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Farewell - 2006-03-15 |
2003-11-10 - 4:29 p.m. This past weekend Schwang and I packed up the car and drove down to Virginia. It was a nice drive though we lost all daylight by five o'clock (I'm still not use to that). I'm sure there were some funny conversations or interesting things said on the 8 hours we were in the car... but I don't remember any of them right off the top of my head. We arrived at Hollins around one in the morning after being stuck in a traffic for a half hour. =P It was really good to see Erin and the three of us walked around campus for a bit and ended up finally getting to bed around 2:30. Schwang and I had only brought one sleeping mat from home and he told me to take it, which I thought was very nice of him though I did feel slightly guilty as he tried to situate himself on the rather solid hardwood floor. I woke up a little bit too perky around 8:30 and tried to get Erin up who gave me the death stare and rolled back over. I don't remember quite when we got up, but we headed out to Sam's Club shortly after so I could stock up on Gaterade and all three of us could get gronola bars (we have priorities). After zipping throught the asiles and making Schwang figure out the best deal on Gaterade (math is hard after only being awake for 45min), we went to check out. I tried to use my debit card but apparently you can't use credit at Sam's Club... and we all know what happened the last time I tried to use my debit card as a debit card right? (when the stupid ass machine ate my card!!! grrr.... not bitter). I looked pleadingly back at Schwang who handed me his debit card... but he doesn't know his pin number either. Well, actually I DO know my pin number... mine just never works. After he failed me I looked towards Erin who, with my combined money efforts ($30 cash) were able to pay for all our merchandise. After dropping Erin off, Schwang and I went out to the farm and ate lunch with Michael and Lillian. It was a blast as always! They were also getting ready to go to an afternoon dinner activity which put them in their typical slightly rushed mood. They seemed to really like Schwang and Michael made him try to help him fix the CD player while Lillian and I talked about re-modeling the kitchen. It was very cute and stereotypical. Lunch was delicious! As if I expected anything less and Schwang got a lesson on how chili is suppose to be made and served over rice with NO BEANS! I think the funniest bit with them, asside from Lillian demonstrating different kinds of wedding music and Frank Sinatra by singing, was when Michael was going out with Schwang and I to the car to listen to the CD of the encore from the recital, and Michael called Molly (the dog) because he was going over to the barn after listening and Lillian said, "Michael, we don't have time for you to go to the barn. We have to leave soon. We don't want to be late. It's rude to not get there on time." "Lillian, we don't have to be there right at the crack of three o'clock. (shuts the door) And besides it's going to take you an hour to shower and do your hair up anyway." Schwang and I laughed really hard! We left the farm to go back to Hollins and do some fencing. Schwang was very brave and suited up to fence me. I thought it was going to be simple and that I could go pretty easy on him seeing as he has never fenced before in his life. Umm... no. He totally kicked my butt. I didn't win a single match against him. I was starting to think that I was really rusty and had lost all my skill. But then Meghan came down and I schooled her. I don know what happened against Schwang though! Except that I got a ton of bruises and by the end, during Sabre, I was basicaly waving the blade yelling "just get away! bloody - OWE!! Okay, point! Point!" It was fun though and we laughed a lot. We ended our time in Roanoke by going out to dinner with Erin. We ate at Applebee's (surprise) and Erin and I had fun chit-chatting about this that and the other. With that all done Schwang and I headed up to the Shandoah National Park where we camped the night in Big Meadows. Originally I thought this was going to be a great idea, especially since there was a lunar eclipse going on. The sky was clear we were in Virginia, where it was nice and warm compared to New York. What could go wrong? "Whose idea was this?!" I asked as I shivered and the tent flopped every which wasy as we tried to assemble it. "Ah... heh," Schwang responded smiling a cheesy grin and he handed me a poll to stuff into the tent structure. The sky was indeed clear and the air was clean and fresh but it was below freezing. Virginia or New York, below freezing is STILL below freezing. We crawled into the tent, and commenced to slowly freeze to death throughout the rest of the night. We kept rather closely huddled and I kept my head underneath the sleeping bag for most of the night. Neither of us slept really well and most of the night we were in a half daze so that at one point I sat up and looked him and said, "Am I awake?" His eyes slightly opened and he said gorgily, "yeh." I thought about this for a moment. 'Was I just talking to you?" He paused. "Yes.' "What did I say?" His face wrinkled as he thought about this... "I have no idea." Satisfied with the fact that we were talking in our sleep to each other we went back to shivering and resting. We discussed it again later and discovered that I was talking about food in some sense or other. Around 9 in the morning we got a fun visit from the park ranger informing us that we had to move the car because we were illegally parked. "Did you guys even register when you came in last night?" he asked. "No..." Schwang answered still half asleep. "But I worked here during the summer and still have a park pass." "Oh! Well then you guys should know the rules! Move your car!" And he went off. I poked at Schwang for a bit then ended up getting out and moving the car. It was a beautiful sunny and freezing day. I got Schwang up and he and I headed over to the restrooms to get ready to go. I had wanted to wash my face but couldn't because it had frozen. I was lucky to get some crystalized toothpaste out of the tube and brush my teeth with it. Thankfully my contacts were fine. However, a woman in the bathroom was having contact problems. After discussing the weather for a bit she said she had kept her contacts in all night for fear they would freeze and, of course, now her eyes were killing her. I offered her my contact solutiong to rinse them off. She thanked me and took one out, put it back in, proceeded to the second one and dropped it. She and I spent the next ten minutes looking all over the bathroom.
Well... we never did find it but she lucky had brought an extra contact with her. When I came out of the bathroom Schwang was waiting for me, curious as to who I was laughing with. I told him the story as we packed everything up and headed out down the road. We spent the next hour and a half working our way through the park while I made Schwang stop at most of the look outs so I could take pictures! Around noon we stopped at a Cracker Barrell to have lunch. This was Schwang's first experience at a C.B. and he was greatly impressed with the speedy service, good food, but mostly with the huge fire place that had a wonderful fire going! It was also his first experience with grits. He admitted they weren't bad. Not great. But not bad. We continued on back to NY and when we saw signs for Hershey, PN. Schwang looked over at me from the passenger seat. "You ever been to Hershey Park?"
The rest of the trip was uneventful and we arrived home to a warm house and snow on the ground. All in all it was a wonderful trip.. and my face wash eventually thawed out.
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