Graham and I went to the debate tournament in Winston Salem. Since most of you readers were there, I'll skip the actual debate part.
On the Way
We had to get up at 5:30 am Saturday morning. While on the road, we saw a truck towing this massive load of bicycles and a grill:
We were like, "What is that? A church camping trip?" Shur 'nuff, we passed the guy and saw several church vans. Then we came upon this sign with no info other than "$250 PENALTY." We were like, "What? If we pass the sign, we get fined $250? Unlawful! Outrageous! Just cause to break away from the Union!" I barely caught a pic of it:
I also noticed how cool the relfection in this 18-wheeler rim was (click the thumbnail to see the reflection better). Also, you may or may not notice that the hazy reflection on the window I took the shot through is actually a printout from Google Maps:
Interesting ride.Coming Home
We started home at roughly 9:00 pm. We talked about a bunch of stuff as usual. It seems we always listen to music on the way to places, but on the way home we pretty much only talk. By almost midnight, we were only a couple miles from our exit on the interstate, and we had had some pretty meaningful conversations about seriously and fully following God...
...And then we ran out of gas. The devil is like, my least favorite being, you know? Fortunately, we ran out at the top of the hill before our exit. We coasted to the exit and came to a stop right at the start of the deceleration lane. I had to get out and push the car uphill about 20 ft to get us off the road. We tried calling the parents, but they were asleep. So, we got out in the cold, windy night and hiked up the exit and to the nearest gas station -- about a 5 - 10 minute walk. I told Graham I was sure they'd have gas cans for sale, but I was secretly crossing my fingers because I had no idea what I was talking about. We walked in and looked around, and couldn't find any gas cans. I passed the same aisle several times and finally found a little gas can on the bottom shelf. They only had two. We grabbed one (and a pack of Sprees because I felt like it) and got in line at the register. There was a suprising number of (strange) people there at midnight. The two "ladies" in front of us in line were definitely hookers. It was sick. I wanted to be like, "How can you live with yourself?" We got up to the register and checked out, knowing that buying the gas can and a pack of sprees screamed "we ran out of gas!" The cashier said something along the lines of, "There's a whole lot of strange people coming in." We walked out to the pumps and filled up the can. It was pretty awkward just standing at the pump and filling up this tiny red container, but whatever. So we just walked back eating sprees and finally quenched the car's thirst, and we drove up to another gas station to go ahead and fill up the tank. I sat out in the car while Graham went in to prepay. There was this random guy out there, and I had this weird feeling like, "He's gonna ask us for directions or something," so I kept my eye on him. So Graham walks out and immediately the guy asks him how to get to Raleigh. Graham's like, "You get on the interstate and go that way." I mean, what else do you tell him? Getting to Raleigh is really vague and duh at the same time.
So yeah, we got home a half-hour late.
