along with the weekend travelers. After that stop, I was wide awake as if I had just woken up and was beginning my day.

My alertness didn't last too long. About 7:30am, I was nodding off really bad and even my shocking near accident, run off the road incidents only woke me up for a few minutes. I finally decided to pull off before I killed Melissa and myself. Pulling into the rest area, I used my left foot to push the clutch to the floorboard. The problem was there was no clutch! Unlike my Wolfsburg, the Corolla was an automatic, so my left foot smashed the brake pedal making car nose dive. I caught it fast enough to keep the tires from squeeling, but I felt like a retard. I had to check the back seat to make sure I didn't launch Melissa onto the floorboard. After my weaving sleep driving, now on the New Jersey Turnpike, and my graceful, slam on the brakes, entrance to the rest area, I was surprised there wasn't a COP pulling me over. I pulled all the way to the back of the rest area in anticiaption of sleeping for a while whether Melissa wanted to take over driving or not.

After waking up Melissa took over driving, and I went to sleep in the back seat. I slept on an off as we traveled south to Wilmington, DE and got on Route 13. I kept waking up to hear Melissa babbling to herself in fits of over-tired, slap happiness. I'm sure I missed a lot of hilarious things she said, but I recall one time hearing her laughing about Llahmas eating golf balls. She said she saw a billboard sign that said "Golfers, rent your Llahmas here" or something like that. So, she started laughing about that and envisioning a Llahma walking around the golf course eating the golf balls, and she was enacting the visions as she laughed going "Stupid Llahma! That's the fifth ball this week!" I was in the back seat cracking up! At first I thought she was going on about Lava on the golf course, so I was imagining golfers running across the golf course as a stream of lava tore through the golf course. I'm sure there are some psychological implications behind those different visions. In addtion to the Golf Llahmas, there was also the hilarious "Bon Appetit All Adult Community", which makes your mind wander, and let us not forget Crazy Harry's Drug Outlet, which had a sign of some crazy guy looking like he was doing a little sampling in the back room; it looked like it was more than a pharmacy.

I took over driving at about 1:00pm including the 28 mile haul across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, which Melissa did not care to drive over. If you haven't been across this $10 toll bridge, you must go try it. It is about 28 miles long and most of it is not but 10 feet or so off the water. Out in the middle of the bridge, there is water almost as far as you can see on both sides; it feels as if you are driving your car through the ocean. It is kind of cool and kind of freaky at the same time. Then, in the middle of the OCEAN, a tunnel appears. I looked around trying to figure out how and why they did this. I thought maybe since the bridge was so long, the workers said "I don't feel like building anymore bridge, let's through in a tunnel!". I later found out the tunnels were not a case of worker boredom; they used to be draw bridges, which were replaced by two long stretches of tunnels that go under the OCEAN! Melissa was freaking out as we drove UNDER THE OCEAN! It is a little intimidating imagining all the water above you, and just how deep under the ocean we were, whether the tunnel is floating or on the bottom of the ocean, and I found myself examining the sides of the tunnel for any sign of water leakage.

We finally made it through the tunnels and the super bridge, and were at Braad's doorstep at about 2:00pm on Saturday. We packed up and headed to the beach. Melissa walked out onto the beach stumbling a little "I won't even have to drink anything tonight" she said as she nearly tripped in the sand "I already feel like I'm drunk." After the little amounts of sleep we had in the car and the long drive, I was feeling similar; kind of dizzy to say the least. It was a nice hot day; perfect for the beach, and the water was like bath water. We just walked right in unlike the usual freezing baby steps until your body adjusts to the cold. The waves were kind of lame, but I got a few good rides which landed by right on the beach. This allowed subsequent waves to roll me off my board, jam sand inside my shorts, and roll my along the beach like a dead body washing in with the tide. Poor Melissa got sick while out in the ocean, but she had fun crashing through the waves up to that point. Braad and I had one good ride on a wave that pushed along side by side up to the beach. At one point I jerked my foot up from the ocean floor thinking I had stepped on glass, and I started with my paranoia thinking it was a shark down there that bit me. As Melissa was laughing at my paranoia, she complained of the same sharp stinging in her finger thinking she had touched glass. "Let's move that way" I said directing us away from the crab, shark, poky, glass thing. We got out of the ocean at about 5:00pm, and while we were sitting on our towels drying off, we noticed a kid playing with a transparent jelly fish that had washed ashore. It was then when Braad admitted what we had been "bitten" or stung by was a jelly fish. Ewww.

We hit Hardees on the way back to Braad's townhouse, and Melissa passed out on the Futon ignoring the rare Hardees cheeseburge with extra cheese that we do not have access to in Massasomethingorrather. Braad and I played a couple NHL 2002 games and had a couple rum and cokes while Melissa napped, and we lost both of them. Neither Braad or I have been able to transition from NHL 2001 to NHL 2002 very well. Practice makes perfect I guess. It was about 9:00pm, and Melissa was still crashed, and I hoped she would wake up before it got too late. I would hate to make the long haul for only a couple hours at the beach. Thankfully, Melissa woke up at about 9:30pm. We ordered some drunken gorge yourself food from Chilis to eat later. After FINALLY getting our friggin food at like 11:15pm, we walked up the street to Hooplas, the bar I have heard so much about from Braad which is a short walk from his townhouse.

I was looking forward to hanging at the bar because we could get trashed and stunble back to Braad's place. Melissa had put makeup on and got all prettied up for a night out. Melissa does the club thing from time to time, and I sit home and play NHL 2002 with rum and coke. So, when we entered this tiny little bar within a stip mall, I thought it might be a fast trip afraid Melissa wouldn't care for it. There were two pool tables to the left, a bar at the back, and to the right in the corner of the place was a stage. We walked over and sat at the bar on the right side of the place. We were so close to the musicians in the band, it was hard to not run into them as we made our way to the bar. Braad got us a round of Coors Lights, and I turned to watch the band play. There they were about 4 feet in front of my face! That was kind of cool, but I was really uncomfortable when we first got there mainly afraid Melissa was having an awful time. I kept asking her "Is the beer ok" since she doesn't really like beer, and "Do you want a different kind of drink?". Melissa kept saying "No, I'm fine." To make matters worse this friggin 40 year old, skinny, tan, drunk guy was dancing around to the music right in front of Melissa like he was trying to pick her up! The weirdest thing was, in the entire bar, he was the only person that seemed to notice there was a band playing, so in addtion to his odd looks, he looked really out of place. For him to be that brazen, he must have been drunk out of his gord. Melissa relocated to another bar stool, and Braad told us the old dancing guy was always there and always drunk, and usually talked to Braad all night.

The band was playing popular songs that everyone knew the words to. They had a skinnky, curly haired drummer that reminded me of Lance Guest from the movie The Last Starfighter, a female singer that looked pretty wasted, a middle aged guitar player that looked really out of place, and a badd player that seemed to be the only person in the band having fun. I saw a pool table become available, and headed for it since Melissa is always telling me she loves to play pool. Neither Braad or I had played pool for years, and this marked the first time ever that Melissa and I played pool together. It was not a pretty sight when we started; we were all horrible. It got so bad that when someone lost a game by knocking in the 8 ball . . . before any other ball, we just kept playing so as not to waste our 50 cents. We got better as the night went on all of making some impressive shots, and we drank and sang to the music. Although, the band (The Thrill Ride Band) seemed kind of dull at first, they really did cover songs well. I don't even remember the names of most of the songs, but I could sing along with all of them. We each had about 5 or 6 beers and were all dancing and singing and playing pool; it was really a damn blast! At one point after the band had finished a break, I went over to the bass player who I was admiring for his enthusiasm. I walked up on their stage (more like a floor), and asked the bass player (Dave) if they knew any Iron Maiden songs. This probably blew him away since Maiden is not the most popular sing along songs, and he probably doesn't get a lot of requests for it. I have been an Iron Maiden fan for years, but after recently finishing a biography on the band and listening to their music a lot lately, I was really into them. I was kind expecting him to say they didn't know any Iron Maiden songs or "Who's that?", but he was kind of taken aback by my request and said they have been practicing The Trooper, which was on the Piece of Mind album. Then we chatted a bit about Maiden, which was cool. I went back to the pool table all giddy and excited telling Braad and Melissa all about my bizarre request "...they know the beginning of The Trooper, but can't play it all the ..." Braad interupted me "There it is!" He said, and I tuned into the sound of The Trooper as the first song back from their break. Braad and I were jamming as they played all the way up to the part where the vocals begin and stopped, but Braad and I kept going "You'll take my life, but I'll take yours too! You'll fire your musket, but I'll run ya through! And when you're waiting for the next attack, you better stand, there's no turning back!" I don't know if we impressed the band or anyone else by blurting out the lyrics like that, but we felt pretty damn proud, drunk too.

We played pool over and over until they made last call, turned on the lights, and the band stopped playing. Braad said it was unusual to be at the pool table like we were on a Saturday night expecially all night like that! So, that worked out pretty well. We walked back to Braad's townhouse serenading Melissa with The Trooper, which she didn't seem to mind after all the beers she drank. When we got back to Braad's townhouse, Melissa passed out forgetting about her Montery Chicken from Chilis. Braad and I started a Madden 2002 football game with his custom Virginia Beach Undertoe team, but we didn't finish since it was 3:00am! We finally crashed and gorged ourselves with baby back, baby back, baby back ribs from Chilis and passed out.

I woke up at about 9:00am on Sunday. It was hell hot outside, and I had the beginning of a migrane headache, which was getting worse by the minute out in the hot sun. Despite this, I knew we had a long trek to make, so we got showered and packed up the rental cheese box. Melissa agreed to drive, even acroos the dreaded Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel because I wasn't feeling well. About half way back, I asked Melissa to pull over and I would drive the rest of the way home. I still felt like crap despite sleeping most of the way in the car already. But, Melissa was having fun I think on the NJ Turnpike and thundered ahead. I don't think she wanted me to drive because I do not go faster than 10MPH over the speed limit, and she was fine doing 90MPH in a 45MPH. So, we surely did get home faster. I kept offering to drive, but she stayed behind the wheel. One time she said "You don't feel well, I'll keep driving." even though it was apparent she was tired; that was mighty sweet of her. By the time we got to Providence at about 10pm on Sunday, Melissa was falling asleep, and I had to sing her showtunes to stay awake. We finally got home close to 11pm, crashed and went to work the next morning. It was a really fun trip, and Saturday night was a blast, but we will not be doing that every weekend!