It's A Roadtrip Birthday Party!

So it begins...

Jen and I haven't had any kind of a road trip together in almost a year so it was time. What better time then for my 36th birthday? Shut up! I'm not THAT old! This was a last minute road trip so the days, and weeks of planning that I usually do, didn't happen. Maybe that was the first mistake. Hootenanny 2006 was happening in Irvine, Ca. on my birthday. Lots of bands that I like, kustom cars, and lots of rockabilly guys. What more could a girl ask for?

It didn't hurt that the "Hot Rod Guy" I had been talking to online, and wanted to meet would be showing a car there too. So we map-quested our trip, and decided it was too far to drive that morning. We needed to be at the Hoot the morning of my birthday and it was a four and a half hour drive to Irvine from my place, so we decided to go down the night before and stay in a hotel. Since we were down there Jen suggested we go to this club called Club Bounce, and go dancing Friday night. I LOVE to go dancing so I thought it would be a good idea. We selected a hotel on line that was centrally located between club bounce and the Hootenanny, and made reservations. We were surprised we could get a hotel THAT close to the hootenanny on such short notice, but felt lucky that we did. I had NO idea...

I spent 2.5 hours cleaning my car for the trip, getting packed the night before, and I throw everything in my car so we can leave from my office. We thought maybe if we take I-5 down it would be faster. We remembered to document this trip with photos to share with you, cause I KNOW you care dammit!

Yes, I am aware this picture makes me look FATTT...I don't care...so shut it!

On the way, we saw this sign in Lost Hills. I yell OhMyGawd Jen Take a picture! This is a good sign! I mean it's James Dean! So she snapped the photo as we were driving down the road. A few miles down the road, we stopped to use the bathroom. Well SHE did. I thought Lost Hills was a disgusting place, and there was NO WAY I was gonna go there. I think she regretted it as well.

Giant James Dean Heads Are FUN!

So off we go onto Interstate 5. I was confident that our trip would be smooth sailing now, since everyone drives 85 or faster on the five. Not so much...we ended up getting behind every slow driver on the highway, and of course, this gave me insane road rage. I ended up screaming at every driver that would get in front of me, and slow down to 45 miles per hour to pass a big rig. Of course every time I would pass a rig, Jen would make this squealing sound like some kind of bug was touching her, tense up and lean away from her side of the car like I was going to ram my car into the side of a semi. Yeah um not so much. It was fun to watch though. Since I manage a moving company, every time I saw a moving van that was NOT my company I would make this little clawing motion with my hand. This resulted in me hitting the window and breaking off one of my nails. GREAT! Now I have to go down to L.A. with a defective manicure. The only part of the drive that was scary for me was the grapevine. I hadn't driven on it before so I was a little nervous about my car. I was excited to see that the state of California completely agrees with me though about the correct usage of Smokey Bear's name.

That's right there is no "THE" in his name!

Hours of traffic, a stop at El Polo Loco for a quick dinner and we finally reach our hotel in Santa Ana. We drove up and checked in. I really thought we got quite a deal. I mean the price we paid for the room was insanely cheap, and the room was pretty nice. So why wasn’t this place booked up? I was just making that comment when I heard why. There was a loud rumble and the entire room shook like we were having an earthquake. It got louder and louder then I realized it was a PLANE!

Debi: Um Jen, did you book a room on a landing strip?

Jen: No.

Debi: Then why does it sound like a plane is about to crash through our hotel window?

Jen: Maybe there is an airport close by? Who cares you can sleep through anything, especially after some Goose.

Close by...yes...well apparently; we were in the flight path of the airport. Every time a plane would go over, I would cringe and hold my breath hoping they weren't going to have some kind of trouble and end up killing me before I made it to 36. I think once I even ducked! I took this picture the next morning.

Yes, we were THAT close.

We get dressed and head off to Long Beach to go to this dance club Jen had heard about. When we finally found it, it was packed. We found the bar got a drink, and were horrified at the lack of quality men in the place. It was hot and humid in there and they were playing songs we had never heard of so after two drinks, a dance with a short man who spoke funny, we went back to our hotel room and crashed out in between landings and take-offs.

The next day we were refreshed and ready to go. Although it was nice that Irvine had a sign welcoming me to their city the ONE time I need coffee really bad we can't find one single Starbucks!...stupid Irvine. You know there is almost always one right around every corner. 20 minutes later, we spy one! YAY! As we were walking in some strange and rather scary man said to Jen "Hi Beautiful lady". She just stared at me with this look of horror on her face. We got our breakfast and our drinks and walked out. While we were walking out, he spoke to her again. This again sent her into a look of horror. This should have been a sign that we should go home...but we trudged on. On the way to The Hoot, we did get lost, had to pay a toll on the road out there, but finally found our way. As we were heading out towards Irvine Lake, the scenery started to look like a desert, complete with cactus. It looked very dismal.

Debi: Um are we going out into the middle of a hot field with nothing but dirt and cactus?

Jen: I don’t know...looks like we are.

Debi: oh wow, yeah...I hope not.

Jen: Me too.

Are we going the right way?

We finally find where they are having this little event, and we have to drive down a dirt road, pay for parking, and then pay to get into the event. We got our tickets and stood in line to get in. We were standing in the middle of a dirt field in the hot sun for over an hour JUST to get in. The entire time there were these two nerds standing behind us, one guy was telling the other guy how he had his "blue man group" ticket framed recently. It was hard not to turn around and tell them to shut up because the sun was starting to melt my brain. After the hour on the face of the sun, my hair was already wilted, and my face was red! I looked like a beet. A very drippy sweaty beet. Now Jen had e-mailed Hot Rod Guy and told him I would be there for my birthday, in case he wanted to meet me or something. He seemed excited gave her his cell phone number, and told her where he was going to be, as this was all a surprise for me. We saw him before we got into the gate, but we were too far away, and too sweaty to make contact. I figured once I got inside in the shade I could cool off a bit and check my melting lipstick. That was a nice dream, but it didn't happen that way. By the time we were searched, and let in the gate there was nothing that would help the heat stroke that I already had but 9 gallons of water, and a cold shower. We walked around the merch booths a little bit, and we both ended up buying parasols to keep the sun off of us. Aparrently when I was issued my handbook on "How NOT to look like a complete moron at a hootenanny" that page was missing. So here we are wandering around on the "surface of the sun", with two parasols looking like a couple of goofballs. By The way someone needs to teach a class in "parasol edicate" as Jen poked me about 15 times with hers. That may scar you know! It's time to brave the car show area. I wandered about the cars, looking for HRG's car. I saw one that looked like his but wasn't. We tried to call on our cell phones but apparently, the "surface of the sun" gets no cell reception.

Much later in the day, after sweating 10 gallons of water out of my body, I saw HRG walk by. I chased him down weaving in and out of the zillions of sweaty people that were there. When I finally caught up to him, I whacked him with my parasol. He seemed happy to see me, gave me a big hug, and invited Jen and I back to his car club's camp to hang out with him. I was just interested in his car at that point.

I Appreciate beauty!

Jen seemed like she was dying, and we saw the opportunity to sit in some shade so we went. I REALLY wish I hadn't. We kind of hung back and looked at his car for a bit and then he dragged us in to sit under their shade canopy with the club. We were introduced and everyone was very nice...or so we thought. HRG seemed very interested in me and kept touching my leg (even though I was "sweaty the clown"). We decided that we wanted to see a band so HRG, Jen and I headed towards the stage. At some point, he grabbed my hand and pulled me closer to him. I so hot and sticky that I really thought this guy was nuts, but I liked him so whatever. After watching these two gang members fighting it out, I decided I didn't want to go see that band THAT much. I would have had to walk through all their blood! Ewww. We continued to hang out the rest of the afternoon, until it was time to go. He invited Jen and I to stop by his place on the way home the next day, gave me a couple of kisses and that was that. We had an insanely long and hot walk back to the car, and my poor little legs thought they were going to fall off. When we got there, Jen noticed that she had left the lights on that morning, and my car now had a dead battery. I didn't give into my urge to choke her, but instead made her find someone to help us. After she asked some really nice guys with Mohawks to give us a jump we were well on our air-conditioned way back to the hotel. Thank GOD!

Um, WTF? Did he just GOOSE Me!?

After lots of fluids, a cold shower and way too much pizza, we passed out early once we got back to our room. Oh, I never loved air conditioning so much in my entire life! The next day we headed towards home. I left HRG a message that we would be leaving and if he wanted to meet up with us, he should just call my cell. I figured he was most likely hung over from the day before so it was no big deal if we didn't hang out. I was extremely tired from the day before and was really ready to get home. Jen and I were hungry so we had some Mexican food for lunch. Now usually this would NOT be an embarrassing situation, but since my birthday had passed and I didn't have any cake, she thought it would be a really good idea to tell the waiter it was my birthday. For this... some day I WILL get her back.

Birthday Flan is NEVER a good idea!

We made it home safely, without meeting up with HRG. That's ok, I found out later he was not exactly the stand-up honorable guy I thought he was so he may be a great guy, just not the right one for me.

Next year...I will NOT be attending the Hootenanny...

...At least not with a parasol.