R E S P E C T...

How we didn't manage to take any pictures of our trip to the riverboat I have no idea, but we didn't. I think in the car we were all too stressed out to think about pictures.

First off, we left late which meant Mike was going to be waiting even longer down there than he already had been. I didn't think this would be a problem but I was wrong as usual. He had stopped off in Tennessee to look at some factory a friend of his works at. I don't know why he bothered because there was no way I was moving again! No way! After that he went to a distillery and then up to the boat.

We didn't leave for the boat until 11pm. It takes 3 hours to get there. I am happy to report that none of MY rules were broken, except the one about the music. On the other hand, one of the driver's rules was broken. We all learned a very valuable lesson on our drive to the boat, DON'T DISRESPECT YOUR HUSBAND IN HIS OWN CAR! I guess big Ry made a rule that we couldn't have any adult beverages in the car on the way down. Leave it to his wife to be the one to break the rule. She started drinking her wine coolers right after we left. She even handed one to me becaue I guess she didn't want to go down in flames by herself. I'm a smart girl though and I only took a few sips and put my bottle back in the cooler. What did Ang do? Well, she fell asleep holding her bottle and when she woke up she held it up right in front of her face to see if there was anything in it. Right in front of her face just happened to be right in front of Ryan's mirror and all of a sudden we hear, "WHAT ARE YOU DRINKING!?" Holy crap I was glad I had put mine back. We were only about 30 minutes away from the boat too. She almost made it without getting caught. Lets just say the final leg of our drive was not a happy one but quite funny for those not involved. At this point I was not involved.

Next Mike started sending me text messages to tell us that he was canceling our rooms and going to bed. WHAT? So Ryan is yelling at Ang, Mike is yelling at me and Kim and Bubba are stopping at a liquor store to buy beer and take a smoke break. It is a fantastic trip already!

We finally got there, Mike had the rooms, and we all went our seperate ways. Well, Mike and Ryan went to their rooms and Ang and I went to Kim's. We were trying to figure out if we were going to be able to plug our blender in in the hallway somewhere since we were not welcome in our own rooms. We managed to make a significant amount of noise in the hallway with an ice bucket, a styrofoam cooler, and one ice machine. Oh yeah, plus our big mouths. Kim could hear the racket clear down in her room. When her husband asked what all the noise was she replied, "It's probably Wendy and Angi out in the hallway." She was correct. Mike threatened to kill us all and Ang and I figured we better go find Ryan to bug for a while instead. We had terrorized the 9th floor long enough, it was off to the sixth floor.

It probably would have helped if we had known which room Ryan was in. Turns out if you stick your hotel key card in every door it voids it. I resorted to walking to each group of doors and yelling Ryan. Never found him. We had to go find a house phone and call. Once in their room everyone decided to head down to the boat for some action. I went with them but as soon as they all started loosing money I made my escape back to my room.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. We were all on different sleeping schedules so it was hard to hook up. We went out to dinner together with a very friendly waiter. At least he was to Ryan and me. Kept rubbing my back and wouldn't leave Ryan alone when he found out he wasn't feeling well. This is where I found out that my BFF Angi took me down with her on the drinking in the car thing. She couldn't just suck it up and take the heat. NOooooooo! She had to go and tell Ryan I was drinking in the car too! WTH??? I totally would have taken the heat for you Ang! What were you thinking? I'm just glad there were no trash cans around to be thrown when he saw me after that! Oh well, it's all good. I just wish I could have found the right time to sing a little Aretha to you in front of him. R E S P E C T... We tried to go gamble together after that but, as usual, we all went off our seperate ways. Ang and I even ended up in the room with the blender whipping up some Cabana Boy Specials.

We left the next morning. Mike had won $900 but lost most of it again before we left. Everyone else lost all their money and I lost $5. Have I mentioned I'm not a gambler? I'm glad we went though. It was fun. We just need to plan something that we won't all end up going our seperate ways.

Thanks again to Mike for using his player status to get us all the almost free rooms! Thanks to Big Ry for not killing his wife and me for disrespecting him in his own car. Thanks to Kim and Bubba for, well you know what for. Thanks to Ang for telling on me!