Taylor and Jason’s Wedding
Melissa and I went to Tennessee for a wedding of our friends, Taylor and Jason. We had the chance to catch up with a bunch of friends. We managed to evade trouble. We also nearly died. Overall, it was a really good time.
Wednesday
We headed to the airport on Wednesday afternoon. We got there a bit late, but we still made it on time. The only problem was, our flight crew didn’t make it on time. So we didn’t leave Orlando until 9:15. We were supposed to hang out with friends in downtown Knoxville that night. Instead, we headed straight to our hotel, and to sleep.
Thursday
The next morning, we checked out of the hotel, and headed to downtown Knoxville. Melissa might have been on vacation, but I was not. I had to find a Wifi spot, and she was supposed to go sightsee while i worked. Instead, she hung out with me, while we sat at a coffee shop with internet access.
We left there to pick up some friends from the airport. It turns out the itinerary we had for them was completely wrong. We waited, needlessly, at the airport for 2 hours before they finally arrived.
We all headed back to our new hotel, got checked in, and went out for drinks. The night was fun, though we didn’t overdo it.
Friday
The next day, I stayed in the hotel room and worked, while Melissa and everyone else went out around town.
Melissa got back to the room around 2:30pm and got me up so we could make the rehearsal dinner at the venue in Maryville, TN about 2 hours later. I was reticent to leave my coding duties, but Melissa is coercive.
Funny thing about guys; 1 guy wears nice clothes somewhere, and other guys line up to do the same. Not me. I wore jeans and a hat on backwards (of course). As it turns out, I was the one wearing the appropriate attire for the event. Lesson: “Don’t Follow”.
Go Me.
So, after we got back from there, we went out to the local bar (walking distance) for drinks. We did a lot of horsing around, and I got to meet some cool people too. Scott and Dawn are friends with the former drummer of The Absence, an awesome Death Metal band from Tampa, FL.
On our way back from the bar, Jason showed just how nuts he and his buddies are. They were chasing each other around. One of his friends got in his car, and hit Jason with his car. It was hilarious. It was terrifying, but Jason was ok and it was really funny.
Saturday
The next day was the wedding. It was early in the morning (10am), at Ridge Valley Farms, a very nice venue in a picturesque part of Tennessee. It was a really nice wedding. I’d say more, but hey, it was a wedding. Taylor was beautiful, and we all hung out. Woo Hoo!
So, around 1:30pm, we left there and headed back to the hotel, for a well deserved nap.
Around 5:30, we all got up and got ready to go downtown for the evening. It took 2 vans to get all of us (about 20) to the first bar of the evening. That bar had some pool tables upstairs, and they brewed their own beers. It’s hard to beat that sort of thing. So, I had a few stouts.
I played pool for a while, and was doing pretty well at first. I was doing well, until Dawn, who hadn’t played pool in years, played me. She beat me. Then she played someone else, and beat them. So I went for the rematch, and she beat me again. I was heckled about this, a lot.
We left there, and walked down the street. We walked for a while, until we found an irish pub. It looked cool enough, however, they wouldn’t let us in. The crowd we were with was pretty rowdy, and bartenders were calling around town to let other bars know to not let us in. Our reputation was literally preceding us.
We did manage to get into another bar, where we were about as welcome by the locals as venereal disease. I can’t count the number of rude looks we got from people there. A lot of folks left. It was awkward.
After we got our individual cabs back to the hotel, a few of us met up in one of our hotel rooms. We nearly had the whole 3rd floor of our hotel booked. Anyways, a few of us met up for some Texas Hold ‘Em. It was a smoking room (dammit), and I played poker with everyone until 6 in the morning, when I was defeated. I went back to the room, a little broker, and red-eyed from all of the smoke.
Sunday
Melissa and I got up that morning, with an idea that we should do something fun, before we had to be at the airport (around 5pm). We were carpooling with our buddies Trinity and Hal (recently married), who were also eager to go out and do something.
We decided we’d go to the mountains, since it was a relatively close drive and seemingly well worth the trip. It took a while but we finally got to where we though we’d finish our mountain trip. It was scenic and we marveled at the cool view of the valleys below.
We were on our way back, when we reached a fork in the road. Trinity and Hal had been to this part of the mountains a few days earlier, and turned right at this intersection. A lookout over a dam was to the left. So, we turned left.
After few miles of some of the most amazingly curvy and windy roads I had ever been upon, we wound up at the lookout over a dam about a mile downstream from us. We stopped for pictures. A traveler who also stopped told us, that if we continued on our current path, we’d go through The Tail Of The Dragon, the curviest, and most dangerous stretch of road in the country.
So, we went for it
I have never seen Melissa so scared in her life. The road is, in fact, the most unbelievably winding path I have ever even heard of. I can’t begin to do justice to just how amazing this stretch of road is. What I can say is that it’s awesome.
About a half hour into our trip, we realized that we were going to need to get to a gas station soon. That’s about the time we noticed mile-markers on the side of the road. We also noticed that they were descending in number. We hoped this would lead us to a gas station.
At mile-marker 0, we found out that instead of a gas station, was a sign claiming “Welcome to North Carolina”. We were getting really low on gas, and we were 30 miles from the nearest gas station going backwards. We had to make a decision, and we elected to go back the way we came.
That meant going through that treacherous strip of road again. Melissa was quite upset about it.
About a mile into our journey back, the gas light came on. This was terrifying. There is NOWHERE to pull over if you run out of gas on this stretch of road. Every turn on the road is a blind turn, so anyone could come out of any corner at deadly speeds. Also, even if we could pull over, there is zero cell phone reception out there. Oh yeah, even if someone did stop to help us get gas, we would probably miss our flight too.
So, I made a very conscious effort to not use any gas while descending the mountain. This meant not using my brake around hairpin turns that I should have braked far more than I did.
After 30 miles, we made it back to the main highway. I saw a BP shortly after we got on the highway. We were elated, until we were by the pumps. The gas station was closed.
We drove off, and after a little bit of sputtering, we found another gas station. It had the oldest operation gas pumps that I’ve ever seen, but they worked. We filled up, and we were off.
We got back to the airport, dropped off the rental car (which was heavily used during our mountain trip), and got on the plane home.
The plane ride was hell. Allegiant Air is a cheap airline, but for good reason. Their flights are easily the most uncomfortable that I have ever been on.
Wrapping it up
Overall, our trip was awesome. Taylor and Jason are great friends of ours, so it was really cool to see them get married. Their friends are a great group of folks, several of whom I’m eager to see again. As always, it’s great for Melissa and I to get away, but this time was really, really great.
