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Wednesday, July 11, 2007

ICRS Adventures! (Part One)


Friday
The plan was to leave for Atlanta (a 3 1/2 to 4 hour drive) about five pm and drive as far as we could and then get a hotel. But that plan is not what happened. Two of us met at the prescribed time and two of us did not. I will not name names as to who was on time and who was not. Some of us had to shop for clothes to wear to ICRS--- and go by Target and Radio Shack. And some of us got hung up in traffic. And so, I have no idea when we finally got out of town. But it was MUCH later than five. I will tell you that. But it was all good-- why? Because I had no kids with me.
Except that I was hungry.
We did stop at a Cracker Barrel about an hour after we left. Now, Cracker Barrel is one of my favoritest places in the world to eat (not shop for clothes though, right Shari?) But Cracker Barrel is not the place to go when you want to eat quick.
Curt called me at nine pm and asked where we were. We were still only an hour outside of town. I am not kidding. Though he truly did think I was kidding.
But some of us did buy some great smelling candles at the Cracker Barrel that were discontinued scents by Yankee Candle, and so that made us all very happy. Clearly it doesn't take much-- and clearly women can find any and every excuse to indulge in a little shopping.

We got to downtown Atlanta at ONE AM. I only wish I was kidding. Approximately eight hours after I left my house. (Remember how long I said it takes to get to Atlanta?) We were greeted by no less than 50 Latino men dressed in dark suits, white shirts and red ties, milling around outside the hotel like it was noon and not one am. It was surreal. Truly Twilight Zone material. We asked the extremely nice bellhop dude why there were approximately 50 Latino men dressed in dark suits with white shirts and red ties milling around outside the hotel and he said that it was the Latino equivalent of Amway's convention. Oh. Well, that explains everything. We learned that they meet from five pm to five am. No kidding.
Inside the hotel there were more Latino men and some women all waiting for the elevators. There were no less than 75 waiting for elevators-- they must have just taken a break from their convention when we arrived and were all wanting to go up to their rooms to nap or something. But it was quite a crowd. Since we were on the forty-eighth floor, walking up was not an option. So we waited and in desperation got on a severely overcrowded elevator and rode up, praying all the way. When we got up to our room we decided that we hadn't quite used all our words for the day, so we talked some more-- hearing all about my friend Rachel's mom's death when she was just 17. It was after two am by the time we got to sleep. Our adventure was beginning.
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1 comment:

Joni said...

Your story reminded me of the time a bunch of my girlfriends and I went to Hearts at Home (I think that's where I met you originally) and we were still eating at an Applebees up the road only about thirty miles nearly 3 hours later! I called hubby just like you and he could NOT believe it! Us girls just take time to do things, don't we?

I'd love to go to ICRS someday but I guess I need to get to work on writing SOMETHING, don't I?! My friend, Janet, who runs our church bookstore goes every year. Maybe I'll tag along with her.

Sounds like you had a fun, fun girlfriend time! Good for you!