Sadly, Laura & I decided we were going to leave a couple days earlier than planned. Gin's boyfriend (who was NOT supposed to be home) was indeed there and was jealous that we were taking her attention away from him. He had his panties in a twist and screamed at us for making too much noise when he had to get up for "work" (when & if he chose to go in)!! So our evenings from Tuesday on, consisted of sitting on the couch, on our phones. There was also another female friend who apparently was there a lot of the time and felt no qualms with sleeping in their bed. She was nice, but all of this meant Laura and I slept sitting up on the couch with the pugs between us. And those poor little guys didn't take to the heat well and also picked up fleas....so we didn't get much sleep with them panting & scratching & holy crap can they snore!
On the way down, Randy kept telling me we should stop at his mom's house in Hot Springs, AR since it was close to halfway between Cinci & Houston. I had told Laura while at the Battleship Texas that if she decided to leave early, I wasn't opposed to it. Neither of us felt comfortable with being there with Asshole Joe and Laura must have thought about Randy's offer. She asked if we stopped, would we be able to spend the night and get a good night's sleep? We both were having bad swollen ankles all the time because of all the walking we did during the day and not being able to lie down at night. So Randy actually called her for us to make sure it was OK to bring all the critters with us. She was delighted to have us stop in!
I talked to Mama Love myself to indeed make sure she was aware of all the extra furry bodies.
Otis the Magnificent
On the road by 1pm!
Both of us still wearing what we slept in, sorry Mama!
We got to her house 9:30ish Thursday night and the plan had been to take Mom out to breakfast Friday morning, show Laura around Hot Springs a little bit, then head out. But alas.....as we drove down Central Avenue, I saw the banner for this awesome little event called the Running of the Tubs! Happening Saturday. And it's something I'd always wanted to see!
In the West Mountain Tower.
OMG. I was so torn. I wanted to get home so bad, but I also really wanted to see the Running of the Tubs! Laura said she was OK with staying, since she was driving. Randy said we should stay, I even got a random text from Angel saying I'd regret it if we didn't stay! So I asked Mom if we could stay one more day and she was OK. Woohoo!
btw, I'd never been to Hot Springs in the springtime! I've been there once in July and almost melted into a puddle and every other time it was at Christmas. So seeing the magnolias actually in bloom was pretty neat. It is beautiful there.
Anyhooo, the Running of the Tubs. The most hilarious thing I'd ever seen!
Central Avenue is completely closed down and spectators are encouraged to dress in bathrobes & slippers & bring their water guns & water balloons.
I had no problem with taking Chuck along. I figured if people were gonna be there in bathrobes & stuff, a skeleton wearing camo would be no big deal!
Oh, and the pug in the stroller! Laura felt safer with Punkin (the blind one) in the stroller since any sort of crowd would be too much for her to handle. She got a lot of attention!
The Battle of the Badges was the first heat - the police against the fire department. Definitely got the most cheers for each heat they ran in!
HSPD won both the Battle of the Badges & all their heats against the other teams!
They had stations they had to stop at and do things, too. And they may or may not have gotten stopped at this one cross-walk by a "herd of buffalo"
We saw these people walking down the street and we're like WTF is up with them?? They're part of the buffalo herd.
Probably 20 people or so, dressed as buffalo! Meandering across the road, as slowly as possible.
FD vs PD
Again, we were on the road by noon. I was so glad we stayed to watch the Tubs!!!!
I'm surprised Punkin could hear me chewing over Otis snoring!
We saw this truck at a TA we stopped at. Pretty awesome!
We got to Laura's house in Cincinnati around 1 am. I didn't even go in the house, just transferred my stuff from her car into mine and left. I was mildly bummed that it was dark, since I'd seen a little cemetery nearby that I would have liked to explore, but not in the middle of the night!
I drove for about 3 hours and I was getting thirsty and needed to stretch my legs for a bit. And do you think I saw any damn big truck stops??? The sketchy one I stopped at, of course, the women's bathroom was out of order. So I grabbed a drink and tooled on down the road. I stopped just as the sky was getting light at a rest stop and took a short nap. Randy was clearly watching the tracker in my car and saw I stopped, since I was just starting to relax and he texted me.
Hooray!
I got home shortly after 7am and left everything inside the car, went in and fell into bed! Randy was off playing radio and Angel was at a friend's house so it was nice & quiet.
ZZZZZZZ
It's funny that seeing how other people live can make you really appreciate what you have! It also makes me self-conscious about how my house smells. Laura lives in the basement of a house that has a boxer, 8 rats, 4 ferrets & a bearded dragon. OMG, it reeked! Then Gin has 2 cats (and uses cheap kitty litter) and a dog who has had accidents more than once in front of the patio door, plus they smoke - so her house reeked also! When I got home, all my clothes went right into the washer & my sleeping bag & other bags got hung outside & sprayed down with Febreeze.
With the exception of a couple certain bodies, we had a good time.
We're definitely not going to wait another 23 years to get together again!
I've never heard of Running of the Tubs. Who thinks up these things? Glad you were able to connect with your friends. Too bad about the jealous boyfriend. Thanks for sharing your adventures!
ReplyDeleteIt was hilarious and it was the 12th annual running, so people clearly love it! And my mother-in-law has never seen it but didn't want to go with us! We were convinced she wanted to stay home and love on the pugs. :D
DeleteWe have learned that the next time we do something like this, we will be staying at a hotel!