Within Me a Lunatic Sings: Accelerant: Day One

Okay first off I lived!!

Yea, just wanted to get that out of the way. Yea I know I've been out of the blogging world longer than I had originally planned...but I have good reason. Simple...I was sick. Again. Yea you heard me right...two week long colds in two months. Yay. This one was way WAY worse than the last. This time I had a fever of a 104 for almost a whole day! The reason I say almost for a whole day is because the fever did lower down to a balmy 103 degrees for the remainder of the day and night. Well, on Sunday (I caught the cold Tuesday and have just now started to heal from it.) after I had endured several nights of cold sweats my fever lowered down to 100 thanks to some antibiotics. And so I stayed at 100 all day and all night...the night being the worse part of it. Just picture this...

I woke up at around two feeling really REALLY cold and wet from head to toe. I realized that it was those horrible cold sweats coming back to haunt me again. So...seeing how I was drenched (seriously I kid you not I was DRENCHED!! Sopping wet peoples!) I promptly changed my pajamas and went a back to sleep. Note: I had originally been wearing my new rather light weight Henley and some little aeropostle shorts that I just adore. And seeing how I had successfully watered those down I moved on to an over sized, static electricity haven of a shirt and a pair of large fuzzy (and I mean FUZZY) pants. I was all set to go...heck my top and bottom even matched to boot! Note for me pajamas are usually a long sleeve shirt and a pair of too short to wear else where shorts. Matching is just an occasional occurrence reserved for when I'm wide awake or not too dang tired to care.

Anyway, about an hour maybe more later I woke up to find that I was once again really REALLY cold and damp. The cold sweats had returned. Actually I don't think they ever really left but whatever. Point is my sleep wear was once again too cold and wet for me. So finally, after yet another wardrobe change, I crawled back into bed and was delighted to find that when I awoke the next morning (today!) my fever was gone. So thank heaven!!

Anyway, as you guys can clearly see I'm home from Accelerant!! :D So yay!! The trip was amazing! Lots of fun for everyone!! :D :D :D But I'm getting way ahead of myself here...I should start at the beginning!

We met at the church at about four...Jessie and I were the first to arrive. Go figure...we were both so pumped about going I guess we pushed our parents out the door. But it didn't matter if we got there first...everyone else arrived soon after.

There was of course about a hour or more of waiting for stragglers and then people picking there rides and so on. I rode with Jessie and three other girls (Cari, Lydia and Libbie). Then at about five thirty or so we were off to the Accelerant!!

Well, we drove and drove and DROVE until finally at around eight or so we stopped to eat Chic Fil La. Yummy! But we were off again soon and we had to face a very VERY long drive up to the mountains. Oh and did I mention that it had been raining since we pulled out of the church parking lot?

The next interesting bit came when we finally did reach the mountains...at about 1:03 AM. It had been raining almost non stop all the way up there...but once we reached the mountains the rain mysteriously stopped. Which was great...save for the fact that the rain and the cold temperatures had made a very VERY thick LOW fog bank across the road!! No kidding!! The fog was hovering over the road and it was REALLY hard to see the road! Which was scary seeing how one side of the road had a thin layer of trees and the other had a large very jagged rock face! Oh and did I mention every few yards there was a sign that said 'Beware of Falling Rocks'?!! So yea, that with the fog and the late hour I was more than just a little freaked out. Normally I'd been like,

"Oh crap, we might have to pull over and wait this stuff out!!"

But that wasn't an option. First off we were on a very twisty road that had not only a low bank of fog but also an over head one as well...which combined made cars hard to see. So we were already in danger of being side swiped by a passerby who couldn't see the yellow line. Also there really wasn't anywhere to pull over! And even if we had pulled over it was late...just an hour past midnight...no way we could just sit there. No way no how. Also we ALL had to be at Accelerant at nine in the morning! 0_0 So yea...no dice. Now it was the sort of fog that all the text books say if you can stop in a safe area and wait for help or until you can see better. But there were no safe areas...so that was TOTALLY not and option. And we couldn't really stop to call someone either...because guess what? No cell phone coverage. Yay. We were alone! Oh yea...just lovely! And were weren't the only ones in this dangerous situation...we had another van of teens behind us!! They were relying on us to show them the way. So chances are if we careened off into oblivion they'd follow too because all they probably could see were our tail lights.

But fortunately, after about a half an hour's worth of driving we came down off the mountain and the fog went away! And then of course we were in Gatlinburg and it was time to find our hotel. We stayed in a quaint little hotel that was beside a mountain. And when I say beside I mountain...I mean the hotel was freaking wedged against the mountain! For Pete's sake the car deck was built INTO the mountain! It was SICK I tell you sick!! People above us could reach out and touch mountain!! Sick!! What was even sicker was those on the bottom floor of the non mountain side had six feel between them and swirling river!Note: This pic was taken the morning of day two.

Yea...I kid you not! A swirling vortex of death was six feet from the hotel!! Fortunately we were on the fourth floor and facing out towards the river and town...so we didn't have to touch rock or water.

A pic of our hotel room and the balcony that lead out to the Swirling Vortex of Terror...as it later came to be known.

So far sorta sounds like this trip was one near death experience after another right? I may of over dramatized some but hey I'm a writer that's what we do!

Anyway we were really tired and we settled in and went to sleep by about three...and then got up at six thirty. I was a little tired that day.

But anyway that's for Day Two's post! :D A LOT happened that day I assure you!! So tune in tomorrow for that post!! Well I've gotta go but before I leave I just wanna give you one last pic. This is me and Jessie after we reached the hotel. We were really tired and that's probably why we look sort of sugar crazed and half asleep. And also why I appear to have grey hair. Dunno how that one happened. Lights must have been funky.