Directional confusion : The never-ending saga of Something or another: Pt. Whocares anymore

As told yesterday, the question of " To go or not to go" was upon us... for no real surprise for those who know us, we logically choose to go home instead of staying the night in such a happening town only to follow up by an early wake up call for fabulous a.m. photos of the Smokey's. We turned around and headed back toward home, both feeling rather sick to our stomach over what we'd just done. Unable to stay and unwilling to go we drove on, hating all those cars we past headed in the direction in which we wanted to go. We talked about nothing else but the fact we were both insane for not staying, the fact that we were indeed just right there and we didn't even bother to take advantage of the situation. The odd strange feeling we both had as to why and how we actually ended up where we ended up kept coming up in our topics of conversation.

We drove on, not really seeing any of our surrounds, only wrestling with the inner demons trying to fight there way out of our bodies to grab the wheel and do a 360 in the road, we ventured on. Somewhere between 45 mins and an hour away I finally thought I was going to loose my cookies so I pulled over at "tourist viewing deck" as they're called to get some fresh air, take in the sights and actually have proof that we'd drove all the way to the Smokey's and at least gotten out of the car. Rachel and I still convincing ourselves that leaving was the smartest thing we could've done and fighting the thought that we'd somehow turned into our mothers, or in my case, a grandmother/mother mix. Staring down at the rapids of the Ocoee River, the sounds of rushing water in our ears, my mouth escaped the words I so longed to say, the words "Let's go back," so we did.

(This photo is a sign of the very spot where we come to our senses and turned around. It was taken by Rachel, if you'll look closely you can see that it's a tad blurred, I asked her about it and she said " I was so darn excited I was shaking," plus when you add in the fact that I was hauling butt, a little motion blur is bound to happen.)



Yes, that's right folks, we went back! Quite proud of our choice we talked with such excitement the whole way back, our sick feeling sinking back into a happy place. The distance we had traveled before we snapped to our senses suddenly became apparent. After what felt like forever of driving we realized we were still only half way there. We planned in the car what we wanted to do once we got there, there being some place we'd just left, and all those things we were planning could've been well underway by that time had we realized we were being retardedly stupid early into the journey backward.

We decided to let logic take a small part in our night affair and thought better to grab a hotel room before we did anything else. Finding a cheap one with no bugs in the rooms was a top priority, one that proved to be harder than it seemed. We must've went to at least a dozen hotels, most of which were nearly $100.00 a night, that was $100.00 more than we owned of course. A nice hotel in the $50.00 range was more our style, both growing trying of asking desk clerks for "availability and price" I decided I had had enough, I announced that the next hotel was the last hotel. A stroke of luck and a good long prayer later we heard the words "available double queen bed room for $59.99 a night." Plum giddy at the very thought we shouted "We'll take it" and nearly scared the poor ole desk clerk to death, not to mention those trying to sleep in nearby rooms. Official bound to staying and checked in at the Comfort Suites Inn, rm #117, we unloaded our items from the car. Granted we had planned to go to Panera Bread for the day so we were less than prepared for a fun night on the town 3 states away. Armed with the clothes on our backs, our laptops, our cameras and the complimentary shampoo & toothbrush from the hotel.


If you know anything about Cherokee, NC you know they have a Harrah's Casino, it's location being less that 3 miles from out Hotel. Rachel had never been to a casino & I told her she'd be mad to pass up such an opportunity so we headed that way for a few hours of sinful fun in the slot machine sun. Weighed with a stomach full of Wendy's dollar menu items, a pocket full of nickels and a head full of dreams we glided into the casino on a cloud of air. Proud of the fact we were carded at the door we walked around sticking coins in every shiny available machine we saw before finally parking ourselves at a nice little nickel slot machine. Having no clue as to what we were doing or how to play there video machines, the nice older gentleman down the way gave pity on our retarded souls and offered to help us. Spins and dials, locks and holds, nickel after nickel we placed our hopes on each coin that dropped. Our hope, as it surprisingly turned out, was worth nothing because we didn't walk out of there millionaires, or even hundredaires, we did win back the money we had spent there plus an extra $7.25 from a quarter slot machine before calling it a night.

A little past midnight and a headache later we arrived back at our hotel, lesser than the whole hearted selves we'd been before we left it, we took a shower and found our way to the beds. Having never been on an overnight trip with Rachel before, one never knows what to expect, I mean what if she snores or sits up bolt in bed in the middle of the night and screams at the memories of her mother or something. All a possibility and another great story later, I retire for the evening.... come back for more of the trip tomorrow.