2 posts tagged “liquor”

Well, I eventually made it to my hotel.  And I have to admit I was pretty impressed with the place.  It had a very nice lobby.  I'll be honest though, as much as a problem as it was to find the place, I was so happy to be there, I'd have been overjoyed with a shack as long as it said the words Holliday, Inn, and Select in some order.  It's funny though, because it was so nice, that the first thing that I thought was that there was no way that this was the place that the soon to be drunk, shirtless, roofing hooligans were going to be staying.

My first order of business was going to the clerk and asking if I could go up to the room.  It was Don's theory that since the rooms had already been paid for and reserved, I would be able to go ahead in before they had gotten there.  It was the hotel clerk's theory that I would have to have prior written permission to have access to the room before they checked in.  The clerk's theory won out, and she was very kind in telling me that I may sit on a couch and wait until Don and friends arrived.

Before I was to have the pleasure of sitting on the fine couch and chairs, I needed to park my vehicle, and I was quite pleased to have found an excellent parking spot in the parking garage.  I brought my gear in and planted myself into a nicely padded wicker chair and proceeded to pass out while watching the final four basketball game on the television.  My sleep was quite often interrupted by blasts of extremely loud funk music.  It seems that the hotel had a ballroom and it was hosting some sort of...funk extravaganza.  All I can say for sure was that there were many well dressed African Americans that were coming in and out of that ballroom, and when they did, the decibel level went through the roof.  Upon being woke up on one occasion, I noticed a well dressed black man sitting in the chair across from me.  He had a nice watch on, was wearing a diamond earring and was wearing sunglasses at about nine o'clock in the evening.  He kind of looked like the R&B artist Usher.  I asked if he had any idea of what was going on in the ballroom, and he said he didn't know.  I proceeded to ask him questions about where he was from, and he was polite enough, but he wasn't exactly flowing freely with information either.  It seemed that he was way to cool to engage in any meaningful conversation with me.  All I got from him was that he was from Philly, and I still wonder if maybe he was maybe a professional athlete, but then again, what would he be doing in downtown Lynchburg?

I dozed back off and this time was woke up by...my new friends, the roofing hooligans.  "Hey, Hey, there's our new buddy!" one said, "It took us forever to find this place, man".  It had been quite a little while since I had seen them, and by that time, it appeared that they had definitely found a liquor store or two.   They scurried off to their rooms, while I continued to wait in the lobby, and I now had the fortune to be entertained by a four year old girl playing on the grand piano three feet from my head.  I kept my composure, and was rewarded soon enough by the arrival of my friends. 

They were pretty tuckered out by the time they arrived.  It had been a long day for them.  They had left home around four or five in the morning in order to get to Martinsville in time to tailgate and shop before the NASCAR truck series race.  When they got to the hotel, they were ready to crash immediately.  I, on the other hand, had just taken a nap and hadn't eaten just in case they wanted to go get something to eat when they got to the hotel.  They didn't.   I was chilling in the hotel room and lamenting the fact that room service had already ended for the night, when my brother Rob called Don's cell phone.  Don had called Rob earlier and had asked if he had heard from me, and Rob was calling to make sure that I had been found.  When Rob found out where we were in Lynchburg, he pointed out the proximity to one of his favorite food dives in Lynchburg.  He thought that it was a unique place and since I was so close(and hungry), I should go experience it.  He figured it was about 5 blocks down the road, so I went and got my car out of the parking garage.  As soon as got to my car door, I heard a honk behind me, and guess who...That's right, the roofers again.  By this time, most of them were completely bombed.  They said something to me, although I'm not sure what, and I walked up to the van and said, "Hey guys, how are you doing?"  The guy in the passenger seat responded by laughing pretty hard.  I then said, "I guess you guys found everything O.K."  The guy in the passenger seat started laughing again.  So I said, "You guys have a good night", and got into my car. 

Off to the Texas Inn.  I wasn't pleased to give up my good parking space, and was even more annoyed when I made a left out of the parking garage and saw the Texas Inn about two hundred feet away.   Oh well, I was glad to be visiting this place that Rob had mentioned more than a few times.  I was expecting something more commercial than what it was.  It's really nothing more than an "L" shaped counter with stools bolted to the floor. This "eatery" is called The Texas Inn, but the locals inside call it "the T-room".  Rob said you could eat quickly there, but it was even quicker than I could have imagined.  I sat down near the corner of the counter next to a local couple.  I mentioned that it was my first time there, and they seemed eager to help me in the ordering process.  They asked me what I wanted, and the only thing I knew for sure was that I was supposed to try "The Cheesy Westerner".  That is the staple sandwich there and consists of a burger, an egg, cheese, and a relish.  I got midway through the word westerner when the lady yelled out, "Cheesy, ALL THE WAY!"  I was wondering what just had happened when I noticed the man eating a bowl of something.  I asked him what it was, and he said, "It's the Chili beans, you gotta try the Chili beans, BOWL OF BEANS!"  Before I knew what was going on the "waitress" had thrown a pack of oyster crackers at me, and right behind them was a bowl of the chili beans.  I had been in there for maybe a minute and a half and had already gotten food that I hadn't officially ordered.  The "waitress" looked very similar to Large Marge from PeeWee's Big adventure.  The people that were filing in there looked rather odd themselves.  They looked like old hardened farmers or something.  One guy sat down and ordered a glass of buttermilk to drink.  Who does that nowadays?  I got my cheesy westerner and it was pretty darn good (thank you Rob).  And as quick as it was, it was also pretty entertaining listening to the local couple antagonize the waitress by saying all the black folk from the funk concert at the hotel would be coming in to eat soon.  I also heard someone complaining from the other side of the counter that there was someone "peeing in the parking lot".  As disgusting as that is, it made me laugh when the lady that ordered my hamburger said, "it's got to be better than going in the ladies room".  I was contemplating ordering something else when I realized that there was no way this place was going to take a check card.  When I mentioned it the locals laughed at the thought that the T-room would accept credit cards.  I didn't have much cash on me, but I was going to have enough for what I ordered.  The man that had ordered my chili beans for me said he wanted a hotdog with extra relish.  I rather innocently asked him if the hotdogs were good here.  I should have known to keep my mouth shut because he instantly screamed, "WALK THE DOG ALL THE WAY!", which would have landed me a hotdog in about six seconds if I hadn't instantaneously shouted for them to not walk the dog because I was running short on cash.  I paid my bill and just like that, I had experienced the T-room in about 8 minutes.

I drove back to the hotel and had to park on the second floor of the parking garage, apparently the funk festival was still going strong and people were still arriving.  I made my way up to my room, and I realized that the roofing hooligans were on our floor and were staying about two rooms away from us.  Not only did I hear the occasional drunken scream coming from down the hall during the night, but the next morning we found a beer bottle stuck upside down in the sand of a ash tray. 

The next morning, it was off to the racetrack and Martinsville.  We were all pretty sure(I was at least) that it was going to rain on Sunday and the race would be postponed until Monday.   All I had heard was a forecast of thunderstorms and or rain.  The mere mention of rain in our group was not tolerated.  We got to the track at about 10:30am or so.  Actually, I wouldn’t say we were at the track yet.  We were at a parking area perched halfway up a mountain that was remotely close the track.  We tailgated for a while, during which I grilled a couple of powdered donut gems.  It wasn’t bad, but the sugar nearly singed my mouth.  We finished up eating, and headed down to the track.   Literally, we headed DOWN to the track.  The walk over was long, but going downhill is never too bad.  We got to the track and up to our seats.  They were pretty nice seats.  I should explain, for NASCAR events the seating priority is exactly the opposite of most events.  The higher you are up in the air, the more of the track you can see, thus the premium seats are the nosebleeds.  We were about three quarters of the way up the stands.  I was able to see, in person, one of my favorite tv personalities, Paul Sr. from American Chopper.  They had made a chopper for Tony Stewart, so with any luck it’ll have a loose wheel.  The race itself was fine I guess, but my favorite racer, Kasey Kahne, stunk up the joint and there was a brief rain delay.  I did win the office pool though, which is always a consolation.   Here are a couple of pictures from the race:

I also tried one of the “world famous” Martinsville hotdogs.  They must be world famous to people that only enjoy blood-red hotdogs.  That was the only distinguishing characteristic to me.  It’s a little weird by the way.  Meats should be earth tones.   After the race, we made it back up to our vehicle(I could have used one of those packing mules they use for the grand canyon), we tailgated once again and then headed back to the hotel.

The ride home was a whole lot less eventful.  The scenery on Rt. 29 in Virginia was absolutely beautiful this time of year, with all of the trees in bloom and the road winding through the mountains.  And with no deadline to get back, I could be a little more adventurous in my road choices.  It was a good trip overall, and I might change a couple of things if I were to do it over again, but I guess life experiences are what adds to our knowledge base and ultimately makes us smarter individuals.  That is if we choose to learn from those experiences.  I do know I learned that it’s nice to get back and know EXACTLY where you’ll be staying the night, home sweet home.

I took an IQ test on Friday and I got these results:

Congratulations, Gary!
Your IQ score is 138 

Your Intellectual Type is Visionary Philosopher. This means you are highly intelligent and have a powerful mix of skills and insight that can be applied in a variety of different ways. Like Plato, your exceptional math and verbal skills make you very adept at explaining things to others — and at anticipating and predicting patterns.

I make those last words bold because they couldn't be any further off.  I'm pretty pathetic at both anticipating and predicting patterns.  Let's rewind about six years ago or so.  I had a delivery to make to Riverdale Md. for my work.
I was just learning things at my job, and in this case I was riding with the regular delivery driver.  Under normal circumstances, I would look up where I was going on a map.  But hey, this time I don't need to because I've driven by Riverdale Baptist a hundred times.  Since I told him I knew where I was going, the delivery man gladly let me drive to "Riverdale".  When I arrived, he was quite giddy to tell me that we were nowhere near where we needed to be.  I guess Riverdale Baptist had relocated at some point, and the actual town of Riverdale was quite a bit away.

Now let's rewind back to last Friday.  I'm "planning" a trip to Lynchburg/Martinsville Virginia where I'm to meet up with some friends that had left earlier.  Martinsville is my ultimate destination because I'm going to the NASCAR race, but getting a hotel room near there is impossible, so my friends rented a couple of rooms in Lynchburg, about an hour and a half away from Martinsville.  My friends were going to be in Martinsville during the day on Saturday, but had planned on being back by the time I would have arrived in Lynchburg.  When I last spoke to my friend, Don, he told me that his reservations were at the Holliday Inn Select.  What I heard was, "We're staying at the mainstream Hotel not named Best Western or Super 8 and it doesn't matter anyway because I'll beep them on the phone when I get there".  I wasn't worried anyway, because I had been to Lynchburg and knew there wasn't a ton of hotels. 

Well I pulled up on Lynchburg, and it was just how I remembered it from a few years ago.  There's Liberty's campus, there's the hotel I stayed at, and there's the dollar theater.  Perfect!  All I had to do is find the mainstream hotel not named Best Western or Super Eight and I'm golden, but before that I'll beep my buddy, Rich, on his Nextel to eliminate any guess work.  Well Rich didn't answer his phone, and the phone I had with me was only good for direct connect, so I couldn't make any outgoing phone calls to reach Don on his cell phone.  This wasn't giving me a peaceful easy feeling, but I wasn't worried, there aren't that many hotels that fit the criteria.  The first hotel I drove by was a Sleep Inn.  I gave the parking lot a quick scan for any vehicles that I recognized, no luck.  Then I drove by a couple of more hotels, no luck. 

I then stopped by a Days Inn. no luck again, but I went inside and talked to the lady inside.  No reservations by those names, but she let me use the phone to try calling Don.  I tried his phone twice and no luck.  So off to the next hotel.  I believe it was a Holliday Inn Express.  No luck again, but this time the lady offers to call all of the surrounding hotels to see if she could find my friends.  She had a list of eight hotels and was kind enough to call them all. Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope.  At this point I was getting a little freaked out.  My friends who are supposed to be in Lynchburg were not answering their phone and no hotel had reservations for them. 

About an hour goes by and I find myself at a convenience store on the corner, and at this point I was feeling like a full blown vagrant.  I had no where to go, and no way to contact my friends.  The pay phones wouldn't let me dial Don's cell phone number, because it was long distance.  I even stooped so low as to ask a man in the store(with a Liberty University shirt on) if he would let me borrow his cell phone to make a call to my friends I'm trying to find.  He looked at me and said, "Umm, yeah, I would but, umm my battery is low and I have to go to my car now and charge it."  A regular good Samaritan he was.  

So I went back outside the store and tried the phones one more time and... No luck.  I turned around and what did I see? A van full of mid-twenties hoodlums.  A guy pops out, curses a few times and went inside the store.  While I was standing there trying to figure out why there would be a van full of hostile shirtless twenty somethings driving the streets of a Christian college town, the driver of the van points at me and waives me over.  I thought I was standing there looking confused and exasperated, but apparently I was looking like Lynchburg's friendly local guide to all things alcoholic.  Because he asked me,  "Hey pal, where's the nearest liquor store?", another guy in the van asks, "And where are the Ladies?"  To both I said, "Buddy, I have no Idea."  The driver said, "Dude, I don't know about this town" and one of the other guys chimes in, "Yeah man, this town is kinda screwy." I'm not sure why, but I nodded in agreement.  I then asked him what brought him to this screwy town.  My guess was he was there to visit a friend who's parents made him go to Liberty.  I was wrong, they were roofers from Ohio(that was my second guess).  Apparently, they are contracted to work on certain commercial buildings, and where those buildings are, they go.  They were done for the night, and wanted to get some booze to take to their hotel.  I explained my situation to him, and he said to one of his friends, "Dude, let him use your cell".   I use his phone to call Don and whadayaknow, he answered.  It turns out Don was running late, and was just leaving the track.  He informs me, again, that the hotel was the Holliday Inn Select.  The roofing hoodlums inform me that's where they are staying too!  Great...

I went back inside the convenience store and asked them where the Holliday Inn Select was.  It was in old town Lynchburg.  Old town Lynchburg????  I had done it again.  I assumed I knew the whole town, but I only knew the part of the town that I had seen.  Lynchburg was way bigger than what I had seen before, and I really didn't have any idea as to where I was going even though I was sure I did.  Does anyone see a pattern forming?

*Hopefully tomorrow I'll finish up my story about my trip, from the T-room mutants, to the reoccurring run-ins with the roofing hoodlums.