Or: Going Crazy and Getting things Done
I made a list of 30 things I wanted to accomplish before I turned 30. It’s a thing that people do around the internet. It’s chalked full of things that I probably won’t achieve because, let’s face it, on top of being incredibly socially awkward, I am also pretty damned lazy. Of course, there are things on the list that were put out there with the intention of being just a little beyond reach. After all, you can’t obtain all of your life’s goals before you hit the ripe old age of 30. That’d leave nothing to do for the second 70 years of your life. That’s not even accounting for robot body conversion.
Although that does get it’s own list.
Still, there are many things on my list that are much easier to accomplish than others, and this weekend I knocked down #20: Go On a Spontaneous Road Trip to Somewhere I’ve Never Been Before.
“There’s got to be some kind of way out of here…”
I’ll admit, that “All Along The Watchtower” has been stuck in my head for like a week. Not the entire song, either, mind you, just the first verse, over and over and over again. It’s enough to make a borderline sociopath snap, and depending on who you ask, it might have. Still, I found myself sitting in my oppressive cubicle on Friday, feeling a bit like a desperate rat trapped in a glass cage being prodded by scientists until I got super powers.
That’s a thing that happens in labs.
So, I decided I’d listen to the song’s advice and find a way out. I figured out how far I could drive and made a list of places and presented it to my good friend Chris (@Yeti_Detective). He of course came up with an even better way of deciding where we would go by asking twitter if anyone lived within 9 hours of Kansas City and wanted to see us.
It turns out some people do think we’d be fun to hang out with.
We ended up settling on making the grueling and dangerous trip to… Columbia, MO. Which is actually only about 2 hours outside of Kansas City.
Columbia is the home of the University of Missouri (MU), Shakespeare’s Pizza, and the only QuickTrip between Kansas City and St Louis. (It is also the home of the Poet Mark Stratton, although sadly, we didn’t get to see him. Our time was absconded mostly by alcohol and Mexican food. It’s cool, though, I’ll be seeing Mark in a couple of weeks at Kansas City’s Planet ComicCon. It will be a gloriously good time.
We got into town late. Not necessarily later than planned, but too late to get Chinese buffet anywhere, and met up with a twitter friend of ours. We picked up a few bottles of booze, and after some finagling, we found a hotel to stay at.
Side Note: Don’t assume that because the Big 12 Tournament is in KC, there won’t be a giant, hotel filling basketball tournament in Columbia also.
So, Friday night, we basically did what we always do, and got drunk in a hotel room like rock stars. We just did it in Columbia. You can even listen in on it. It ran late into the night and eventually ended with passing out and barely making check out.
The next day we cruised the downtown Columbia area where we found a tasty little Mexican Restaurant. I’m not sure Chris has ever eaten so well two days in a row, because he just shoveled the food into his throat in a somewhat homo-erotic manner.
Seriously, that was an entire freaking burrito! We were accompanied at lunch by another tweep of ours, and after the meal, Chris and I walked back to my car where I found I had a $10 parking ticket waiting for me.
Announcing quite loudly to the universe to “Fuck It” and that “Columbia is a Dick City,” we piled back in my car and headed back to Kansas City.
The Hotels were full for Saturday night anyway.
To round out our Road Trip, we decided to stop in on the Plaza and watch “John Carter.” It was like making a second road trip to Mars. Only not really.
I enjoyed it though.
I ended up crashing into my bed at about 3:30 AM Sunday, which in retrospect was actually about 4:30 AM Sunday thanks to Daylight savings time.
Needless to say, Sunday was mostly spent asleep.
I could use a couple more hours of that nap, actually.
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p align=”left”>Anyway, one more thing to cut off the list.