Tuesday, October 13, 2009

plane trips and road trips and weather, oh my

Pop quiz:

Who sang the kick-ass early-90's hair-band ballad "Cherry Pie?" If you guessed Poison or Whitesnake, nope, you're dead wrong. It was Warrant!

And this is just one of many fun facts you learn on a road trip. But let me back up to the beginning.


So I have to thank my friend Shaun for not only giving me a ride to LAX on Friday morning (at the crack of why-the-hell-am-I-up) but for also having hot Starbucks waiting for me in the car when he arrived, which I had fully intended on buying him. So Shaun is pure concentrated awesome in my book, not that he wasn't before but this just sort of seals it. I adore that guy.

I end up at LAX well before my flight, fly through security (for whatever reason, whenever I wear my Batman t-shirt at airports, security peeps seem to like me a lot more, I don't get it either but I'll keep doing it until the charm wears off) and have some time to read my book (I'm still reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) and have breakfast before my flight takes off. And I thank God every time I fly that I am built like a Hobbit because I was squished beside a window and a very nice southern gentleman who happened to be completely unaware that he possessed elbows, but I still made it through okay.

So my good friend Pepper picks me up at the airport, yelling "GOOBER!!" at the top of her lungs over near baggage claim, so loud that about five other people sort of stop in their tracks fearfully, as if it's a war cry from Willy Wonka. Goober is my nickname that only Pepper calls me, because everyone else just refers to me as "spaz" or "that little retarded blonde girl". Or "Little Crane," which is the nickname my kung fu instructor gave me after watching me do my kung fu forms once, and I kid you not, he paused as he tried to give me some sort of helpful advice and what he came up with was, "Try it again...but without flailing your arms so much."

Yup.

Pepper and I head off to a surprise dinner, meaning that the restaurant was a surprise, not the fact that we were eating dinner, and lo and behold, how much do I love this girl, because she took me to Pops off of Route 66 in Oklahoma. Pops is one of those restaurants that I can't really explain... except that it has a huge neon soda pop bottle outside and carries more than 500 different brands and flavors of soda, served alongside burgers, fries, shakes, and patty melts.

Did I say yum already? Because YUM. And Pepper knows I'm a root-beer-aholic, so I was in heaven.

That Boy I Adore drove in and met us at the restaurant (Pepper: "Do you think he might have missed seeing the restaurant from off the road?" Me: "No, because I think the neon glow-in-the-dark fifty foot tall soda bottle THAT YOU CAN SEE FROM SPACE might clue him in."), then we stayed the night in OKC before spending the entire next day driving, then crashed (not literally) at a hotel in Gallup, New Mexico. The next day we were off again (after eating breakfast at a Cracker Barrel, am I the last person on this planet to discover how awesome Cracker Barrel restaurants are?) and then we landed in Los Angeles late Sunday night.

And then we woke up Monday morning to rain and clouds and I just about died of happiness.

Hello, autumnal Los Angeles! How I've missed you!! Keep that rain coming!!

So I will post road-trip pics in a day or two...but I hope you all had lovely weekends and that wherever you are, you are enjoying autumn to its fullest :)

17 comments:

Eeeno's World said...

Is it weird that your description of the soda pop restaurant makes me a little jealous? I want 500 different kinds of soda!!!
And btw, I fell on my face in Krav Maga one time, and the instructor was at a complete loss for words. Finally, with the class listening, he came up with "Don't...FLOP like a FISH!"
So I'm right there with you, Little Crane ;-)

Chelsea Talks Smack said...

oh mannnn autumn in l.a. when it got all gloomy was by far one of my favorite things.....it also happeend to reflect my state of mind while living there. lol

Wine and Words said...

There ARE.NOT.500.KINDS.OF.SODA!

Can't be. Nope. Not buyin' it.

I was the bomb at Krav Maga. They made me an instructor with a little headset and I got to yell at everybody, "Keep those elbows in!" It's an epidemic...the arm flailing.

But anyone who does Krav is buck. No matter arms in or out. It ain't easy.

drollgirl said...

so glad you are home safe! and it sounds like you had a blast!

and coincidentally enough i was singing CHERRY PIE today at work. i know, horror factor eleven.

Dave said...

Cracker Barrel Rocks!

jennifer from pittsburgh said...

Awesome! Hey, back in 1986 I stayed in Gallup, NM on my way driving back east...It was freezing cold but the high desert was a trip ;)

Lira Kellerman said...

I have a few dinners that I'm trying to schedule, but Anthony and I are most excited about having you and Boy You Adore over the most.
Yippee!
And... if you bring vanilla ice cream, I will make molten chocolate cakes.

Archana said...

Oooh getting squished inbetween people on flights can be a little uncomfortable. But I'm sure that was the least of your worries when the rest of your little trip sounds like a good time. :)

If you're missing rain then you should come here. It's been tropical thunderstorm after another, and sometimes it's pretty - when there's sunshine & rain - but at other times it's a little scary when it's the middle of the afternoon and the sky turns black!

LenoreNeverM♡re said...

Welcome back home...sounds like you had a fab time- minus the tight space in the air! My grandfather Got me hooked on rootbeer since I was a kid!
But gotta cut on my soda intake these days...trying harrrd!

Marion said...

I'm so glad you have a fun, safe trip. The coffee story alone made me love that boy!! I hope y'all don't get too much rain there in sunny California!! We've had rain for a week here, but we're flat and don't have to deal with mudslides, only alligators. Ha! Blessings!

Gwen said...

There is no better place to stop on a road trip than Cracker Barrel!!! I'm glad you had a fabulous time!! XOXO

jenn said...

how fun - and yes you might be the last person on earth to discover cracker barrel. it's soooooo good!!

Dionne said...

Sounds like that restaurant is pure funliness! I wanna go.

And Cracker Barrel is AWESOME!!!

Lol at your nickname, I love it!

Okie said...

Awesome post. Looking forward to more great writing along your trip. :)

CVilleFieldNotes said...

When I drove across the country, my friend and I had a competition: I was WAFFLE HOUSE and she was CRACKER BARREL. Whoever saw more of their restaurant, won.

We tied.

Cracker Barrel is a midwest-east-coast phenomenon, and we only love them because we don't have them on the west coast. Everyone here is really snobby about them. (I act like I am too to fit in, but now you know the truth.)

krista said...

oh i knew all about warrant. i graduated high school in 1990 and i grew up in southern california. i was a glam rock girl. *oy*

krista said...

yes, i realize warrant was a hair band...not a glam rock band. just wanted to clarify that i know the difference lest my original poison concert tshirt be taken away.
(actually, i have no idea what happened to that shirt and it makes me so sad.)

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