Ali and I went down to Winston-Salem this past weekend for David’s 30th Birthday party. We had an ominous warning not to go when Ali had a semi-blowout earlier in the day while coming home from Walton. We persevered and made arrangements to get a new tire at Sears, which is a little over an hour away. Driving on the donuts for that long is not a lot of fun. This was on Thursday in case you were wondering. We got out of Kingston about 7pm that night and drove until about 1:30am stopping in Woodstock, VA for the night. Driving that night wasn’t much fun as it rained a lot and there was a lot of traffic. At some point near the end of drive that night, one of the windshield wipers seemingly slipped and readjusted itself lower onto the peg that causes it to go across the wind shield. This resulted in the wiper banging against the car each time it came down. Fortunately it had mostly stopped raining and we were able to get by with minimal use.

The next morning was nice and sunny, and we had about 4 hours left to drive. Given that it was nice and sunny I rode with the sun roof open — bad idea, as my bald head got sun burned, and hurt for the remainder of the trip (just a minor inconvenience).

David took off of work early and met us when we got to town. We hung out, and went to Pig Pickin’s for dinner (David, Donna, Joe, Ali, and I). Joe (David’s roommate) tagged along, though he didn’t plan to eat anything, he was just going to enjoy a beer while we ate. When we got there we learned that they weren’t serving beer, despite the large neon sign that said, “BEER” in the window. Later we bought beer (Joe got the beer) and rented Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the remake) (Donna got the movie) and watched it. I was disappointed it wasn’t scarier. I remembered being scarred out of my gourd watching the first one (but I was also like 8 or 9 which may be why).

The next day we went to Biscuitville for breakfast — who knew you could run a fast food restaurant where the menu is based entirely around biscuits. Needless to say it was good stuff. We then had a few errands to run, and I asked if we could go by the music store to look around. My intention was to buy some rhythm eggs, but I almost walked out of there with an amp instead. Doug and Christy showed up just as we were getting back from running errands.

The party was fun, David’s band played for about 2 hours. There was cake, pork tenderloin, and the obligatory keg. We ended up staying until around 2am or so. I have a 30 second clip of them playing Whipping Post, but for some reason my video editing software is screwing up, and I didn’t want to post an 8mb file. Until I get that fixed you won’t get to sample the silky smooth sounds of Blind Spot.

The next morning we ate at Biscuitville again (David, Donna, Doug, Christy, Joe, Ali, and I). Doug and Christy left just after breakfast. Ali and I had taken Monday off so we hung out until around 2:30. I did surgery on the stripped out wiper arm and we hit the road.

Of course it rained a lot again on the drive back and there was a lot of traffic for a Sunday. At some point towards the end of our drive for that day my repair work on the windshield wiper decided not to hold up. This resulted in the wiper staying up on the windshield while the other one was still going — they collided, and the good one got bent and became unusable. Again luck was with us and it quit raining so we were able to get by without the wind shield wipers. The next morning I took the stripped one off the car (I should have done that in the first place, I guess). I bent the other back, but it still did not work right, so I bent it some more and swapped blades with the removed one. We now had something usable on the driver’s side, which is a good thing because it was pouring down rain.

The remaining 4 hours of the trip was without incident. We got back home, and then went to the grocery to buy cake fixings for my mother in-laws birthday. I figured she probably hasn’t had anyone make her a cake since she was a kid, and so I thought I would give it a go. I made a yellow cake with chocolate icing completely from scratch (cake and icing). I’ll let you know how it came out next time, as her party is going to be tonight.

I went to buy replacement wind shield wiper arms for the car, and learned these are not sold by anyone but Saturn — What a crock!

Thanks David, for a wonderful time!