Leaving Tennessee today! It’s 6:46am and we’re packing up the room which involves us throwing stuff at Henry and saying, “Here put this in here.”
We woke up extra early to get to Crockett’s Breakfast Camp right when they open at 7 because for some reason I have latched on to this place after watching YouTube videos about it but it gets super crowded. We got here at 6:56 and there was already a small group of people waiting.
Chooch and Henry are not impressed yet.
7:45am: Back at the hotel so Henry can “go to the bathroom” before we check out. What you missed:
Henry being sulky that I made him order Aretha Frankenstein’s Griddle Cakes which are just thick boi pancakes made in a griddle because I wanted to try them but didn’t want my own order since it was too much for muh belly and also didn’t come with a side of PONE like the egg breakfasts do. I was obsessed with this mythical PONE and it turned out to just be a thimble-sized dollop of a mushy corn bread (almost like ChiChi’s, #rip) with cranberries. It was good but I wish I would have known that’s all it was.
The pancakes were GÜT!!!!
Our waitress had an accent and Henry was like IT SOUNDS CAJUN and chooch and I were like, “who were you talking to??” Because it was totally some sort of Eastern Euro I’m betting. Then we saw her name on the bill – JULIYA. So Cajun.
Had to check out the bathroom as per the uje. The broad in there with me left without washing her hands, ugh.
Last view from our balcony. We stayed at some lame SureStay / Best Western but it ended up being ok even though I threw a huge fit about it on Saturday just based on the parking lot, backside of the building lol oh, me.
9:34am Hoo boy we just had a great excursion to Clingmans Dome in the Smokies. I wanted to recreate a picture from 2011 and we tried to do this on Saturday but the mountains were SO CROWDED that we couldnt get even get a parking spot. So we came back this morning and it was basically snowing, soooo cold, but somehow we only argued once and very briefly??
I’ll post the recreation in a separate blog post because I used the DSLR for it.
11:00am: We’re only just leaving Pigeon Forge now. It took so long to drive out of the mountains and Henry refused to stop anywhere even though I purposely wore a nice sweater to have my picture taken in. But ok. Mm.
Stopped at a gas station in Pigeon Forge that was next to a Bojangles and as we were leaving I saw a sign for sweet potato pies so I made Henry go into Bojangles and get one but he had to wait ten minutes for new ones to be made and I actually hate saying this but it was lowkey worth it. McD’s-esque and the filling was so smooth and warm.
12:36pm: Starting to not be as sulky. Found a place to eat at in some rando’ Virginian town, stay tuned. Hopefully they’re actually open. Just sitting here in the meantime marveling over Renjun’s precious baby voice.
1:16pm: Made it to White Birch!
I haven’t had a golden latte in forever.
Guys. I got the vegan curry and it was…meh, sadly. It had huge chunks of crunchy onions and carrots that were barely cooked, stewed tomatoes (ugh), over rice and quinoa. I had to keep trying to eat around stuff and it didn’t even taste curry-ish, but more like a stew.
Chooch didn’t eat any of his wrap which I tasted and immediately wished I had ordered because it was delicious but Chooch is v. picky. So I guess that’s what I’m having for dinner.
Henry got a chicken salad sandwich or something who cares.
3:45pm: Henry made me drive for a little while and that was annoying. I’m actually still driving right now while I’m blogging JUST KIDDING I’m not an asshole.
5:44pm: this drive is so boring. I finished a book (Palm Beach Finland). It was ok. We have been listening to NCT this whole time. Chooch is laying in the back being a baby.
7:37pm: We just stopped at a rest area in Pennsylvania and I swear to fucking GOD this is not familiar even though we are on this route very often?? I feel like if it’s not new-new, it is at the very least a renovated rest stop but Henry is arguing that it’s not. I mean it was like sparkling, even the bathroom, and the vending area had an intense number of options and a SITTING AREA.
When we were leaving, I pointed out the numbers along the side of the door and asked if it was in case you wanted to measure your height and Henry said it’s there for when there is a robbery/crime so you know the approx. height of the perp?? I never knew this. I literally thought it was there in case someone felt like checking their height for curiosity purposes.
8:14pm: we should be home in about 24 minutes so I’ll put this live blog out of its misery. Byeeeeeeeeeeeee.
9:25am: hola, we have been on the road for nearly an hour and have only just gotten on the turnpike somehow. Had to stop at Sheetz in Monroeville but nothing eventful happened. I was mad because the old bitch making my latte stopped to have a conversation with one of the guys back there with her and I was furiously tapping my foot but then it somehow ended up being one of the better lattes Sheetz has ever served me. (I mean, it’s Sheetz, so…)
Last night, NCT announced that there is going to be a preshow merch opportunity starting at noon which is way earlier than we will be arriving in shitty Newark and I dunno for how long this thing will be open so of course I’m in a bad mood about this because panic and anxiety make me project onto Henry.
10:09am: The Korean version of Highway to Heaven was just on and I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer and Henry was like “Omg” and I wailed, “I don’t know if I can do this, Haechan is going to make me cryyyyy.” I hope whoever is sitting next to me is cool because I am going to need someone to lean on lol.
10:49am: Henry finally got his concert ticket! Well, I got it for him while he was driving. He’s really mad because he wants to go but doesn’t want to sit alone with a bunch of screaming girls but he’s in like the very last section, second to last row so maybe there will be other parents back there with him??!!
Bathroom selfie now that I’m starting to not be as sullen lol.
11:25am:
Love/hate these. Sometimes (like now) they taste like I’ve been heavily SOBBING on a fainting couch for 5 hours. You know, that awful taste of tears needing an alternate outlet so they start flowing down your sinuses and into the back of your throat? Yeah, that taste (which I clearly know well).
Chasing that bitch with a lemon drop. That’s how we do it up in the Lee Jinki (THAT’S MY CAR’S NAME IN CASE YOU DIDNT KNOW).
2:34pm: BREAKING: Henry changed his NCT bias from Jungwoo to Yuta.
We’re about 40 minutes from Newark. This ride has been beyond boring. It rained heavily for a lot of it and that slowed us down a lot. Ugh. We’re supposedly still going straight to the venue to see if the early merch pop-up is still happening. Then we’re getting take out from Urban Vegan and taking it back to the hotel where I will proceed to be sick because NERVES.
3:40pm: Hate you so much, Newark.
Anyway that early merch thing was happening but the line was pretty long and Henry was like IF YOU GET IN THAT LINE YOU MIGHT AS WELL PLAN ON JUST STAYING DOWN HERE UNTIL IT STARTS AT 8 and look Linda, I’m already going to be standing in a line to get in, I’ll take my chances and wait to get merch tonight ugh.
Also Henry is being such AN ASSHOLE DRIVER ever since we entered the hell hole that is Newark. He keeps snapping at me and I’m like alright brother, I’ll remember this.
I HATE YOU.
(He just asked why I took his picture and I told him it was for my blog wherein I declared my hatred for him and he said “oh it wasn’t on Insta so it doesn’t matter” and I said, “wow thanks for the reminder that no one reads my blog, guy.”)
3:56pm: Mark Lee in this outside of Urban Vegan!
I originally saw it from pretty far away and yelled IS THAT MARK so I guess my shitty eyes really do just wanna see what they wanna see.
4:19pm: at least our room is ok.
5:17pm: I just did laps around the hotel because I’ve been sitting in the car all day and need to hit my step goal! Now Henry is napping and I’m bored so here are pictures of me with my NCT light stick:
Also! Pictures of our delicious Urban Vegan füdz that we ate in the room while watching the tail end of What Lies Beneath*:
Literally Henry turned on the TV and I saw a .0006 second glimpse of Michelle Pfeiffer on a staircase and I said, “is this What Lies Beneath??” As if this was a flick I watched religiously back in the day and not one (1) time when I rented it from Hollywood Video (probably).
I pulled the curtain shut so I live over on this side now. Henry can go to hell over there.
6:29pm: In Uber on why to Prudential Center. Posting this now but might be back!
11:59pm: On our way back to the hotel where I will proceed to cry my ugly face off because that was SO MUCH on my heart. SO MUCH.
While many of you are off and enjoying whatever Labor Day is, I will be over here diligently working to give future me a detailed and accurate memory of our million hour drive home to Pittsburgh.
It’s 8:58am (central time) and we’re waiting for dippy Henry to check out. The first thing that happened when I woke up around 7 was that I opened Instagram and found out one of the ex-pat vloggers living in Korea that I watch died of leukemia and even though I didn’t know her, I INSTANTLY started to cry. Her name on YouTube is HojuSara (she’s Australian and hoju means Australia in Korean) and she was sooooo full of life and love for Korean culture, spoke Korean fluently, and was one of the first channels I started watching back when I became obsessed with Korea. She and her Korean boyfriend had recently gotten engaged and had gone back to Australia last winter to visit her family when she started feeling off, and that’s basically when it was discovered that she had leukemia.
I’m just sad. I didn’t know her, obviously, but sometimes you can tell when a person is one of the good ones and that was my impression of her.
Ok wow depressing start to a live blog!
9:36am: I hate being this close to Chicago and not stopping!!
9:59am: Another embarrassing Dunkin drive thru experience because Henry is soooooooo bad at relaying our wants and wishes. Chooch and I are mocking him and now Chooch is trying to hide in the backseat. They asked what kind of donut chooch wanted and Chooch was like “any kind” so Henry was yelling, “pick the worst one!” into the window after the girl walked away, and then when she handed Henry the bag, he threw it really hard into the backseat without even looking and it was pretty funny but I guess you had to be there.
Meanwhile, Henry gaslit me and said they didn’t have croissants which is all I wanted and I said oh that’s weird because I’m pretty sure I’ve had one from there and also weird that it’s a bread choice for the breakfast sandwiches but ok, you know everything Henry. So I was pressured into getting avocado toast which held up the drive thru line and meanwhile YES SIR THEY HAVE CROISSANTS so I was crying about that and accused Henry of gaslighting and Chooch piped up from the backseat to tell me I don’t even know what that means which is REAL RICH coming from Gaslighter Jr.
11:07am: Henry brought along all these different Tupperware containers of various trail mix type stuff for car-snacking. I opened one that had granola in it and instantly recoiled as it hit my tongue.
“What is this, from the ’80s?? It tastes like it come from someone’s storm shelter.”
“First of all,” the White Knight started, adjusting his medieval jockstrap. “How many things have you eaten from a storm shelter?”
3:08pm: time changed somewhere back there and now we’re in Toledo for food and wow this place is supremely ugly no offense if you live here but I high key hate it.
3:23pm: WE’RE HERE AND JACKIE BLUE IS PLAYING AND THIS IS MY KIND OF PLACE I LOVE IT.
CHOOCH IS ASKING THE GUY IN THE GIFT SHOP WHERE THE TED NUGENT SIGNED HOT DOG BUN IS. THE REAL MVP.
I made Henry come over to the Ted Bun so I could get take his picture for Alyson and he was a big bitch baby about it because THERE WERE PPL EATING AT A TABLE 10 feet away. God, cry about it. This is literally why people come to Packo’s–for the signed hot dog experience!
I mean, I’m guessing! We totally came just for the Ted Bun! (Well, I did, anyway.)
Chooch: I don’t know who any of these hot dog bun people are because I’m not over the age of 70.
LOL.
Pierogies.
Chooch got a veggie dog with vegan chili and I had slight ordering remorse.
I made Henry order the paprikas dumplings as his side even though that’s not what he wanted lol.
The food was fine but the ambiance was exactly what I had hoped. I love restaurants that look like this, while also offering some kind of road side attraction schtick to reel you in. I’m here for it every single time.
CHERRY STRUDEL BABY.
It was decent! I have Yugoslavian and Austrian heritage though so I grew up eating some of the best apple strudel in the world, HUMBLE BRAG. So most strudel I have at restaurants is still delicious but not like the kind served at a local fire hall baby shower, if you know what I mean.
Also there wasn’t enough of it!
Packo Bathroom Selfie!
Then we bought some shit at the gift shop – Chooch got a pickle pen (apparently Packo’s is famous for their pickles and Henry said they’re even sold at our local Giant Eagles which I wouldn’t know because I probably go to a grocery store maybe 5x a year). I got a magnet, obviously.
<3
On the way out, crybaby Henry saw that chocolate chip cookies were for sale near the bar and he sulked because he wanted them but didn’t want to put $2.50 on the credit card so he came back to the car and cried some more but then Chooch said he had a $10 bill so Henry said, “GIMME IT” and legit snatched it from him and ran back in to get his fucking cookies, so Chooch kept saying, “COOKIE!!!” in a Cookie Monster / caveman voice and it was especially funny when he was saying it as I watched in the rear view mirror as Henry stormed back to the car with cookies in hand, like some fucking war hero.
Anyway, you’re welcome as usual, Henry and Chooch, for having the novel idea to eat there. I always have the best ideas.
5:05pm: Packo’s has a bunch of M.A.S.H. memorabilia because of the Toledo connection I guess – I actually had to ask Henry because I didn’t actively watch that show since I was YOUNG but my dad watched it so I know some stuff, like the basic gist of it and various actors who were on it. This pushed me down the rabbit hole because I was like WASNT ONE OF THEM THE DAD ON PROVIDENCE and Henry was like I DID NOT WATCH THAT but Mike Farrel was the second name he offered up as an answer and I was like THATS IT so I started reading the Providence wiki until I landed on the PICKET FENCES page because holy shit I forgot that was a show!?
I never watched it. Henry said he sort of did whatever that means.
Ugh it’s 6:49pm and we still have an hour to go because we’ve stopped so many times for pee breaks etc. All you’ve missed is shitty Starbucks and my obligatory once-a-road-trip rant about BTS’s mediocrity. I guess I will just post this now because who cares bye.
Yo yo yo. Here I am, Erin-Not-Kelly, coming at you live with some updates from the road. It’s 6:12p currently and we are finally on our way back to Pittsburgh after a weekend full of coasters and cry-babying (I didn’t get enough sleep ok??).
We went to Six Flags Great Adventure yesterday after leaving Morey’s Piers and had our best visit yet – it was actually absurd how good it was. I’ll recap that in full later but just to show you how much of a blast we had marathonning El Toro at the end of the night, here’s what my elbow looked like this morning:
I’m glad it’s just a bruise because I was worried that I actually chipped my elbow bone lol ugh.
We stayed in a Hampton in Horsham (LOLOL) PA which is near Doylestown which is where Anthony Green from Circa Survive lives! I know, you’re really fascinated by that. Anyway though the hotel was actually quite decent.
I wanted to go for a walk while Chooch was showering because I’m in this Workweek Hustle FitBit challenge and since I got late start this morning, I was in last place (gasp!). So we told Chooch we were doing this and Henry also grabbed most of our bags while he was at it since we were going outside. The walk itself was uneventful, but when we got back to the hotel, we ran into Chooch in the lobby, holding a plate of breakfast in one hand, a yogurt stick in his mouth, and his carry-on in his other hand, looking utterly lost. He thought we checked out I guess because he wasn’t paying attention to us as usual. He said he got everything out of the room but Henry was like I WILL BE THE JUDGE OF THAT and went back up. He left his Holiday World Voyage shirt and a brush there, plus Henry said the shower wasn’t even turned all the way off.
“It was like he killed someone and ran,” Henry muttered when he came back down, tossing Chooch’s shirt at his face.
So surly.
The breakfast buffet had little cornbread bars which was a nice surprise. I love cornbread unless it’s bad cornbread. This wasn’t the best but it was MOIST and more like a cornbread cupcake tbh.
Then we left for Hershey Park and I will obviously write about that later DON’T YOU FRET, but I will give you a bigly spoiler and say that it was another U G H experience there – not as bad as last year but meh enough that I will not be going back unless the RMC rumor is true because at this point it will take a RMC to motivate me. I just don’t think the coaster lineup there is worth the hype. Is it just me?! Because it seems like it’s just me. I like ONE COASTER there enough to willingly stand in line for it and it’s not even one of the ones all the enthusiasts circle-jerk around (Great Bear, if you’re wondering).
We did go to the Hershey Chocolate Experience thing afterward though to get some gifts for Blake since he checked in on our cats three times in the last month-ish. Chooch and I did the Chocolate ride while Henry shopped. This ride has better ops than any ride in the actual park, IMO.
And now we’re on our way home. I am so tired!! I think being an Old Person is finally starting to affect me. I woke up with a headache Sunday and today.
(Lol Henry just turned up the radio because Saturday Drip – NCT Dream came on and that is his BOP.)
We just stopped at a rest area with a 7-Eleven and it was the most chaotic we’ve been as a family unit in quite some time. We kept slamming into each other and openly bickering and then I got hit with a wave of drowsiness so great that it made me crash into a display of sunglasses (only one fell off thank god) and then when the cashier asked Henry if he wanted a bag, he said NOOOOOOOoooooooo like she tried to hand him herpes and I appreciate his environmental love even if it was performative but the way he said that really bugged me so I spat, “Why did you say it like that??”
“I can say it however I want,” he shout back with a haughtiness that didn’t sit well with me AT ALL and the cashier CHUCKLED so now she can get fucked too.
Now Chooch, he is still pouting because Starbucks was closing right when we got there, is doubly-pouting because he wishes he had got a hoodie in Wildwood – this after just bitching because he can’t feel the a/c in the backseat – and it reminded me that I got a Wildwood sweatshirt so now I’m wearing it.
“Wow you’re so cool,” Chooch mumbled. Lololol.
Buying this yesterday was a whole ass experience. I don’t feel like getting into it right now though.
I don’t know why this trip feels so much more exhausting than others since we we’ve only been gone since Friday night but when I say I am wiped out, I truly mean it. Saturday and Sunday were both exceptionally long & action-packed days. Good god.
But now we only have 90 more minutes until hooooooome!
Yo yo yo we’re currently en route to Wildwood and I’m not doing a TRADITIONAL LIVEBLOG but here are some PICTURES.
Chooch has been into reading again ever since Mexico (thank you to his new friends for inspiring him to read again! He’s currently reading Bullet Train (Bad Bunny is evidently in the movie and Chooch’s “Mexico Squad” are obsessed with him so I assume this is what instigated his desire to read the book?) and is having such a good time with it that’s he’s intermittently cracking up in the backseat and has already rated it 5 stars on Goodreads even though he’s only 1/3 done.
Meanwhile I’m reading this which is blah:
Stopped at the same rest area in Bedford where we ran into Bridget last fall!
There’s a cool wall of Turnpike artifacts that I never bothered to look at until today.
I thought they were CHEERSing their Starbucks but I dunno what was actually happening. Also it annoys me that anytime Chooch GRUDGINGLY lets me have a sip of his drinks, he immediately gropes for a napkin to wipe off the lid. Dude, I’m your MOTHER?!
We are currently driving thru the stinkiest stretch of Pennsylvania, holy fucking shit.
At another rest stop. This guy is stocking the pastry shelf and HIS GIRLFRIEND JACKED HER FINGER UP TODAY REAL GOOD BUT SHE WON’T GO TO THE DOCTOR.
Omg another rest stop!
I dunno why this is so funny to me but Chooch obv. does not agree.
Trying to get a picture of the super moon that’s been evading him all night.
We’ll be at our hotel in Somewhere, NJ in about 20 minutes (11pm) and then tomorrow we’ll have another hour to drive before WILDWOOD so I am signing off now byeeee.
Good morn’. It’s 9:00am and we’ve departed for our latest weekend adventure. It feels like we left the house an hour ago but we got tied up in a long Dunkin drive thru line and are currently only in Cranberry. Lame.
I convinced Henry to take a slightly longer route to our destination, which will take us through NY instead of across the entire length of Pennsylvania. I’m so sick of making that same drive over and over. I did have an ulterior motive though – this route takes us through Buffalo and I want vegan füdz for lunch.
I brought this book along for the ride. I can go either way with Riley Sager (Henry hates his books) so we’ll see where we land with this one. You care.
I just held the door open for someone at GetGo and as I was making a gloating face to Henry, I almost crashed into the guy I held the door open for so now Henry is clowning me.
Henry got a Krispy Kreme at Get Go and I took a small bite because I don’t often have these things. I think they’re fine but I still don’t understand why people hyperventilate over them. I remember when my hometown got its first location and my family, who had grown to love them thanks to all the car show road trips they went on without me, the Family Pariah, went fucking nuts. Mostly my dad, who was obsessed with these breakfast sweets that are neither crispy nor creamy. This was back when my dad and I hated each other so I think I probably intentionally went into it being a bitter Betty, pre-hating them because I refused to agree with my dad on anything then lol oh teenage Erin. You were a fucking delight.
11:06am: We’re almost in NY! Lake Erie has been on our left for quite some time. I have been quietly reading my book like a precious Princess while Henry houses palmfuls of trail mix.
Made the mistake of asking Henry why gas prices vary by state and now he’s droning on about taxes, totally ruining Taemin’s “IDEA” which is currently playing, so I said “I’m bored now” as I looked longingly out the window.
“Always nice talking to you,” he sighed.
11:40am: a gaggle of Hell’s Angels just puttered past us and I was tempted to flip them off to see if Henry would defend me once we pull into the next rest stop and see them waiting for us. He asked me to please not. Now we’re talking about who kills more people: them or the Pagans and Henry said probably them because they’re “more nationwide.” I wonder if he knows that from when he was studying them to pass the admission test that he ultimately failed because he has NARC written all over him.
“Their leader just died,” he said (why does he know this?!).
“Was he an out of shape slob like the ones that drove past?”
“Well no. He was very skinny because he had cancer.”
That killed the convo.
12:03pm: at my fave rest stop in New York.
He was made because I yelled HENRY just so I could take this lol. Some kid stood at the glass and got a passing by truck to beep and I cried I WANT TO DO IT TOO but Henry muttered “come on.”
LEAVING THE REST AREA AND SPOTTED THE HELLS ANGELS. this was the best shot I could get because Henry didn’t want to get killed.
1:24pm: Just left Sunshine Vegan!
Ok, I loved it. Black-owned vegan establishments just do it better. That’s facts. First of all, we walked in and the owner’s son joyfully greeted us with the announcement that it was his moms birthday and I was like Lord what’s it like to have a kid who cares about your bday?? It was just such a welcoming atmosphere.
I got a po’boy (I’m obsessed with vegan shrimp done right and this was it), Henry got some type of veggie sub (he thought it was a burger lol), and we got a carrot “tuna” salad dip to share. It was all so delicious and I didn’t feel like shit afterward.
And oh my LORD whatever that green sauce is, I wanted to lick every runaway drop off the plate.
This dog’s name is Dinero and he hated Henry! Yessss.
2:14pm: Made Henry detour to some village called OAKFIELD for donuts at some okay donuterie called Sweet Ally’s. I actually couldn’t finish my fruity pebble donut and gave it to Henry but the few bites I had were ok. Nothing to write home about except I guess that is what I’m technically doing??
The best part was this small park behind the donut place that gave walking prompts!! I won at it.
Actually the highlight of this was when Henry was struggling to get SIRI to understand that he needed directions to Sweet Ally’s. She had us going to Utah at one part. I was laughing so hard and he legit yelled at me which made laugh harder.
3:22pm: Stopped in Seabreeze Park land to do some Lake Ontario stuff!
The public restroom here was like a prison cell!
4:03pm: Back in the car. Here are some pictures from our LAKE ADVENTURE which wasn’t much of an adventure but it was still nice to get out of the car and sit on a large rock above splashing lake waves while pretending it was the ocean.
Ok, stay predominating, preDon’s.
Anyway, Henry and I are actually really enjoying each other’s company amazingly even though I did at one point snip: Why can’t you just do what I want and keep your mouth shut about it?” He was like WOW but then proceeded to do what I want hahaha.
Also!! I asked him if he got me something for my bday (tomorrow!!) and he said but that he can’t give it to me until Chooch is back and if that’s my present…I mean, yay! But also, can I have STUFF too? I’m a very STUFF-centric bitch.
6:39pm: We’re at Eddie’s in Sylvan Beach for dinner and regardless of how the food ends up being, this restaurant is MY STYLE. It got mediocre reviews on Yelp for being DATED and LIVING IN THE PAST and NO RENOVATIONS SINCE THE 60s which is how I knew it was the right choice.
That vinyl / carpet combo!
Also, our waitress’s name is Hannah and of course it is because she looks like every Hannah over ever known. (She is very nice.)
News flash: Henry chose PEPPERCORN as the dressing for his salad. I have never known him to select this?!
And then it looked like bleu cheese and he said no it’s peppercorn so I was like HOW DO U KNOW ITS PEPPERCORN and he said because he could taste the peppercorns?! What do they taste like?! Peppery corns?!
Before we ate, we bought some tickets because GALAXI was running this time! Sorry Chooch but we snagged a coaster credit that you don’t have. (Although, he got a country credit that I don’t have so I think he wins this round lol.)
I thought Henry was holding his nose because he too was bothered by the STRONG currents of B.O. being tossed around on this carnival coaster but I guess he just had an itch. It was a really strong stench. Anyway, we thought this was going to be tough and janky but it was surprisingly pleasant! I was a fan.
Couldn’t pass this up! Did it get worse than last year somehow? It just felt like we were mostly in the dark and the “scares” were barely lit. Oh well, I only ride it for that nostalgic aroma of must and grease, and the sound of the pretzel cars turning corners. It’s a vibe.
After eating, I demanded that we walk around some more to digest. Because of all this LOLLYGAGGING, our ETA in Nashua is now 12:18am lolololol.
Today is just “casual driving day” or as Henry calls it “Never Gonna Get There” day lol.
I can’t believe I got milquetoast Henry to do this.
The ride operator was oiling the track!
“I bet he had to sign waivers for that,” I said.
“I bet he didn’t,” Henry said in his I KNOW THINGS tone.
Same day, different lake. This is Lake Oneida! I fell in love with Sylvan Beach when we were visited last September and that love is still going strong. It is such a cute little vacation town! I’m already pining for it.
Anyway, when we left, Henry made me drive for almost TWO HOURS. Ok, 90 minutes. But that was annoying because he always sleeps when I drive so I’m basically driving alone. And I wanted to read my book some more but now it’s 9:23 and dark so thanks Hank.
Well, I’m going to post this now since it’s going to essentially be tomorrow when we check into our hotel. I’ll update if anything noteworthy happens!!
11:50pm: Still in the car as expected but I just realized who our waitress reminded me of:
HOLLY J from DeGrassi, also can a Look be any more early-2000s?!
2:39AM: A trio of bickering and we haven’t even pulled out of the driveway yet! Chooch almost left without his phone charger and now I’m the bad guy for asking him if he has it, I guess.
Also, Henry cleaned my glasses for me and it’s like looking out of, well, glass. Is this how it was always supposed to be?!
3:07am: been in the check-in line for 3 minutes and two people have asked me questions so far as if I know anything?!
3:18am: I know this is going to shock everyone but we’ve been here for 20 minutes and the American Airlines check in counter has been empty. But 6 of them are now slowly walking out and we’re all like “shut up” when one of them called out good mornings all sing-songily. It’s 3:00am gtfo.
3:56am: At the gate. Henry and I got PARENT PASSES to come all the way with him – I’m sure he is SO happy about this considering he sniped, “you’re so embarrassing” 8x in the last 10 minutes.
I almost took this with the flash on so that probably would have really sent him over the edge lololol.
4:45am: Now we have Dunkin’ Donuts and Henry is waiting in line somewhere else to get Chooch to big boy food. “I’m excited for this ‘home style breakfast.'”
Henry, bearer of bad news, just strutted over to tell Chooch that they don’t have pancakes today and he took the liberty of substituting it with toast. Chooch is not happy about this. Henry walked away and Chooch said, “asshole” in a super conversational tone and I don’t know why, probably because of the whole “2 hours of sleep” thing, but I can’t stop laughing.
Oh yeah! Since we couldn’t send Doll to Mexico with Chooch, we took pictures of her to put in his suitcase as a surprise:
5:15am: There is another CIEE kid here!!! We wanted Chooch to say hi and he said “I’ll say in Mexico.” WOW LOL. Now he’s trying to hide his shirt and avoid her but her dad looked right at him so we’ll see how this plays out.
5:52am: Well, he’s all boarded. Henry said he wished he took a picture of us hugging because it was so awkward considering I usually always slap or flick him to show affection. I’m crying, guys. This sucks.
Henry’s trying to flex his airplane knowledge. “They took the chocks out so the plane should be moving soon.”
6:21am: Just watched the plane take off. I’m a mess.
This is Henry’s version of “sad” I guess.
6:33am: Whelp. Chooch’s plane had to land because the lady behind him passed out and they’re doing CPR so now we’re going back to the gate. We had JUST gotten off the shuttle too and managed to jump back on before the doors closed because otherwise I think we would have had to go through security again and I don’t think our Gate Passes would have still worked since his flight had technically departed.
6:55am: lady has been brought off on stretcher. They’re still doing CPR. :/
While we’re killing time waiting for takeoff part 2, here’s a picture of Chooch’s Bon Voyage dinner, which I had hoped would be at a decent restaurant but when we left it up to him, he just kept suggesting Applebees because of that stupid country song that I hate and I was really trying to internalize my dissatisfaction with this choice since it was for HIS Bon voyage dinner not mine, but then he looked at the menu and realized that there is nothing for us to eat there so then he settled for take out from Moonlit Burgers because they have impossible burgers.
He was actually SO NICE all day yesterday and even treated us like human beings. It was almost as if he realized he was leaving for a month and might miss us.
7:16am: now everyone is getting off the plane.
(Everyone is saying that the lady had a heart attack.)
LOOK WHO’S BACK.
I just asked him if it was scary and he said, “no. I’m a sociopath.” And then cracked up. Wow.
8:13am: REBOARDING. I GET TO RE-CRY TOO I GUESS.
P.S. Apparently that other CIEE kid is going somewhere else not Merida because Henry just talked to chooch’s chaperone and she didn’t mention any other kids that she will be waiting for??!!
8:56am: Getting ready for takeoff part 2. *fingers crossed* He’s going to be cutting it super close for his connecting flight. Went from a 3-hour layover to basically having about 30 minutes to get to the gate, hopefully his chaperone is actually there. I hate this so much.
9:08am: He’s in the air. Attempting to leave the airport for the second time today.
9:22am:
Outside! I missed you!
10:24am: Went home for a second, consoled the cats after they did a Human Count and realized Chooch was missing, tossed some peanuts to Mr. Gray Guy, and then we came back out to Allegro’s to get some of their morning buns because I am honestly not going to be able to sit still and relax until I know that Chooch has made his connecting flight and is safe in Merida this day is so stressful. How will I ever send him off to college?!!!
Meanwhile, I imagine Chooch is on the plane, watching Better Call Saul, and giving zero fucks about anything because that kid does not know anxiety.
Dude this was good and sort of helped make me feel better…until it made me sick because I ate the whole damn thing ugh.
11:40pm: OK he landed at 12:20 and is off the plane. His CIEE chaperone is not there like she said she would be because why should anything go according to plan, but his gate is at least in the same terminal so he just has to get there. I might puke up that orange roll.
11:46am: Update from Chooch – “you guys are so annoying. I’m trying to walk.” Wow sorry for worrying.
12:38pm: He should be taking off soon! I’m tracking his flight because I’m Stalker Mom. I’m going to go live with this post now but will for sure update when he lands in Merida. Thank you for taking this virtual journey with me lol!
2:11pm: I keep obsessively refreshing the flight tracker. He has like 40 minutes. Since I last left you, I made progress on getting Mr. Gray Guy (a squirrel) to love me and I took a whole ass 30 minute nap, who even am I? A nap?! I mean, I guess I’ve been awake since 2:15AM.
Earlier today Henry was like, “we should have just driven him to Miami for that flight,” and after approx. 1.3 seconds of letting this spin cycle thru my empty mind like a ratty dryer sheet, I cried, “Why didn’t we??!!” I mean, Henry and I weren’t even traveling today but it was just reminder after the next of why I hate flying so much. It’s the whole fucking process for me. TSA especially. I fucking hate it. Travelers are already so stressed and harried and tired but then they gotta contend with these motherfuckers whose job prerequisite is SCHOOL BULLY.
Pittsburgh TSA sucks.
3:13pm: OK he’s there! I only know because of the stalking I’ve been doing not because he had the decency to text to me. He did, however, texted Henry: where’s my immigration form because of fucking course sonny boy didn’t listen to a word we told him the whole 6 hours we were in the airport together this morning but mmm ok.
Anyway, I’ll probably end this here. I’m ok now that he’s there and I will probably continue to be OK until we have to do this all over again in reverse on August 6th god help me.
ETA: I can’t believe I forgot these pertinent tidbits (though I have a vague recollection of typing them so they probably didn’t save because WordPress is trash):
the reason everyone had to get off the plane was because it had done a “hard landing” meaning that it made an emergency landing with nearly a full tank which is apparently not great for the plane and can cause stress so it needed to be inspected. The American Airlines guy at the gate kept us pretty well-informed about this which I appreciated but this part freaked me out: the maintenance crew is BASED IN DALLAS so they were essentially walking the Pittsburgh team through the inspection over the phone?!?!
Before all the passengers got off the plane, the lady who had the heart attack was wheeled off on a stretcher. They had to bring her off into the gate and then take her onto an elevator to get her back out onto the tarmac where the ambulance was. We saw them doing CPR still as they put her in the ambulance, and at this point it had been at least a half an hour since Chooch had texted me to say that they landed.
After the incident happened on the plane, one of the passengers gave her CPR. That passenger was standing near us when everyone got off the plane and people were going up to her and thanking her for helping. One guy was super choked up when he thanked her so I can only imagine how traumatic it must have been for everyone who witnessed it. I asked Chooch if it was upsetting and he said, “No not really but I’m a sociopath” because that’s what I always call him because his ambivalence is shocking at times.
Henry went to Brueggers while we were waiting for the plane to be inspected and the co-pilot was in there telling everyone what happened. He said it was literally right during take off and he knew it was bad because normally they’re not allowed to make emergency landings until they’re above a certain altitude but they were given the all-clear because “a passenger wasn’t breathing.” I literally cannot even imagine.
I got to talk to Chooch for a millisecond tonight after he got to his homestay. He told me, “I dunno sure I’m tired bye” whatever that means. We still don’t even know he was able to get his luggage because that apparently isn’t an important enough question for him to answer.
I legit can’t stop thinking about that lady and I wasn’t even on the plane. I really hope that she’s ok. :(
좋은 아침 여러분! Henry and I just left the house, destination: Newark (ugh) for Stray Kids (yay!). Figured I’d combine some weekend pics with a LiveBlog because Henry is being grumpy gramps and ignoring me.
When the weather is nice, I like to leave the front door open (much to Henry’s chagrin) so that the cats can watch the birds.
Breaking: we’re in Murrysville and henry just pointed out some auto body shop that he just got an ad for on Instagram and I openly mocked him because WHO CARES and now he’s crying about how this is why he doesn’t talk lol aw. Oh well.
9:52am: Finally made a Sheetz stop for breakfast OMG I was dying.
Oblig Sheetz Selfie.
In more weekend news, Henry finally framed his big shot Father’s Day gift LOL. Not only did I save that part for him, but the size of the picture ended up being weird so he had to MAKE his own frame. Even better! But look at how great it looks on the wall!
I started cracking up though thinking about the future when Henry and I are both dead and Chooch is like “I don’t have room for this shit” or more likely his partner is like “You’re not bringing this shit in our house” and this picture among others ends up in Goodwill lol.
Me-n-Drew! She’s my best friend. We chill with the squirrels together every day.
Aside from ANOTHER Sunday evening trip to Kennywood, the only other memorable thing that happened was that Onion Maiden had a ramen pop-up. I got Dan Dan noodles and a matcha Eddie for lunch on Sunday and it was miraculous.
I love Onion Maiden.
In Today News, it’s 11:10 and we are still in Pennsylvania – Altoona to be exact, according to Henry. So far we have only stopped at one Sheetz but I have a feeling that will change soon.
12:12pm: (1212!!!) We stopped at Sheetz but nothing of note happened until we got back on the road and a bug flew in Henry’s ear! He’s being such a baby about it and I’m like OK but you’re ruining the song that I’m listening to (“Round and Round” – NCT U).
5:27pm: OMG what a day. I was AWOL after my last update because I was watching/listening to the SURPRISE EDITION of the January 6 Committee hearing – WOW. Thoroughly riveting (not being sarcastic) and then we got to our hotel in Newark at almost 4 but the lobby was a clusterfuck of anxious Stays (Stray Kids fans Duh) trying to check in because the stupid hotel’s system was down and they had a backlog to get thru. It was awful. Finally got checked in after nearly an hour of waiting for our name to be called like we were in the DMV – wasn’t even air conditioned!! There was only one annoying person – some businessman who kept trying to cut the line and the people at the desk kept yelling at him. Finally the one woman was like “Sir all these people are waiting to go to a concert so they need to get checked in also, please wait your turn” and I was like YEAH, SUIT. Get back in line.
Now we’re in an Uber with a driver named Isaiah who has not said one word to us. He’s taking us to Urban Vegan which is right by the Prudential Center.
Yo, we ate at Urban Vegan before the concert and it was legit. Why can’t Pgh have places like this?! You know I always go for the vegan chicken sandwiches, and I got plantain as a side. Henry got the jerk bbq on a biscuit with coleslaw and sweet potato fries. Everything was excelsior.
Now it’s 11:22pm and we’re in an Uber heading back to the hotel after a fantastic Stray Kids concert. I missed live Kpop so much and now I feel alive also our Uber driver is huffing madly at the traffic and it’s making me….Uber uncomfy, so I’m signing off.
Oh wait! Two girls who were in the lobby of the hotel waiting to check in at the same time as us got an Uber right before ours came, literally right where we were standing and we also saw another older couple from the lobby when we were walking to the Prudential Center after eating dinner. Small Newark.
Hello from the car. We’re somewhere in PA still, around 10:15am, left the house at 8:00am. You missed nothing so far except for TWO SHEETZ STOPS obviously, one for breakfast items, one for peeing and snacks.
Here I am in the first Sheetz because I love their mirrors and wish I looked this stretched out IRL:
Spoiler: I do not look like this IRL. :( Also I look v. tired.
Music-wise, we’ve been on a Kang Daniel deep dive because he just dropped new music and I am OB-SESSED with the single Upside Down which I previously posted here the other day. I made the comparison to Phantogram’s “Fall In Love” and Henry was like “I DONT HEAR IT BUT OK” and then I was inspired to revisit my previous comparison of Kang Daniel’s “2U” to “X-French Tee Shirt” by Shudder To Think and this one really drove Henry off the deep end, and he said I’m crazy.
Just call me EK Crazy Ears I guess.
In the second Sheetz bathroom I accidentally used something called GOJO SOAP and it was terrible!!! It was some industrial paste shit to remove grease and paint from hands and it felt like I put gritty peanut butter on my skin, and it STANK.
I was traumatized by this and came out of the restroom with a dazed look on my face. When I told Henry about my latest trials and tribs, he started cracking up because apparently weird-ass Chooch loves that soap and was complaining that this Sheetz didn’t have any in the mens room.
Ugh.
In between all of this, Henry and I ranted to each other about America’s gun obsession, and I feel so frustrated, exhausted, enraged, and helpless. Henry suggested that these GOP/NRA motherfuckers won’t care until it happens to one of their kids….but even then, would they care? I have a hard time imagining these fucks as humans so to me, it doesn’t seem like it would matter even then. This country is so fucked. Every day it’s like, please let my kid just make it through high school without an active shooter situation, so that I can then worry about him making it through college without getting shot, or going to the movies, or the grocery store, or a concert, or a club.
But…at least all those fetuses will be protected. So that they can be born and promptly NOT protected. What a logical country we live in.
11:36am: BIG NEWS. We just stopped at a rest stop in Clinton County whatever that means and for some reason I felt inspired to get a coffee out of the machine because back in the summer of ’98 my friend Heather The Ken and I used to go in drives in the middle of the night to rest stops where it would be just us and truckers (soooooo fucking safe) and we’d go on vending machine sprees. I used to drink vended coffee all the time back then and felt like going to my 19-year-old roots.
It was a big deal.
I got a PREMIUM COFFEE with sugar & “lightener.”
I made Chooch take my picture and then he lectured me for being awkward.
When I declared that it was ok (after repeating “there are no lids” a hundred thousand times only for Henry to ask later “why didn’t you get a lid?”) Chooch decided that he would also take the plunge into the hot vending beverage pool and ordered a hot chocolate.
By this point, a LINE HAD FORMED for hot bevs!!
Ok by line I mean in this case just one old dude pictured above. No, not Henry – you went too far up. The guy in the picture right above this.
Mmmm. Monte Carlo, hold the lid.
Meanwhile, the regular beverage vending machine ate Henry’s money and he is in the process of lodging a complaint.
12:09pm: Normalize thinking Michael Bolton is an ok singer. (Spotify just recommended Said I Loved You But I Lied for my 여보 playlist which is an accurate rec actually.)
1:15pm: here are some boring-ass highway pictures. We’re near the Poconos with nary a HINT of romance.
2:06pm: finally in NY. Meanwhile chooch is doing some annoying CashApp thing and creating turmoil in the backseat. He made me download the app and I screamed THIS IS BITCOIN SHIT I DONT WANT IT and then Henry wanted to drop me off at a Texting / Rest area pull off. “It’s the Erin Drop Off Area,” he said like he’s so fucking cool.
2:24pm: Rest stop in NY.
Does Henry count as household garbage?
2:53pm: Henry just announced that we passed the Fishkill Correctional Center and I blurted out, “your butt’s a fish kill” and he mumbled, “you’re hilarious.”
IKNOWRIGHT.
3:57pm: What you missed: Henry whipping us around some town in Connecticut looking for a bathroom. It was action-packed. He screamed FUCK CONNECTICUT the whole time. It was great.
6:09pm: oh brother let me tell you. We just ate at ION vegan restaurant in Middlebury CT – like we specifically went there after I saw a review of it on YouTube – and it was DELECTABLE but I am so full and think that maybe I might be averse to chick peas now??
First, I want to tell you that this place had a STRONG 1990s vibe. I’m not sure how to explain it but it felt like a place that would have been popular in NYC in the 90s with like slam poetry night, but our waitress had a WHOLE 90s aesthetic. Tank top, daisy(ish?) ankle skirt, Doc Martens.
We got an order of corn bread for an appetizer. Holy shit. This was Biblical. What does that mean. I don’t know. But I feel like prophets would have sang about this sweet ass loaf.
Honestly, I could have just eaten this and been sent on my merry way, totally satisfied.
Our waitress was also super helpful and very personable- she walked through Chooch his decision of drink (chai latte) and entree (chickpea parm – which was also what I got!).
I don’t drink much anymore but I splurged and ordered the blueberry sage sangria that was on special:
And chooch’s chai ^^^
Breaking news: it’s 7:32 and we’re at some canal trail thing.
I threw a fit because Henry checked into the shit hole hotel and then expected to stay in for the night but I needed walked!!!
We saw an eagle fly out of its nest!!
Now we’re at the cem across from our shitty hotel:
Ok back to dinner recap!
Oh man, this was soooo good. I split it with Henry, who got the “cheeseburger” which was made from beets and mushrooms. I love it when places make their own veggie burgers rather than relying on Impossible, etc.
The only problem was that the chickpeas in my sandwich made my stomach blow up like a balloon and I walked out practically doubled over. I’m ok now (mostly) but it took a good digestion walk to help get me straight man, ugh.
We also walked around the block after we left the restaurant- it was in a pretty nice area with lots of other cool restaurants like one with fancy al fresco seating and a high percentage of old woman diners based on the cloud of Elder Perfume we walked through on the way past, that Chooch said he wants to take our cat Drew there and she would probably wear a beautiful blouse but our other cat Penelope would wear a burlap sack. Ugh. He’s so mean to her.
A cross walk on that street!
Interior design inspo. I think this was a massage therapy place?
Then we drove a few minutes to check out the CIRCUS HORROR MEMORIAL.
I guess it was still tarped over from the winter? That was disappointing. I found this on Roadside America but no one had been there yet to provide any tips or photos. Guess I will!
Now I’m back in the hotel while Henry and Chooch are out getting coffee. It’s almost 9pm and it’s too early for bed but I am SO TIRED.
This morning was very boring so I didn’t LiveBlog, although I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that we stopped at QuikTrip and got REALLY GREAT lemon bar lattes. Holy shit yo that shit was hot, sweet, elixir from the heavens.
We made it to Carowinds, park number 7, around noon-thirty. It looked like it wasn’t crowded and Fury was nearly a walk-on. What sorcery is this?!
Sadly, I was unable to enjoy my ride because the asshole in front of me was blatantly holding his phone above his head the whole time so I was trying not to get smashed in the face.
Also? Does Fury feel slow AF now because we have been spoiled this past week by so many amazing coasters?! I was actually disappointed.
Then we rode Copperhead Strike which I will admit to liking better this time around, maybe because we were in the back.
So that was ok and the line was only about 25 minutes.
Chooch still needed to get some credits that we missed the last time but one of them – the Vekoma boomerang, had a long-ass line for absolutely no reason other than that GP love boomerangs because they have no taste.
So we skipped that and went to Kitty Hawk which is a family Vekoma suspended and has the slowest ops ever, omfg.
Growing old in line so chooch can get a dumb credit.
Another one that he needed wasn’t running, so we settled for Ricochet which ended up breaking down while we were in the long-ass line but that was a BLESSING because there was a mass exodus so we were able to move up almost to the front. Maintenance arrived quickly, fixed the issue within 5 minutes, plus another 5 minutes of test-cycling the cars and we were back in business.
We actually got Henry to ride with us. This was right before the ride broke down when the line was still long, looking up food options for when we leave. For as shitty as Carowinds is, we at least all got along for the few short hours we were there.
Is it tho?
Anyway, Chooch got 2 credits, still needs 2 (3? I think there might be another kiddie one) more so I guess eventually we have to go back again ughhhh. This is just not an enjoyable park.
Then we had to walk through the parking lot looking for the car amidst a sea of other white cars while Henry’s shoe squeaked miserably and Chooch and I were losing our minds. Then we got in the car and made Chooch share his gummy turtles with us, which are shockingly good.
“Where did you get these again?” I asked.
“I dunno. Orange Land. Orange World,” he answered casually and it made me crack up because the fact that he has a job and buys his own shit now is endlessly humorous to me because it always ends up being dumb shit.
Anyway, I figured I’d start a live blog now because today’s Carowinds sojourn isn’t worth its own post.
YO. We just ate at Bean Vegan Cuisine and I was in food lust, bigly. Thank god I found this joint because we almost ate at some basic diner that basic Henry found.
Dude I knew as soon as we walked in that this was the spot. The options were overwhelming!
BATHROOM GLAMOR.
So one of the few things I crave sometimes that I can’t eat is seafood. I mean, I physically can eat it, but morally I won’t. You know how it is. So when I saw that they had vegan crab dip on the menu, I urged henry to order it for the table.
IT WAS HEAVENLY. Made from jackfruit and definitely had a crab dip texture and flavor. I was hooked.
I got the CHIKN PARM SANDWICH. Fun fact about this bitch, when I was in elementary school I would get so excited when Burger King’s chicken parm sandwich would return. That was my JAM. I can still remember how it tasted.
This was so good, I was screaming inside my head.
Henry got a side of vegan Mac n cheese with his cheese steak and it was everything. Chooch didn’t like it but he is extremely picky with vegan cheese.
Speaking of, he got some cowboy burger and was a big bitch baby because he didn’t like the bbq sauce on it. He did eat most of it but not without whining about it.
Wahhh.
He kept telling us we’re so annoying and I dunno why but this was making me crack up so bad and now I’m slaphappy.
6:55: At a really nice rest area in Virginia that has a little trail behind it which was wonderful!
I asked Henry if he thinks truckers bring broads up there at night and he distractedly said, “Yeah…I mean, no! There are lights back here.”
Mmmm ok.
Then I made a huge production out of getting Chooch to pose for this picture while people of his same age were walking by and watching lololol.
I guess you had to be there.
At least the scenery is better in Virginia.
8:25: Every time we call Henry out for breathing heavy, he goes, “Just be happy I’m breathing.” What a cocky response.
9:00pm: Arrived at the so-so Microtel in Beckley WV and Henry immediately dropped and shattered Chooch’s coveted jar of Georgia peaches from Peach World so that was a whole thing. Good one, Hank.
Well, I guess we’re in for the night because wtf is there to do in BECKLEY at 9:18 but ice my METATARSAL injury thing and read?
PS this piece of shit hotel has EWTN on their cable guide but then it doesn’t come in. I’m so pissed because we’re missing the EASTER MASS VIGIL.
10:20: UPDATE: the power just went out!!! I’m scared – it’s so dark and this is awful. Henry is like OH WELL and got back into bed but Chooch the Sleuth went out to the lobby to get the scoop. He just came back and said that literally no one in the lobby is fazed.
Man, we were watching a really great LIFETIME movie too.
10:23 – ITS BACK!! I said THANK GOD and Henry mumbled “yeah thank god the world almost ended.” It was actually terrifying!!!
Hello from our dumb hotel in Orlando. Today is a slower day (park we’re going to today doesn’t open until 2pm, blessed be) so I’m just chilling here post-Valhalla donut feast (I split Ube and Berry Berry with Henry, and Chooch had Churro) and I happened to see that the full trailer for the Heartstopper Netflix adaptation has dropped on YouTube so I watched it while Chooch was yelling at me to use my headphones and now I am sobbing because I love this graphic novel series so much. I finished #4 in the car on Sunday so I am even more ready for this.
I highly recommend these books. Highly highly highly. They are everything.
Also, here’s my ube donut:
We actually had a shitty experience there because the people working (not Valhalla employees – they were for the other place in the shared space) had no personality nor the desire to assist us. Then they forgot two things in our order so Henry to go back in twice to get it taken care of. I mean we were the only customers there HOW HARD IS IT.
Still, those donuts are so good that it was worth it.
But yeah, sometimes vegan places can have the shittiest customer service just sayin’.
Then we went to Craft & Common to get coffee to bring back and the experience there was so much better. The girl who waited on us was super friendly and helpful and it made the coffee taste even better to me, TBH.
I would highly recommend this place. Don’t listen to Henry and Chooch – they didn’t like theirs but they also don’t like coffee they just think that they do.
Now we’re going to ORANGE WORLD for souvenirs and then lunch at some point. I will check back! (LUNCH IN AN ACTUAL RESTAURANT AND NOT IN A THEME PARK I AM SO FUCKING STOKED!)
Orange World! Had a much better experience this time – I feel like we got yelled at here by some old lady cashier in 2016 but I can’t remember. I just know that we were extremely unwelcome.
They had barely any postcards though so we went to another gift shop and now chooch is pouting because some lady and all her kids cut in front of him when he was trying to check out and then his dumb Marvel toy thing wouldn’t scan and the cashier made him walk “all the way across the store” to get a new one instead of taking the plastic off.
So he came outside to sulk on a bench.
Just left the hotel again to get lunch. This trash has been sitting on the steps since we got here Sunday night and it’s become A THING. I am simultaneously angry and curious. Every time we come back from somewhere, I shout IT’S STILL THERE WHAT A SHOCKER.
Today, I said, “I wonder how much longer it will stay–” and Henry cut me off to yell, “The whole time! It will stay there the whole time just pick it up and throw it away” but now I literally can’t because I genuinely need to know. If it’s still there tomorrow morning when we’re leaving, I will throw it away then.
There are literally garbage cans at the bottom of every stairwell, I just don’t understand why someone would feel the need to drop whatever that even is right there.
WE JUST ORDERED I AM SO EXCITED IT WAS SUCH A PLEASANT EXPERIENCE SO FAR I AM HUNGRY THOUGH.
Ok. This was the BEST meal I had all damn week, I love faux chix sandwiches soooo much and will choose them over veggie burgers every time.
Chooch got a chicken sub:
Look how enthused he is! We are tired!
I got a kale side salad and my body was rejoicing – “Vegetables! Greens! Bring it!”
Winter Park Biscuit Co, you get an A+.
Ok dudes (in a gender neutral sense), we are headed to Fun Stop Orlando now so I am signing off. Poof.
Good morning I guess this will be sort of a live blog as we have a good 11 hour trek to make today and I am sure I will be bored AF. It is currently 8:34 and we just left, WAIT FOR IT, Mama Steve’s!! I’m not gonna lie, when we tacked on Williamsburg to our poorly planned spring break road trip, I cried, “OMG THAT MEANS WE CAN GO TO MAMA STEVES!” Of course chooch and Henry were like, “Where now?” because they don’t get obsessed with things for no reason like I do.
We asked for a booth and even though we were the only people there besides one old guy eating forlornly alone, we were placed at a table because our waitress JANICE who hated us apparently only had one booth in her section but there were ANTS on it.
(Henry just turned up FOREIGNER’S JUKE BOX HERO super loud in the car, for anyone who was wondering what songs would make Henry reach over to give the volume knob a good twist.)
Anyway I know our waitress’s name was Janice because she told us and for a minute I forgot restaurant etiquette and almost introduced myself back to her but after pausing with my mouth agape for entirely too long, I recovered long enough to blurt out, “oh ok nice to meet you.”
I honestly forgot how to human for a hot sec.
At first I was disappointed and was considering not loving Mama Steve’s anymore but then I was consoled by that awesome Blue Flame-esque instrumental covers of pop classics wafting from the ceiling and all the BLUE ACCENTS.
Henry and Chooch just think it’s “ok.” They both ordered omelettes. I noticed Chooch had a pile of tomatoes, peppers, and onions on the side of his plate.
“Why would you get a veggie omelette if you’re just going to pick everything out?” I asked.
“I didn’t pick them out!” he cried defensively. “They fell out! And once they’re by themselves, I don’t eat them.”
The eating intricacies of Chooch.
I ordered whole grain pancakes and then made Henry take two. Janice came over later to take away my cleared off plate and said, “You did good!!” But then saw the reminder of my pancakes on Henry’s plate so I had to fess up. They were good! I just know my limit!!
I made Chooch take a picture of me with Mama Steve’s in the background because I love it here! I want to roll around on the floor and absorb all the 1960s vibes.
(Ok, maybe I’ll put on some coveralls before I do that.)
I didn’t check out the bathroom last time and henry said it was “nothing special” but I said, “I WILL BE THE JUDGE OF THAT.”
Seemed pretty special to me!!
Then we were rung up at the register by a super-mysterious old lady, reminiscent of Katherine Helmand, in a mink stole and she HAD to be Mama Steve, she HAD TO BE. She kept locking eyes with me so I had no good opportunity to take a picture. She even spoke in an accented whisper!!!
She walked past us while we were eating, in all of her strange vintage European elegance, and I said, “That’s my STYLE ICON right there” and Henry said he imagined that being me walking into The Law Firm as an old lady to get my last paycheck, so I guess in Henry’s mind, we’ll be going back to paper paychecks that need to be manually deposited at some point in the future.
Ugh WTF is this shit?? “Bridge Lift In Progress”?!! Ugh.
“It’s not even for a ship. That’s just a tug pulling a barge,” Henry mansplained, causing Chooch to pipe up from the backseat, “whoa ho ho.”
Now Chooch the Engineer is pointing out all the different ways they could have built this bridge to avoid this.
THAT MOTHERFUCKER.
9:23am: Some podunk cop just pulled us over because dumbass Henry was speeding because he “didn’t realize” the speed limit changed. I have no idea where we are, some dumbass hick town in Virginia.
OMG HE JUST GAVE HENRY HIS DUMB TICKET AND AS HE WALKED AWAY HE TURNED AND LOOKED AT ME WITH A FUCKING GROSS LOOK ON HIS FACE AND I FLIPPED OUT AND YELLED EW DONT LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT YOU DUMB COP and henry was like “OK OK” and quickly put up the window and now I am fucking popping off because I hate cops so much HOPE U MET YOUR QUOTA, PIG OINK OINK.
If I had been the one driving, we’d probably be at the police station right now.
#mouth
Time for some Heartstopper 4 action!
A self-serve Dunkin’?? We had to buy a mini-Silk because they didn’t have DAIRY ALTS and it was a huge controversy. (It was my solution BTW) and I didn’t even require the need for DAIRY ALTS because I can drink iced coffee for the coffee flavor unlike Henry & Chooch, the coffee posers.
We are somewhere in North Carolina, btw.
A very pretty rest area in Fayetteville or something. There was drama in the restroom though because only ONE FAUCET worked and some lady was standing there waiting for her mom to finish up so she became the official spokesperson, telling everyone who came out of a stall that “only the one at the end works.” She told the custodian but as I was washing my hands, she left so I felt responsible for telling the people who came out of the stalls after me and then panicked because what if they didn’t pass it on and then the news died out?!
I guess newcomers would have to find out for themselves…
Our first Bojangles! The door was locked but some old man was coming out and let us slip inside. It wasn’t crowded in here at all but APPARENTLY they are short-staffed and locked the doors so they could try to keep up with the drive-thru rush but people inside keep letting in the outsiders like us and now people are getting angry. We had a convo about it with a LOCAL GENTLEMAN and he and Henry bonded over the shared knowledge of how UNDERSTAFFED it is everywhere and then the dude said “HAVE YOU A GOOD DAY” when he left and I so excited to hear it.
HAVE. YOU. A. GOOD. DAY.
I just randomly said something to Chooch in the tune of the Skate or Die Nintendo game song, so then I explained to him what that was and sang it (Skate. Or. Die. Skate or die. Die die die die die) and he got REALLY annoyed and said I’ve told him this numerous times over the years lol. I guess that game really made an impact on me??
This is all I wanted!! A biscuit! And the salad was actually decent.
Anyway, the locked door controversy went on the entire time we were there. It was insane. I admitted that I originally thought the door was locked because the staff was planning a mass suicide.
“Wow,” Henry muttered.
Later on, Henry came back to our booth after getting butter & honey because I started acting like I was insulted that my biscuit didn’t just come with it, right as Chooch and I were fighting because he said only the door on one side of the building was locked and I said they both were. Henry goes, “No they’re both locked—someone was standing outside the other door trying to get in when I walked by.”
“Did you let them in?” I asked.
“Nope,” Henry said, taking a big manly man-man bite of his food. Chooch and I lost it in tandem. The way he’s so ruthless sometimes!
I drizzled honey on my biscuit while Chooch cringed in the background. “You ruined that,” he said.
“You ruined me,” I retorted.
Back in the car, 1:42pm.
Calm down, Henry! Thirst much??
2:24: Pit stop at South of the Border! Chooch was being soooo snotty because he “just wants to get to Orlando” but we’re not doing anything there tonight anyway so what’s the rush?? Little bitch.
I made him pose for this picture and he was soooo bent out of shape about it:
I like this picture of me because my hair is covering my stupid face.
Chooch was mad because I wanted my picture taken on this mule. Then henry rejoined us after getting gas in the car and we went into one of the gift shops but didn’t see anything we wanted.
On the way back to the car, I wanted Chooch to take my picture with Henry this time too on the mules. I was going to ask this guy standing nearby if he’d take a picture of all of us but he was on the phone and his wife was holding a dog. But luckily he got off the phone just in time and said, “You guys want a picture of all of you?” which made Chooch’s whole body contort into a visual groan. I said YES and now we have a FAMILY PICTURE from this racist tourist trap, lucky us!
I told the guy, “you made my day, and ruined his!” pointing to Chooch. Dude was happy to assist!
It’s 3:19 but I forgot to mention that about 30 minutes ago, we stopped at a Pilot and my TREY SONGZ jam was playing – I haven’t heard it in like 10 years but went on auto-pilot mode and dramatically began lip-synching it in Henry’s face at the beverage cooler but he said HE DID NOT REMEMBER IT?! It was on a mixed cd that played for a solid year on repeat in our bedroom?! (This is not an exaggeration?!)
NO WAIT I WAS WRONG AND BECAUSE I AM HONEST I WILL ADMIT IT. It was a different Trey Songz track that was on the mixed CD also I did really like the one playing in Pilot too – it was the first Trey Songz I ever heard!
5:39pm I guess we’re in Georgia now? All I know is that we’ve been in stop-n-go traffic for the last hour and my calf is cramping from slamming on the invisible passenger-side brake. I swear to god Henry speeds up every time the brake lights come on on the cars in front of us. He’s giving me such anxiety.
DUDE. We just stopped at a rest area (and the doors were locked just like Bojangles!! but there was also a sign that said to use the doors in the rear of the building) and each faucet had a Dyson hand dryer attached to it!!! I had to side-eye the little girl at the sink next to me to figure out how to use it.
7:34. We just grabbed some Subway for a quick dinner in the car. We still don’t know if we’re in Florida or Georgia for some reason, but I feel like Henry should know??
Anyway before Subway we went to Race Trac and I got coffee but I can’t drink it because every time I bring the cup to my lips, all I can smell is cigarette for some reason and then I feel like I have an ashtray in my mouth??
Two bikers just passed us wearing WARLOCKS OF FLORIDA vests. Assholes.
7:58pm ok NOW we’re in Florida!
Also? I cannot stop thinking about the nice day we had at Busch Gardens yesterday. It started out as a series of QUESTION MARKS but ended up being just a very enjoyable day and we all got along until we got back to the hotel that night! A-ma–ZING.
We have 2.5 hours left of this never ending drive. I shall hit PUBLISH on this rat’s nest of words now and edit with any updates if anything noteworthy happens. Who can be sure?!
9:18pm You haven’t missed anything other than me quizzing Henry on NCT members’ voices and talking about TOP from BIGBANG doing wine labels as a new venture.
And then totally 갑자기, i said that I missed Wildwood. “It’s so magical there don’t you think?”
Henry, considering this. “Yeah, I mean, it was nice.”
“Oh, ‘it was nice.’ So you won’t commit to ‘magical’?” I cried.
“I mean, nowhere is really magical in my opinion,” was Henry’s defense.
“Ok not even Korea? REALLY?”
“No, not even Korea. Because magical is something that’s not believable and Korea is real…”
“OK WELL ITS MAGICAL TO ME IN THAT I COULDNT BELIEVE I WAS THERE,” I huffed, but COOK ON HENRY.
10:45pm: Checking into our hotel which is directly across from the street from The Drop Tower. Ugh.
Hi technically it’s the next day (12:14am) but I wanted to jump on here before I go to bed to say that I made Henry walk around the area by our hotel with me so that I could acquire my daily step goal (I aim low – 12,000 – which I generally hit by the afternoon except for when we’re literally in the car all day ugh) before midnight. I made it by 11:45! Woo!
Also, we ended walking past the drop tower and it was so unbelievably depressing. I said I wished we had a flower to put down and henry was like “well we don’t, so…” He has no feelings.
Then I took a picture of him next to the Hooters sign across from our hotel so I could send it to Chooch back in the room, because we love to insinuate that Henry has a VIP frequent customer card and has wet dreams about it (Hooters, not the card).
(Maybe the card, too.)
(Maybe also the fire hydrant.)
We’re also across from this bitch. Chooch had a mental breakdown at the one in Pigeon Forge several years ago lol:
Ok good night! SeaWorld tomorrow! Chooch should get his 200th credit!
Hello from somewhere in Maryland I think. We left shortly after I logged off from work at 5:30 to start our first leg of this season’s poorly-planned road trip. I’m not even giving our final destination on here for fear of jinxing it, as it’s been jinxed numerous times already and it’s actually amazing we even left Pgh at this point.
Anyway, it’s 8:40pm and I talked Henry’s ear off for the last three hours (he looooves when I tell him stories from when I was in high school, just fucking SAVORS that shit like it’s a piece of fresh jerky) so I thought I’d hop on this trash pile and type some things, post some pics, you know, things us BLOGGERS do.
I dunno why I screamed that bit.
Relevant to this drive, and I’ll tell you why in a minute calm down, here is a picture of Chooch from the weekend when he was trying to watch The Adam Project which made me scoff dramatically, “Ugh, Ryan Reynolds” and Chooch asked, “Why do you hate him again?” prompting Henry to answer from the dining room, “Because he hurt someone or something…”
Ok first of all? STFU don’t answer for me.
Second of all, he hurt ALANIS MORISSETTE (and also Scarlett Johansson but I was focused on Alanis at the mo’) so I started screaming about this and Chooch was like “ok well I don’t know who that is so…”
And also, he just seems like an asshole. Like the type of guy in high school who you never wanted to have to sit near because you knew at some point he was going to openly make fun of you for having braces or something.
That kind of guy.
Also, BLAKE LIVELY?? Ugh.
I mean she literally was the worst part of Gossip Girl but cool. Marry her & then expect us to care?!
This morning, I woke up to an Alanis song on the radio and then felt inspired in the car to play some of my faves and then from there somehow I got on a Paula Cole / Shawn Colvin / Jewel kick so Henry was really loving life, especially when I put on Sarah McLachlan’s Fumbling Towards Ecstasy album in its entirety and proceeded to dredge up the Psycho Mike years which is another topic henry loves because now not only is he my chef, caretaker, and chauffeur but crisis counselor too.
“Man, I really had no idea who I was back then,” I murmured, lost in 1997/1998 for a minute.
“And you do now?” Henry sneered.
“Uh yeah. I’m born-again Korean?!”
I miss the cats so much already this is the worst part of vacation. :( My mom will be staying with them but I swear Drew knew since last night that we were leaving. She saw the suitcases in my room and just knew. Then when Henry was packing up the car today, she ran onto the back porch and sulked, ughhhh my heart.
Still thinking about this s’mores sundae Henry & I shared from Sugar Spell on Sunday. Usually we’d partake in the pint preorder but figured we’d switch it up and just get a sundae. It was decadent! Of course henry cried because I allegedly ate “all the good parts.” He also tried to criticize me for choosing banana as one of the scoop flavors but it ended up tasting sooooo good with the s’mores accoutrements – waiting for my apology.
Oh man, now .38 Special’s Caught Up In You is on the radio as if I needed more reasons to revisit the past. Goddamn, this song.
HOLD THE PHONE, I just got a story from Henry regarding his middle school days! I mentioned that MOLLY HATCHET opened for .38 Special when I saw them in 1997 with Lisa and Henry said that he will always remember middle school dances (“Not ‘dances’! One dance!” Henry just yelled as I’m reading aloud what I’m typing) where JOCKOS requested Molly Hatchet’s “Green Grass & High Tides” and I fixated on the JOCKOS part because I didn’t understand what he meant so I kept repeating, “JOCKOS?”
And he’d be like “YEAH JOCK. Os.”
So then I would say, “JACQUE O’S?”
And he’d be like “yeah.”
And I’d be like “Who the fuck is Jacque O?”
Like he said it with such certainty that I’d understand.
And then he’d say “NO. JOCKOS. YOU KNOW. JOCKS.”
Oh. Jocks. Sorry. In my school day we just called them “jocks.” That was good enough. No need for the extra syllable.
Apropos of nothing, this oatmeal is FUCKING BONKERS. 100% recommend this. Gimme a sponsorship deal because I would do dumb blog ad spots for this shit WEEKLY without giving a single fuck about selling out. It’s so good that I brought it on vacation with me!!
Henry didn’t dance with anyone at the middle school dance, btw. I just remembered to ask him now. He said, “It was 8th grade. No one danced.” Things were different in the 90s I guess because I remember being in 6th or 7th grade and having my HEART BROKEN because Chris L. danced with Monica L. to VANESSA WILLIAMS’ SAVE THE BEST FOR LAST and if I told you I didn’t think about that more than once when Desperate Housewives was on TV, I’m sure you’d know I was lying.
Pfft. Chris L. What a Ryan Reynolds-type he was though. Literally always braced myself for him to say something brutal all through elementary school but still had the dumbest crush on him SIGH.
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“There’s a 24-hours Dunkin Donuts,” Henry pointed out.
“Oh my god” I yelled in my high-pitched mocking voice, so now he’s back to stewing in the drivers seat.
Michael Jackson’s THE WAY YOU MAKE ME FEEL just came on and it will never not sound like he’s saying “high giggles” instead of “high heels.” My mom and I used to argue about it when I was little because I insisted it was GIGGLES and she’d be all BUT THAT DOESNT MAKE SENSE.
“What did you wear to the dance?” I just asked Henry, because I’m still thinking about this.
“I don’t know! It was 40 years ago!”
“Was it polyester?” I probed. (Ah, classic polyester probe.)
“Maybe?! I mean it was the 70s…”
(Gentle reader, it is at this point that I’d like to point out that my middle school dance was in the NINETIES.)
“Do you have pictures?!”
“No! IT WAS THE 70s! Kids didn’t walk around with cameras!”
God ok Hemorrhaging Hank, calm down.
Ok I’m signing off now. I might not stop back tomorrow but possibly will return on Sunday which is going to be A Big Driving Day.
Tata.
UPDATE: I am now BLASTING Alanis’ “Uninvited” so I eagerly woke Chooch up in the backseat to manically shout DO YOU KNOW WHO THIS IS?
“NO!” he hissed around his FORKED TONGUE OF TEENAGER.
Oh ho ho, 좋은 아침 여러분. Henry and I are currently en route to Columbus, Ohio to have lunch at Seitan’s Realm. Here is how that happened:
Every time we pass through Columbus, we want to eat there but it always happens to be on Sunday and they are closed! Finally, I couldn’t take anymore taunting via their Instagram feed so I yelled at Chooch to request off on some upcoming Saturday so that we can feast. Then a few weeks later he was like “I’m off on the 26th” and I rejoiced! But then I found out that he called off for a Pokemon “event” so this is why it is just Henry and me in the car and Chooch is still at home sleeping :(
Anyway it’s 7:19 and we just plied ourselves with coffee, NCT Dream is blaring, and I’m already about to start complaining about contacts. Woo road trip!!
8:55am: what a boring drive, as expected. We stopped at Sheetz for breakfast as per road trip protocol. Nothing interesting happened there at all. Then I listened to a few chapters of an audiobook but it was making me fall asleep (I mean the book is good but combined with being in the car, I was so drowsy).
9:12am time for a Renjun appreciation shout out, best NCT vocalist.
10:26am: Just arrived at Otherworld but our reservation isn’t until 11 so we’re just sitting in the car, you know, same as we’ve been doing for the last three hours.
OMG Henry’s memory of the day is from 2006 when I was pregnant and we were also in Columbus that weekend! The picture is my puke on the bathroom floor of the science center. IMAX & Slurpee was not a great combo for my mucho-prego self lol.
11:28 I live here now.
11:56am: Spent an hour at Otherworld and it was really fun but toward the end, it started to get really crowded so we were glad we left as early as we did and got there before our 11am reservation because this is not the type of place you can enjoy yourself with a crowd.
Henry: Really? Renjun’s Voice?
Yeah, so??
Now we’re on our way to Seitan’s Realm, finally!
12:30pm: finally at Seitan’s Realm!!
THIS IS ABOVE OUR BOOTH!!!
1:06pm: you guys wow. We just left and I will definitely need to write a separate review post thingy but it was so satisfying and I am wrecked that we live 3 hours away.
1:33pm: stopped at Topiary Park. We weee here years ago with Christina but it was rainy that day so I wanted to come back. It was smaller than I remembered and also super cold so we left after five minutes lol.
3:07pm: just peed in the nicest park bathroom ngl.
Some place called Blacklick Park I guess. I needed to go for a walk to digest and henry took forever finding a place and we had many fights.
Artec! Nooooo!
3:26pm this just in: I knew something moss-adjacent that Henry did not: that British Soldier lichen stuff!
That is not my picture but I have vivid memories of this shit being all over the fences along the side of my childhood street – Gillcrest – and I have never seen it since then. :(
3:36: Just stopped at 5 Bean Coffee and got a maple butterscotch latte which is quite delectable but I’m having ordering regertz because they had red velvet on the special menu that I didn’t see at first so I pointed it out to henry but he blew me off and just got something basic like his personality. Ugh.
3:44: we just drove past the gas station where we had to pull over one time on the way home from who knows where when Chooch was laughing so hard he peed his pants and henry was soooooo angry lol.
Meanwhile henry just called the car in front of us a COCKBITE.
4:47: just spent a cool $100 on Kpop pins in one of the pin maker’s shop updates. I also bought a keychain meant to be used as a frame for Kpop photo cards – so if you’re new here, that means that anytime you buy a Kpop album, one of the fun parts of it is finding out whose photocard you got because it’s totally random. Some of the super manic Stans will buy dozens of the albums in an effort to collect all of the photocards. It’s nuts!
But it got me thinking about how everyone was so shocked when I got into Kpop and admittedly I was too but it actually makes so much sense because I am a very obsessive and fanatical personality type. For instance, when I was in middle school, I had it SO BAD for Pgh Penguin Paul Coffey and used to carry his hockey card around with me everywhere like it was actually him. I can remember even taking him to the movies with my friends and giving him his own seat next to mine.
“So really I haven’t outgrown that part of myself at all,” I said to Henry just now, to which he mumbled, “You haven’t outgrown much of anything.”
Wwwwwwwwwow.
5:52pm: Made the mistake of telling Henry I don’t really understand sanctions and he stepped into his MANSPLAININ’ trousers and gave me a Lesson.
Also fuck Putin. What a miserable pathetic gremlin shadow of a man. Go drown in quicksand with Trump please, while grasping onto your tiny peepees.
6:33pm: Now we’re about 15 minutes from home but Son of the Year texted me and demanded an iced coffee so now we’re at Dunkin’ in Bridgeville and I just want to go hoooooommmmmeeee.
Posting this now I guess. What a lame live blog. Ciao ciao for now now.
Hello Internet. It is 7:24am and Henry and I are departing our house for Cleveland. We both have the day off work but Chooch went back to school today so I thought, “What could we do that’s fun but doesn’t take us too far away” and then through the power of YouTube I accidentally stumbled across a vlog where some vegan went to a cafe and got pink vegan cinnamon rolls AND A PINK LATTE. Come on, we all know I’m not above novelties foods and bevs, so I was all over this like a Jersey Shore girl and a Plan B pill.
Unfortunately, upon more research I learned that this joint – the 27 Club – is owned by Machine Gun Kelly which is v. cringe but I want the latte so am choosing to ignore this gross fact. Shh.
Besides, we’re listening to Taemin in the car to ward off the sleazy MGK vibes.
Gee wiz guys it’s 11:05 and I forgot I started a LiveBlog lol. But we’re done with 27 Club and I am here to say it was…worth it ugh. Lol. I will post more about it on the way home because now we’re going to West Side Market, supposedly. Henry went rogue and made the unilateral decision.
12:16pm: We just left a pointless stop downtown CLE and are en route to Otani Sushi and Henry is stressing me out because he has to USE A BATHROOM like ASAP and I’m over here like plz stop talking about this.
Anyway, here are some pictures from the cafe, which was actually a pleasant experience as I said above.
Henry enters the building.
Little known fact about me: I never was a fan of Biggie. Tupac or GTFO.
Barely anyone reads this so I’m confident that it shall remain a little known fact!
I got my pink latte with almond milk and salted maple syrup and it was actually VERY nice. I know it’s all about the beans but also the type of syrups a cafe uses can make or break the place you know? This maple flavoring was very mellow and not cloying at all. So even apart from the fact that it’s adorably pink, this shit tasted great too.
I guess henry liked his cold brew. Who cares. (I just asked him and he said yeah and also it made him remember the LIQUIDITY of it which exacerbated his need for A BATHROOM lol).
I’m really glad that we went there before they took down their Christmas decor because yes.
All of the stools had various dead singers on them. Ours had Amy Winehouse on one side and whoever was on the other side looked like Jonny Craig at first and I could tell Henry was trying not to make any OFF COLOR jokes about how too bad Jonny made it past 27 wow did I really just do that for him? Oh well. I forgot to look at the picture more closely before we left so I never did actually see who it was.
Was Henry enjoying where he was right then, Y or N.
You guys – these vegan cinnamon rolls were made fresh upon ordering, came out piping hot, with this banging pitaya icing. I LOVED THEM. Of course I shared with Henry, who only expressed mediocre feelings toward them. I think he was in pink shock though.
Um I also bought a hoodie because my eyesight might be fledgling but it’s still 20/20 when it comes to design. This hoodie is THE LIMIT. I’m also obsessed with the 27 Club’s logo. Ugh.
12:30pm: NEWS ALERT – Henry just RELIEVED himself at a REBEL gas station. He is so happy now.
Also our Waze is still set to Korean so Henry nearly missed a hidden cop up ahead lol.
Overall, I am very satisfied with my experience at 27 Club even though it had the equivalent cringe factor of, say, visiting a vape shop owned by Jonny Craig.
Ugh I bought a bottle of Voss water earlier at Sheetz and I will never buy it again. It tastes awful and I think it’s the AQUAMIN that’s in it whatever that is?? It reminds me of, and this will mean nothing to you, the water fountain in the office of Dr. Lewis, the “fat doctor” my mom used to go to in the 80s to get probably unsafe “diet pills” and my brother Ryan and I would always have to sit in the waiting room with all the other “it’s this or Jazzercize” desperate broads. Ugh the water fountain there had the grossest vitamin infused flavor.
1:22pm: just had an underwhelming visit to my fave vintage joint, Flower Child. I mean it was still fun to walk around but there was nothing that really caught my eye and felt worth arguing with Henry over until he acquiesces and agrees that, yes Erin, we really do need yet another swag lamp in the house even though there is literally nowhere else to put one.
I cried IS THIS FOR COCAINE and Henry was like, “um I don’t see how, but ok.” Then he just strolled off into the sunset next room, leaving me to wonder.
There weren’t even really any JESUS pictures that I needed. Oh well. Next time maybe.
Here are pictures from when we went to the Arcade which was completely empty and the restrooms were locked, causing Henry to cry because this was at the height of his bathroom urgency and even Starbucks down the street was closed lol.
As of 1:31 I hate Henry because he SNEEZED with no warning and now he’s sniffling ughhhhhh.
Meanwhile we’ve been to Cleveland approx. 50x and I still never know where anything is.
2:09: Hi. We’re at Otani Japanese because they have veg/vegan sushi options and henry is being a big cry baby because he wanted WONTON SOUP and i allegedly shamed him somehow? But then he had a big RISE-UP moment and called the waiter over to add it to his order, like ok cool Henry, snap those big boy pants suspenders.
LOLOLOL it’s WONTON SOUP time:
Oh shit hello vegan sushi:
Hey wanna know something hilarious? After we devoured this, our waiter came over and asked, “are you guys vegan?”
“I’m vegetarian,” I said, scared that he was going to say, “ok because actually that one roll has actual tuna in it” but apparently they have an entirely separate vegan menu with EVEN MORE OPTIONS than what’s on the regular menu and it would have been nice if the host had given us that with the other menus. I just really thought the menu looked odd because I had sworn when I looked at the website a few weeks ago, I had seen a shit ton of vegan sushi rolls that had me gurgling my saliva but then I just assumed that maybe I had gotten restaurants mixed up in my head because that’s definitely an Erin Thing to do.
LOOK AT THIS SHIT. I’ll be coming back to Cleveland sooner rather than later, I guess.
4:16lm: at a rest stop outside of PA, henry decided to treat himself to a Blizzard. Of course I chose for him (snickerdoodle) and then spent a solid minute having an internal convo with my alter egos about how ridiculous of a word “snickerdoodle” is. Then I started imagining Chooch working at DQ and instead of just handing Blizzards upside down to customers, throwing it in the air and then drop-kicking it over the counter because that would be a very Chooch Thing to do.
Anyway, this Blizzard was not snickerdoodle? It had chocolate slivers in it? What the hell?
I mean it was still good because Blizzards gon’ Blizz (…what?) but that was no snickerdoodle I’ve ever tasted.
Ok well we should be home in about a half hour so goodbye.
