It's Better to Be Safe than Stupid

WARNING: SUPER SUPER SUPER LONG POST. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.
This weekend my Sunday School class took a trip to Nashville for our annual Christmas trip. The title of this post became the signature quote of the weekend coined by Robbie. There were 9 of us that went on a 15 passenger church van that I mostly drove. If you know how much I hate driving my own car, you know how funny it is that I was the primary driver of a big ole bus. To make it easier to share all the funny moments of the weekend, I will separate by days. So here's my recap of our Christmas adventure:
Friday-We left the church in Collinsville about 3:15 heading to Music City. We were riding along the interstate out of Meridian discussing what we were going to be doing and just catching up on each others' weeks when Robbie says she needs to go to the bathroom. We were in York, Alabama! If you are familiar with East MS and West AL, you know that York is seriously less than 45 minutes from Collinsville. We were stopping to go to the bathroom at 4:00. We were in for an interesting road trip for sure! So after the earliest bathroom break in history we were back on the interstate ready to go. We decided we were going to stop and eat in Birmingham but before we could get there we had another bathroom emergency. This time Ryan Brown decided he couldn't possibly make it to wherever we decided to eat and all of sudden said "Take this exit now" Even though I told him I didn't even see a gas station, he assured me that he saw a Home Depot and that would be fine. So I pulled off the interstate into the historic district of some city. It was really dark since there weren't any stores and I missed the drive of the Home Depot because it was far away from the street we were on so then we saw a sign for a Miles College and decided to pull onto campus and turn around and go back to the Home Depot. But even though there was a nice sign welcoming us to Miles College we never actually saw anything that resembled a school. We started to go down the hill thinking we would see buildings and dorms and stuff but actually just saw run down houses and a small church. At this point Ryan Brown decides he will take over the driving duties since this is his adventure so he gets out of the passenger side as we are stopped at a stop sign with another car pulling up to it and one coming up behind us. It was quite a scary scenario since we had no idea where we were and are getting out of a church van at a random stop sign. Ryan eventually makes it back to the Home Depot and gets to the bathroom in time but the rest of us decided we could just make it to wherever we stopped to eat. So Ryan got us back on the interstate and drove us to Cullman, AL where we ate at the quietest Ruby Tuesday's ever. Atleast it was quiet until we arrived. Our presence was definitely felt as we utilized the first of our many photo opportunities. When we are starting to leave Ryan hands the keys back to me and says "I'm tired. Do you think you can take over?" Are you kidding me? He had driven 40 miles and he was ready to quit driving that big huge van. He drives a Dooley for heaven's sake! I begrudgingly took the keys back and drove us uneventfully the rest of the way to Nashville where we checked into our nice hotel and went to bed.
Saturday-Though nobody else's room seemed to have been disturbed by this, me, Keely, and Courtney all were awaken to the sound of little kids running up and down the hallway on the floor above us at 6:00 in the morning. I wanted to beat me some brats! I promise if I had the energy and stamina to last running as long as they did, I would be 2 sizes smaller. So we woke up earlier than we planned and the weather outside was so dreary and yuck but we were in Nashville and weren't going to let out of control kids and gross weather ruin our day. The morning began with a trip to the Country Music Hall of Fame where we had lots of fun taking pictures with tons of memorabilia. After our tour we decided to walk and find somewhere to eat for lunch. On the way we saw the Ryman and stopped for a coupld of pictures. Then we decided to eat at Jack's Barbecue which was really good. If you are ever on Broadway in Nashville and can't decide where to eat, I would recommend Jack's and his Kansas City sauce. In the words of Courtney, "I could drink this barbecue sauce it's so good." The first silly adventure of the day came when we were trying to leave downtown Nashville. Because all the streets are one-way, we got a little lost trying to get back to the interstate so after driving in circles a couple of times we saw a guy that we stopped to ask. Ryan Brown was driving at this point and he just pulled slightly off the road to ask a very nice Middle Eastern man how to get back to the interstate. I wish we had a video of this encounter because it truly was a classic exchange but unfortunately one does not exist. After Ryan asked him directions, the man began by saying, "you need to get out of the road" so Ryan moved over a little bit and the guy continued but almost immediately after said "You really need to get out of the road." It was much funnier if this blog could actually translate his accent and inflection. We were laughing so hard in the back of the van while Ryan was trying to pull over more and listen to the guy's instructions. He was such a nice guy and had a great sense of humor and the last thing he said to us was, "If you miss it, I am bad." Well guess what Mr. Nice Middle Easterner? We missed it! But not because of bad directions. We saw it but just passed it before we decided if were supposed to be going east or west so we went around in a circle one more time but finally made it to the interstate. From there we made our way back to our hotel. Because the weather was so gross, all of our hair was bad and mine and Keely's pants legs were so wet. So we freshened up for a few minutes (meaning all of my hair got pulled on top of my head and my pants legs got blow dried) and then headed to the Opry Mills mall which is freaking huge and was SOOOOO crowded. This is the place where the famous quote above was first uttered. Because the mall was so crowded there was nowhere to park and it's not easy fitting a big van into a small space. But Ryan had complete confidence in his ability to back into the first of many tiny spaces and scared Robbie like crazy cause she thought he was going to hit the cars around us. We made it though and Robbie survived Ryan's other attempts at giving her a heart attack (like slamming on breaks unexpectedly and making the tires squeal on the wet pavement). We all split up and went in groups all around the mall and I ended up with a shirt and a dress for a grand total of $6. I'm such a big spender. We were going to ride a shuttle from the mall to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel which is where we were going to see all the Christmas lights and shows but after waiting for 45 minutes the only bus that came wasn't the right one so we gave up and decided to drive our van and just pay to park. This part of the night was likely the least amount of fun for the boys because all we basically did was walk around and look at lights and make them take our pictures everywhere. We also made them be in a few which they weren't too excited about. The Gaylord was so pretty though at Christmas even though my feet hurt so bad that I didn't even care if we didn't see everything. After finishing the night back at the food court at the mall, we made our way back to the hotel for much needed sleep.


Sunday- We woke up this morning and packed up and checked out before heading to Two Rivers Baptist Church which was right down the road from our hotel. It was so big but a very nice service. The people there were very friendly. After leaving church I took back over the driving duties and we started our adventure home. Nothing too exciting happened on the way home except that the bathroom emergencies once again reared their ugly heads. This time Keely was one of the culprits but Robbie and Ryan were right there in on the action. One funny thing that happened that woke everyone up on the van was that I almost hit a hawk. Robbie was just commenting on what a succesful trip we had, when all of a sudden from out of nowhere flies this huge bird swooping right down in front of us. And like a dummy instead of slowing down, I just kept driving thinking the bird would fly up. At the last minute before impact he fortunately did but he was so close that I closed my eyes for a second thinking we were about to slam him. Ryan said I just didn't want to mess up the cruise control. I obviously just wasn't thinking! After our brush with avian danger we made it back to Collinsville safely armed with our crazy stories and pictures. Hope you aren't completely bored at this point, if you are even still reading. I couldn't figure out how to summarize better. I need to work on that skill. But I had been put on the spot by my road trip mates who will be waiting to see what made the blog. Hope I haven't disappointed you Courtney, Ryan, or Keely!