Well, this is just plain silly. I spent a whole day at home sleeping and I'm *still* the first person to post about the RinkUnion! Ahh well. Here goes...

Darien and I left Greenfield at around quarter afer ten on Friday morning, almost a full hour later than we intended to. We met Sam and Leen in Springfield, where they were luckily still waiting for us at a Barned & Noble. (Not, as Darien so optimistically predicted, halfway to Hartford.)

We got our extremely fun walkie-talkie radios, which the trip would have been unbearable without, and headed on our way. First stop: Hartford. In traffic. For two hours. With an almost empty gas tank. That was lots of fun. At least we were able to amuse ourselves with the couple in the car between us (who got there, incidentally, by cutting in front of us from the "don't drive in this" lane from the carpool lane.) The lady driving kept opening her door and sticking her head out of it for something or other. At one point she actually got out of her car and made some guestures to a guy helping someone lse with car trouble. It looked to me like she was actually expecting to get her out of the trffic jam or something, but I'm probably just making that up.

We lost Sam and Leen after Hartford, but thanks to the help of out wonderul radios, we were able to find them again and take an exit to get some food and much needed gasoline! We were very lucky to not run out of gas, because what would we do if our car wouldn't BUDGE? Gas in Connecticut was $1.77 a gallon. I'm not going to complain about gas here anymore, that's for sure. We put eleven plus gallons in our tank, which only holds twelve. What was really weird was that we had just filled the tank the night before. We assumed something had gonewrong then. Oh- I forgot to mention that our gas gauge ws broken. It showed all the way past full right up until it was empty. That's noit a fun thing to deal with.

Hmm... this is getting way too long, so I'll skip ahead a couple of hours. Sam and Leen got pulled over! Leaving Harrisburg, PA, they were following us since I knew those roads well. At one point they ran a red light to keep up with us, and a cop happened to be sitting right there. I felt really awful, but they said he was very cool, and didn't even give them a verbal warning. The trip was pretty much uneventful after that until we got to the hotel around ten-thirty that evening.

Iss and Jacqueline and famous were aleady there, but they had gone out for dinner. Darien and Leen and I stayed at the hotel while Sam went to pick up Dave from the airport, and right when we were heading out to get our stuff from the car we found everyone else coming back from dinner. Leen and I jumped around and ran and I think scard everyone. ^_^

After unpacking a bit, Darien and I tried really hard to stay awake until Sam got back with Dave. Right after we gave up we heard everyone outside our door, so we got up again and we all hung out for a while. We ot yelled at to be quiet by the hotel staff at one point, which was rather amusing since there was pumping bass audible throughout the entire hotel. Except, it seemed, for our room. :-P

The next morning we all met in our reserved room. Balanthalus had shown up that morning, and I found out that he's from only a couple of minutes away from where I grew up! We even know some of the same people. That rules so much! I got a little giddy. But then, I do that. Anyway... We played some games, and Darien and I won all the prizes. What can I say? We rule! Oh, and Stephen's spirit was there (courtesy of Darien) and it hit Dave a couple of times.

I have to pause to interject something here. I was *so* impressed by Leen's model horses! I never realized they would be that detailed! No wonder she's a national champion. ^_^

We went to lunch at Ruby Tuesday's, which was pretty uneventful except that we were really loud. Then we had the poetry reading, and I was able to depress everyone because my poems do that. But we cheered up right quickly after Dave's rendition of some of Darien's poems. Balanthalus had to leave during the poetry reading, which was sad, but it was really cool that he was there for even a sort time. After he left, though, Darien went back to being the youngest person there.

Then we hung out in Famous' room and played some games. Darien and I played this really neat game called Tikal with Iss and Jacqueline that took a while to figure out, but turned out to be really cool.

We went to dinner at the Outback Steakhouse. The best part of that was playing with the Leggos while we were waiting for a table.

When we got back, we watched Sinbad of the Seven Seas, which was absolutely hilarious. Unfortunately, I slept through the end of it.

BUDGE!!!!!!!

We went to bed after the movie, planning to meet at eight-thirty the next morning to head into DC. At twenty after eight I was still trying to get Darien up, so I enlisted the power of Sam to make him BUDGE! We managed to head off to the city by around- hmm. I don't remember what time it wa. Somewhere between nine and ten-ish, anyway. Darien and I were all packed up and checked out so we could leave that afternoon. We were very inconspicuous in our matching RinkWork shirts, and of course we didn't look a bit like tourists.

We saw the Lincoln, Vietnam, and Korean memorial, as well as the Washinton Monument, which we didn't go up since we would have waited until at least three in the afternoon to do that. We also ran into a memorial to the signers of the Declaration of Independence by accident, which turned out to be very neat.

We then headed toward the Smithsonian. We went into two of the museums; the Modern Art and Sculpture and the Air and Space museums. We only had time to spend about an hour in each before Darien and I had to go. Giving up our radios was very sad. :-{

So Darien and I headed back to the Metro station and on our way home, bereft of companions for the ride home and nervous about running into my parents when we went to visit my grandmother.

We got into Westminster, MD at about five o'clock, and had my grandma buy us dinner. We spent a little longet than we intended there, and didn't end up leaving until about seven. At this point, we were hoping to get home by three. Heh.

I felt bad about not visiting my parents, but we figured they'd kill Darien if we showed up there, so we bypassed my house and headed up to Elmira, figuing to take both of our routes to school and back for the ride home.

Guessing about how much gas is in your tank is not fun, so we stopped more often than necessary to fill up, just in case. Plus, how can you bypass gas for under $1.50 a gallon?

We were doing fune until the engin started acting funny at about two in the morning, an hour out of Albany. We tried to find a gas station but the best we could do was a closed Mobile, so we pulled over to check our oil. Sure enough, it was just about gone. Right as we got back into the car a NY state trooper pulled up to see if we were okay. He directed us to the nearest gas station and then- get this- he showed up at the sttion to make sure we got there okay. We did, of course, and got some donuts in the deal. ^_^

We got home at five in the morning, I found out I was supposed to be at work at eleven, and I almost-promptly called to tell them I wouldn't be there. The manager had the nerve to tell me she hadn't gotten in til three after what I'm sure was an awful hour and a half flight. And she even knew when she'd have to be there in the morning and didn't leave til around midnight at least, so no pity for her.

It's a darn good thing I didn't go to work, because it would seem I got a little dehyrated after drinking nothing but coffee on Sunday and nothing at all on Monday. Monday evening I was feeling not good at all, but I'm pretty much better by now, in case anyone was worried.

I guess that's about it. I'm sorry I'm not as good at making everything so funny like everyone else is, but what can I say?

BUDGE!!!!!!

~Minamoon