Florida!!! (Day One)

Here we are in Florida for our annual "Summer" beach trip! We've only been here for about a day, but we've already had a bit of an adventure!! The adventure, however, started way back on Saturday - only two days ago, but it already feels like two weeks ago!

On Saturday, my family went to a surprise 50th wedding anniversary party. The lady got married on her 15th birthday to a young man ten years older than herself. Imagine that!! (That was pretty much it for Saturday, but I thought it was worth mentioning how old the lady was... : P)

Yesterday was one of the busiest, longest, yet most interesting days of my life! Me, Arwen, and my dad went to a NASCAR race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway to help sell Frosty Towels, something a good friend of ours invented. I can't even begin to describe how much fun it was! True, it was quite an experience - people smoking and drinking and all that, but it was such a fun day even though all that was going on. : )

We started off the day getting up super early. I didn't sleep well the night before (I was too excited, heehee...), so it took more than a little effort to get out of bed. We were driving out of our friends' driveway in their big 15-passenger van by 7:45. When we got to the Speedway at nine, it took us a few minutes to get the tent set up, but I think I was out selling towels with a friend by ten. It took me about an hour or two to pop out of my shell and talk to people.... Nothing like mobs of people walking by and asking about the product you're attempting to sell to them to make you feel in need of a bubble.... : P

My friend and I stood there selling Frosty Towels for about two hours and had quite a few interesting conversations with customers. A lot of people were skeptical about the towels, but once they had the chance to try them out, they were sold! It was so much fun watching people's reactions when they realized that they actually worked! And if I had a dollar for every time someone said, "How much are your waters?" (the ones specifically for us that we ended up having to hide so that people would stop asking!), "Can I buy some of your ice?" (answer: we're not supposed to, but my other friend sold four handfuls for $10!), or "It stays cold all day?!" (yes, for the eightieth time...), I'd be a millionaire. : ) (Also, "Twist and Shout" was played over the loudspeakers and my friend and I were this close to swing dancing to it, but we didn't have anyone we knew nearby to watch the towels. I did get to swing dance later, though, while we were putting the tent away. It was in the dark, so I didn't care! And a guy walked by and said, "That's awesome!" Ha!)

After that, I worked in the tent for a few hours and sold about thirty towels in thirty minutes! It was crazy! : ) After making two mistakes with the money, though, I lost my confidence and became the errand girl. I took drinks (that I promptly hid) and towels and ice to the workers and had a great time time ranking them by sales. : )

After that, another friend and I went inside the stadium and started selling towels. I think that was the most fun - even though it was later in the day and more people were drunk. : P Very interesting conversations, though.... *wink, wink*

By then, it was 6:30 and my dad wanted Arwen and I to sit in the stands. I was more than happy to rest my aching feet, but within seconds I became bored by all of the pre-race stuff. (And I felt guilty that my friend was out there selling by himself.) I found him again and walked around the stadium selling towels with him for about an hour. He did most of the talking and I nearly froze my hands trying to get the packages of towels out of the barrel of half-melted ice we were pushing around. It was such a good feeling when we passed a hundred! (Well, technically, they were mostly his sales because he'd been counting since the morning, when he was out on his own and I was with another friend outside the stadium.)

At 7:30, we went back to the stands and sat down again. We had some pretty good seats, too - right before the first turn! Here's a picture I got from my phone.
I wanted to get the full NASCAR experience (minus being hot - I was tired and sore and my feet hurt really bad, but I wasn't hot, thanks to the Frosty Towel I'd had around my neck!!), so I opened up my earplugs but didn't put them in, saying that I'd do it after the cars went off. (For future reference to all y'all - there I go again! - it's an interesting thought... in theory.) When the cars first turned on their engines, I was like, 'Okay, this isn't too loud. All of their engines are on, so it can't get much louder, right?' Wrong. They started going around the track a few times - really slowly at first, then the checkered flag was waved and they went off. Like I said, we were sitting right before the curve, so by the time the cars drove in front of us, it was literally pedal to the metal. It got louder and louder and louder and I finally had to slap my hands over my ears. My jaw dropped and I looked at my friend standing beside me, who'd been to quite a few NASCAR races before. I tried yelling over the cars, "It's so loud!" but I doubt he heard me. (I could barely hear myself!) I put my earplugs in while the cars were on the other side of the track and sat down after the first few laps.

Fifteen minutes later, I was completely bored. Nothing had happened except a bunch of left turns. I couldn't talk to anyone and signing with letters took too long. (It sounds really awful of me to say all that, but you'll understand if you ever go to a NASCAR race!) I whipped out my phone, tapped the Memos button on my menu and started typing, then handed it over to Arwen, then to my friend sitting beside me. Some of our conversation is below, for your enjoyment. (But I won't put all of it - you'll never read my blog again!) : )

Well, this has been fun... Meeting new friends, getting to know old ones a little better... Staring at cars drive by... and by... and by.... And not being able to talk to anyone! LOADS of fun. : P

[I handed my phone to Arwen, who was sitting next to me. She read it, smiled, and handed it back to me.]

Please text back. This is our only way of communicating....

I agree...this looks like the makings of a blogpost...esp since you got to meet an Olympian! [Arwen]

[Oops... forgot to tell you guys about that! Here's the picture to prove it.
Best part about the day. : D (Fyi, DeeDee Trotter is very nice! That, and I just found out that she shares a birthday with me. How cool is that?!)]

Ikr?!?!?! Major blog post. What do you think, J3? [Me]

Haha yep that's why I don't like nascar... It's cool for the first few mins and then it's like... Um...

[...]

Yup, nice and cool! And now we have our fire symbol! And look... Is it just me, or have they made that turn before? Am I going crazy?! I'll start yelling, "FROSTY TOWEL!!!!!!" while I'm passed out in the car tomorrow...[Me]

Oh yes a fine night for a race...and a nice way to end a very long day at the track... Oh look another LEFT TURN! Won't be the last time we see one of those...will it?...J3

[...]

Well...um..."cough"... At least the air is nice... I wonder what we shall eat for dinner?... J3

Idk... Probably CFA. [Me]

IT'S SUNDAY...J3

NO...VARSITY!!! [Arwen]

[And to skip a little and show you how tired we were...]

Ha! Idk what to do, I get so FLUSTERED!!!! C : [Me]

Oh! I'm sooo Hungry! I WANT TO GO TO BRIGHTON!!!! [Arwen]

[And the grand finale, when we decided to leave early because we were tired and hungry and bored and sore...]

I'm not saying that she was silly... I'm saying that one of us was... And it wasn't me... J3

Basically sums up our entire conversation, eh, J3? [Me]

Oh yes ... [Arwen]? ... J3

I quite agree. [Arwen]

The End. [Me]

(Wow.... Looking back, we seriously do sound crazy!)

Later on, when they were announcing to us who'd gotten the most sales, I wasn't on the list because I didn't have my own set of money and I'd lost count of how many I'd personally sold. I just laughed and said, "But I was the errand girl! I made all y'all's sales possible-" all the Southern accents must have finally gotten to me, lol- "so that counts for something, right?" A new friend said, "Yeah, you can say you have 15% of everyone's sales." Works for me! (That's when a friend and I started spontaneously swing dancing in the dark. SO much fun!)

Then we went to the Varsity (Arwen was right!). I finally crashed at about 1:30 Monday morning and woke up six hours later, extremely sore and totally ready for a vacation!!! But, like I said at the beginning of this already really long post, our vacation started off with a bang and quite the adventure.

(I can't put pictures up right now, by the way, but I'll see if I can do some later today or tomorrow.)

The car ride was pretty uneventful - we just drove and drove, then stopped for a second, then we drove some more. We watched the new Winnie the Pooh (I love that movie!!), then I read all of Theodore Boone: The Abduction by John Grisham. (Sorry, J3, it wasn't Scarlet.... But, like J2 said, I didn't specify if I'd read it on the way going or back! Haha.... Thanks, J2....)

When we got here at 6-ish, we were hungry and ready to crash. We got to the house we're renting and were really shocked to find that the front door was unlocked! (Scary!) Mom and Dad went inside to see if anyone was inside while us kids stayed outside. (I watched the balconies to see if some Bad Guy would jump down like they do in the movies.... Disappointed when it didn't happen.... Heehee....) When they'd looked through the house and realized the previous people had left but the cleaning lady hadn't come, we walked through it, then called the lady that was going to rent it to us. She gave us the address of a place we could spend the night or a few hours while someone cleaned it. We drove in circles for about fifteen minutes, trying to find the condo. When we finally found the complex, entered the code for the gate, and pulled in, we were really ready to relax. We walked over to the condo, glanced into the windows, and found out that someone was in it! (How frustrating is that?!) She gave us another option, and it was clean and unoccupied and, better yet, had a TV so we could watch the Georgia Tech vs Virginia Tech football game - WAHOO!! : ) (GA Tech lost, but it was a good game and a lot of fun to watch!)

We walked out to the beach during halftime, which was a lot of fun even though it was really dark and we could only see the lights from Panama City and Destin and the crests of the waves and the stars. All of my siblings and I (minus my littlest brother) started singing "The Seaside" from Emma09 and then Celtic Woman's version of "Beyond the Sea." We talked about going early in the morning and my younger sister said, "A little sea-bathing would set me up forever." Just goes to show what a dorky homeschool family we are! HA!

There was no getting up early this morning for me, though. I was really tired, so I slept in a little. When I woke up, it was cloudy outside. By the time breakfast was out of the oven, it was pouring rain. We've been relaxing inside all morning - listening to and watching the rain. An aunt of ours who lives down here might stop by after a while, but I plan to pass the time before then reading a book. Scarlet sounds good.... : )

Enjoying my time of relaxation....
~Eowyn~