Moving to Virginia!

Holiday Hangover

There's one thing I've learned about having a January birthday. No body is in the mood to celebrate anything right after Christmas. Everyone's on a diet and all out of money. The END.

MY NEW TOY

Isn't it wonderful! Early Christmas presents are always good. : )

Mandy's B -Day!!!

Preface to the story:

My sister’s B-Day is tomorrow. She will be 26. Woo-hoo!!! She went home to Tennessee for this glorious event because she wanted to see our family. I would have gone too, but I couldn’t miss my classes.

Another preface to the story:

On my way to work in the morning I never listen to 99.5, the Christian radio station here in Springfield. For those who live here, I’m sure you know why. It’s not because I don’t like Christian music, because I do, but it’s not like they really play much music in the mornings. It’s all talking...annoying talking. I can’t even handle it. The only time I turn it there is when my favorite station, 96.5, is playing a retarded song or it’s a commercial. Even then, it’s usually unbearable and I can’t keep it there long because they usually do their birthday wishes in the mornings and it’s ridiculously annoying and they drag it out FOREVER.

So, now that you know my sister’s B-Day is tomorrow and that I don’t listen to 99.5....

The Real Story:

I was driving to work this morning when I was forced to turn it to 99.5 during a commercial. Yes...they were talking, and yes, they were annoying. I’m still not sure why I kept it there. They start wishing people a happy B-Day... “Happy Birthday to Mandy Savage who’s turning 26”. I thought this was pretty cool ; being that I just so happened to turn it there just in time to hear them wish my sister a happy b-day. What are the chances huh? Apparently they pick a random b-day person and give them a call and if they answer the phone, they give them a prize. What if they call Mandy? Hmmm...I was just getting ready to turn it over when they start dialing a number . The phone keeps ringing, and ringing, and ringing. The voicemail kicks in...please don’t let it be Mandy, please don’t let it be Mandy. I know my sister’s voicemail. It’s just the recording that comes with the phone... “you have reached 417-773-91.........NOOOO!!!! I literally screamed in my car. You can do those things when you’re alone in a car. No one can get mad at you.

Did they hang up when her voicemail kicked in? No. They proceeded to leave her a message. “Mandy, this is Rod and Leah from 99.5 and we were just calling to wish you a happy B-Day from 99.5. If you had answered your phone you would have won a prize. Leah, tell her what she would have won.” Drumroll..................silence.................. “2 FREE tickets to the Macy’s Day Parade in New York City!” Of course, I screamed again, only louder this time; much, much louder. All she had to do was pick up the phone. After all, she’s the one who entered herself into the Birthday Club at 99.5.  Those are tough times...tough times.

Camping...well, sort of...but not really

So I decided to go camping with my sister and my friend Renee and I took it upon myself to find a good place for us to go. Somewhere in the Branson area would have been ideal, but we were only going for one night and since we all had to work till 4:30, we decided that we should try and find something close in the Springfield area so that we wouldn’t be setting our tent up in the dark. So...I got on line and found that there was a KOA that was supposedly 17 minutes from where I live. I thought this would be great because it meant we didn’t have to travel far and we would be able to find it easily. I also thought that being the fact that it was in Springfield, it would be a decent camp location...we are close to the Ozarks.

Let me just say right now, that if I were a travel agent, I would definitely fire myself after this poor choice. Back to the story...

So we loaded all our camping gear into the back of Renee’s PT Cruiser; which included a ginormous load of fire wood because there’s no way we were going to pay $5 a bundle for firewood at the KOA especially since it was costing us $27 just to camp there. This whole loading process took about 20 minutes...at the very least. I lost track of time...and I think we were a bit deterred after finding a disgusting spider in the firewood and having to make sure we had killed it before proceeding. Anyway...

We were on the road...ready to set out on our great adventure. All I had been talking about 3 days prior to this trip was how much I was looking forward to getting away from everything and how I couldn’t wait to just go hiking in the woods and exploring the great outdoors. I was pumped. 10 minutes into our drive we were there. Yes, that’s right. It only took us 10 minutes to get there. Of course we made jokes about the short trip and how we could walk back home to get something if we had forgotten it; but we were ok with it. No big deal; at least we had gotten “away” from it all.

We walked into the office and the lady gave us a map to show us where our campsite was. “You’ll be in P, it’s really close to the bathrooms and you’ll be the only one’s camping with tents tonight. If you don’t like your location, you can pick another one and let me know.” I was like, that’s great as long as we’re near the woods. She immediately laughed and said, “Well, none of them are really near the woods”. We should have known right then that it was bad news; but we are stupid apparently.

So we get in our car and drive around to the supposed camp sight. The only statements that were heard after that were “Are you serious?!?! You’re kidding, right?!” this was followed by mouths gaping open and silence. The only thing separating the tent camping from the RV camping is a gravel path; nothing more. Yes, P was right beside the bathroom alright, and it was also right behind the mobile home of a KOA manager. The “campsites” are separated by a small cluster of bushes that you could see right through. Then, THEN, directly behind our campsite is a privacy fence with a subdivision on the other side of it. I only wish I were kidding...sadly I am not. There were no woods; no forest anywhere in sight. No hiking trails, no little adventures to go on...nothing. We were camping in someone’s backyard.

We were determined that this wasn’t going to get us down. We were going to camp and we were going to have a good time no matter what. We moved our tent location so that we weren’t behind the mobile home. We unloaded all our stuff and decided to set up our tent. Ok, I own 3 tents; 1 large one that is supposed to house 4 people and 2 small ones that house 2 people each. They all came together in the same bag. Our plan was to all sleep in the 4 person tent. Makes sense, right? Well, apparently my dad couldn’t get the large tent to fit in the bag, so he just left it out and didn’t bother to tell me or to actually give it to me the last time he came to visit. No big deal, we thought. We’ll all just cram into one tent because nobody wants to sleep alone, right? Well, it’s kind of a big deal when you’re 5”5 and the tent is like 4”...but that’s another part of the story that I’ll talk about later.

Apparently we were unbelievably close to the train tracks because every time one would go by it was so loud that we literally had to wait for it to pass just so we could talk. I lost count after the 7^th train...they came through all night long. The neighborhood dogs were constantly barking along with the camp cat (yes, it had a collar) that kept coming around. Not exactly the type of animals I expected to see and hear while camping. AND the KOA had WI-FI; yes that’s right, wireless at a campsite.  

Despite all this, the fire was amazing...it’s all about the fire anyway, right?

Well, we had about 5 hours of glorious fire and we had hotdogs and s’mores. That made up for all the craziness that we had experienced...at least we thought.

So none of us knew that it would be in the mid 40’s that night. We all slept in our hoodies, but that wasn’t near enough to keep us warm. None of us slept. I was cramped from being in such a small space with no room to stretch out and I kept tossing and turning trying to get warm and pretending that I couldn’t hear the train every half hour. By the time I got up the next morning I was sore...like the kind of sore you get after you’ve been in a car accident and all your muscles hurt...that is exactly what I felt like. I could have sworn one of those trains hit me in the middle of the night.

Any plans for “sleeping in” were completely out of the question. Forget the fact that no actual sleeping took place...if the chorus of birds from the pit of Hades hadn’t of woke us, the housewife talking on her phone in her backyard at 7am would have. “Just checking to see who all is going to meet for lunch”. Lady, most of us haven’t even had breakfast yet, don’t worry about lunch yet.

Needless to say, we packed our stuff up as quickly as we could and trekked the whole 10 minutes back home. We all went straight to bed.

Moral of the story:

1) Don’t go to the KOA in Springfield, Missouri.  

2) Don’t hire me as a travel agent...unless you want everything to go wrong.

3) Sometimes domestication can be rough. Be careful; it’s tricky.

And another thing; is there really a need for a sign in the KOA bathroom that says “Please lock the door”. Maybe I’m crazy...I thought that was a given. I guess some people just need those kinds of reminders when they’re camping.