The next morning, I woke up to find that Amy had already left, heading back to Colorado. Which made me sad, as I didn’t get to say goodbye to her. One by one, the rest of us got up and began getting ready for the trip home. Since I’m a lazy bum, I was the last one up and thus, the last one in the shower. While I was attempting to get ready, Chelsea decided to capture my morning makeup routine on film.
”Who put this birds nest on top of my head?”
Chelsea in my face.
WTF?
While I was getting ready, Jennifer hit the road to catch her flight, Melanie returned to us, and at some point everyone headed over to the McDonald’s across the street for breakfast. Except me, and I really can’t remember why. Maybe because I’m the slowest and still needed to get packed up.
They brought me back two bacon, egg & cheese biscuits, hash browns, and a large Coke, but I was promptly informed that I missed out on an entertaining time, and Chelsea wanted to go back with her camera to take pictures. Why? I was assured that this particular McDonald’s was the coolest McDonald’s in the world, and I had to see for myself. So once we were all packed up and checked out, I got my camera ready. Krystal, Stephanie, and Melanie stayed in the car while Chelsea and I ran inside.
ROCK AND ROLL MCDONALD’S!
The McDonald’s was indeed filled with wondrous things. Many of the tables had this weird projection shining down on them, and when you touched the table, the projection would change. Example – one had little lightning-like streaks flashing across it. When you touched it, the lightning followed your hand. Another table, which we took a picture of, had a watery pattern to it. The colors changed from yellow to pink and the pattern moved and undulated slowly, kind of like a lava lamp.
Groovy, man.
There was an upstairs to this Mickey D’s, as well. The chairs there were outrageous – block seats, S-shaped seats, and my favorites were these great big round seats that you sank into, almost like a bean bag. You know that pod-seat that Dr. Evil sits in during the Austin Powers movies? Kind of like that.
Chelsea, chilling.
Me, acting like a kid.
The funny thing is, we didn’t even order any food. We just ran like madwomen around the entire restaurant with our cameras, touching things and snapping pictures. We did a superfast tour of the entire restaurant, upstairs and down, and then streaked out the door and to the car. There’s no telling what the McDonald’s workers thought. Haha.
THE DRIVE HOME:
We passed through the same silly tolls on the way home. Since it was daylight, I got a good shot of the Skyway toll.
Leaving Sweet Home Chicago.
We knew we had at least five hours to kill, so we found ways to amuse ourselves on the way back. Chelsea, of course, had her camera to entertain her. We took pictures of random trucks that we found humorous:
Mmmm, homemade sausage…
Meanwhile, I did my impression of a goat:
Is it true that sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell?
I wrote quite a bit on my Christmas story while we were on the road. It was sort of funny – I almost forgot that the same notebook I was writing on also contained my Taylor autograph. Every so often I would flip back to what I’d already written as a reference for continuing the story, and suddenly the illegible TAYLOR HANSON scribble would leap out at me, and I would have to laugh again. At some point during the drive, I remember talking to Sara and Juliet and relaying my Taylor story with great gusto. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of telling that one. Haha.
We pulled in at a truck stop at some point to grab some lunch at the built-in Subway, and I managed to dump half my messy sandwich all over the table and in my lap. I don’t know why I’m so messy. At Mayfest, I spilled my polish sausage all over the concrete. On the way back, at McDonald’s, I kept dumping chicken all over the table, my lap, and the floor. I think I should start carrying around an adult-sized bib or something. I’m just grateful Chelsea didn’t have the camera on her while I was eating, to take picture of me with mayonnaise all over my face and about two cups of lettuce trailing down my shirt.
Anyway, when we reached Indianapolis, we stopped for a special geek-treat – the Lord of the Rings movie exhibit was at the Indiana State Museum, and since we were all huge LOTR fans, we’d decided beforehand to stop. And it was totally, completely worth it. We knew we were probably dorks for loving it, but we didn’t care. We saw the costumes of all the main characters (including yes, Aragorn and Legolas *swoon*). The costume for Sauron in particular was truly scary – it’s like seven feet tall, at least, and the armor is covered with ugly, painful-looking spikes. The One Ring had an entire room to itself, complete with the elvish inscription projected onto the wall. There were plenty of props on display – swords and other weapons, jewelry, etc.
But the interactive displays were the most fun. There was one that demonstrated the ‘green screen’ process, one that scanned your face and showed what you would look like in battle gear, one that demonstrated the ‘forced perspective’ technique used to make the hobbits look small. In the last display, they actually took pictures and let you purchase them. I was hesitant at first – standing close by, watching with interest, but the guy running the booth turned to me and grinned.
“Aww, you want to do this, don’t you?” he said. “C’mon! I know you do!”
“I don’t know…” I hedged.
“C’mon!” He was one hell of a salesman. Chelsea and I decided to do it and gave him our six bucks. There were two different benches, on opposite sides of the booth – one was huge, to make the person look small, and the other was tiny, to make the person look big. In the final picture, the two benches are matched up to look like one single bench. There were X’s on the wall directing us where to look, so it would appear that we were looking up or down at each other.
Hobbit-sized!
Isn’t that great? Haha. We moved on after getting our picture. There was another display that showed the varying heights of all the middle-earth creatures, from hobbits on up to cave trolls. There was a sensor built in, and when you stood under it, it would announce your height. I think Krystal was a dwarf. Awww. Stephanie, being by far the tallest, was a cave troll. What was I? The automated voice said, “You are a girl elf!” and I preened and grinned, smug. Until it continued speaking. “…or, a boy orc!” Ouch. Haha.
The exhibit had a small LOTR-only gift shop at the end, and so I had to buy a pair of elf ears. Chelsea bought some, as well. With our geeky purchases in our hands, we left the exhibit and walked to the first floor of the museum. There was another gift shop – this one was more of a ‘general’ shop, though it also had some LOTR memorabilia – and so we browsed through it, too. Just outside this shop were three life-size cardboard cutouts – Gandalf, Arwen, and Gollum. As soon as I saw them, I began getting ideas.
“Hey,” I asked Krystal. “You think they’d let us take our pictures with those?”
She asked – they said it was fine, as long as we put them back the way we found them. Ecstatic, I ran out to the car and got my camera, and then we spent approximately thirty minutes acting like nerds:
Messing with the Indiana State Museum’s LOTR display.
My disembodied head floating amongst LOTR characters.
Gandalf is my homeboy.
Melanie hugs up on Gandalf.
Elven princesses.
Right. Now where’s my elven prince?
WE WANTS IT, PRECIOUS!
Dorks.
More dorks.
Doesn’t Chelsea look just like Arwen? She’s like her modern-day doppelganger, only dressed in a Hanson T-shirt and Old Navy hoodie instead of a long, flowing gown. We actually took a ton more pictures, but I’m almost ashamed to show you how many we have. Haha.
Once our Lord of the Rings madness was over, we hit the road again to head back to Louisville.
BACK TO THE BLUEGRASS STATE:
You know you’re getting close when you see billboards for University of Kentucky basketball tickets.
I NEED TICKETS!
As we cruised back over the border into Kentucky, I attempted to get a nice shot of the Louisville skyline, to no avail. I managed to get three pictures of blurry, streaky lights, and one of a police car that cruised right into my shot. Nice.
I think we arrived back in Louisville at around seven o’clock or so. Maybe a little later. We dropped off Melanie, and then, since Chelsea was being especially excitable, she called her friend Phuoung to stay the night. On the way over, Miss Paparazzi went apeshit with the camera. I hadn’t taken off my elf ears, and so she started repeatedly snapping in my face. It was funny at first, we were laughing, but that slowly evolved into irritation on my part. Haha. Here, you can see this process in action, with my inner thoughts helpfully labeled with numbers. I call it “The Evolution of Rage.”
1. Haha, I have on elf ears.
2. Look how silly I am!
3. Okay, yeah, it’s pretty funny, Chelsea.
4. Alllllllrighty.
5. Okay, that’s enough.
6. What did I just say, Chelsea?
7. Chelsea.
8. CHELSEA!!
9. I’m going to smack you.
10. GET OUT OF MY FACE!
Chelsea thought it was all hysterical. So hysterical, in fact, that… well, I shouldn’t tell you what happened. Haha. We picked up Phuong and made it back to Krystal’s house, safe and sound.
The rest of the night was something of a blur – Krystal’s husband took us all to dinner, and the rest of the evening was spent uploading pictures and videos and squealing at all our beautiful shots of Taylor. I made a semi-coherent post on my livejournal and scanned the non-picture items we’d collected, such as the setlists, so everyone could keep a copy. At about 1:00AM, I realized that everyone had gone to bed except Krystal and me. I finally quit for the evening and collapsed on Krystal’s couch.
THE HANSON HANGOVER:
As all of you know, going back to home and normalcy after the rush of concerts is always a letdown. We called it the “Hanson hangover”, that point when you wake up the next morning and wonder if it was all really as awesome as you remembered. Everything seems surreal; like a dream or distant memory, even though it just happened.
I woke up mid-morning, hungry and grotesque. As I trudged into the kitchen, Krystal’s son gave me an odd look.
“Do you know you slept in those ears?” he asked.
I reached up and felt of my elf ears, which I’d forgotten about. “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Haha.” I still left them on.
Since I hadn’t yet seen Titanic (the only girl in all of America who hadn’t seen it), Krystal put in the movie so I could finally watch it. As the movie played, I dined on a nutritious breakfast of rice krispies and Ale8. Chelsea and Phuong came down in the meantime, and the three of us sat on the couch in a daze.
When the movie was over, it was time to head out. Stephanie had a flight to catch a little later in the day, and I needed to get back to Lexington to – ugh – get some work done. As I headed out – literally, as I was packing up the car and heading out the door, Chelsea ran out with the camera, squealing and trying to get some candid shots of me looking like shit, with greasy hair and no makeup. Luckily, as I learned later, she accidentally deleted all of those from her camera. There is a God.
After giving hugs and saying goodbyes, I set out for Lexington, elf ears intact.
Headin’ home, sweet home.
CONCLUSION:
I don’t really have anything earth-shattering to say. All in all, I had a really great time. I’d spent too much energy worrying about work and things that were beyond my control, and this short vacation was exactly what I needed. It was a reminder that sometimes, you need to do things for yourself. You need to check out of the real world and spend some time doing something outlandish and fun for your own mental health. Which is reinforced by a conversation I had with my roommate the other night. She talked about wanting to go to Tennessee just to hang out with a friend, but thought maybe she should be here studying for the CPA exam instead.
“No,” I said. “If you want to go to Tennessee, then go. It’ll be good for you. Screw studying for a little while.”
“You think?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I mean, I went to Cleveland and Chicago for what most people would consider no good reason at all. But I felt ten times better once I got back.”
And that’s true. despite the absolute craziness of that week, I arrived home in Lexington feeling more relaxed and rejuvenated than I had in ages. I was armed with a truckload of photos, stories to tell, souvenirs, and a hilarious Taylor Hanson autograph and picture. Overall, the trip was a huge success. But the best part?
The best part was after feeling frustrated and creatively dried up, I came back home, ready and suddenly itching to write.
You name the shows, Hanson, and I’ll be there.