The Outer Banks
The drive was a lot longer than I anticipated, 1,296 miles. A lot of driving, but worth every saddle sore mile.
Friday - The drive to Raleigh.*
The single most miserable drive I've ever taken. I have never experienced such bad traffic in my life, bumper to bumper for 400 miles. A six hour drive turned into an eight hour ordeal of stop and go for accidents, road work, and rush hour traffic. My favorite moment was sitting in a jam for ten miles expecting to see some cataclysmic accident, which would have justified the wait for me, when the road narrowed to one lane to cross a bridge. There was one NCDOT (North Carolina Department of Transportation) pickup truck blocking the left lane and two state employees sitting on the truck eating their lunch just watching the traffic inch past. One other wedding traveler reported the exact same incident, so I know I wasn't seeing things. My next favorite moment was stopping for a soda about 30 miles from Raleigh for a much needed sugar shot. I picked up a 12 ounce bottle of Vanilla Coke and got back on the road. I was sitting at the stoplight for the on-ramp and opened the bottle. I noticed two things. First, I didn't hear the cap snap as the seal was broken and, second, there was no carbonation, no fizz.. I looked closely at the bottle... someone had taken a drink and put it back on the shelf... EEEEEEEWWWWWW!!! The last 15 miles of the trip took over an hour, and after a couple wrong turns, I dragged myself into the hotel around 8:30pm. I made it to the rehearsal dinner in time to get the leftover scraps of the barbeque.
* Raleigh, as a town, didn't impress me. It's every college town USA. Tattoo parlors, bars and grunge.
Saturday - The wedding
Short ceremonies always get high marks from me. I'd have to rate this one a nine. The reception was great. Terrific venue, tasty food, open bar, and a fabulous jazz band. A fun time. The drama for the evening was provided courtesy of the groom's father. One of our buddies, let's call him Steve (to protect the innocent) thought it would be a nice gesture to have his picture taken with, our friend’s, the groom’s dad. Apparently, Dad is a heavy drinker and a touch on the homophobic side. He walked up to Steve later at the reception and threatened to “take him down hard” if he used the picture for anything inappropriate. My first thought was “what the hell were you doing in the photo?” Steve was mortified because dad is a private investigator and has the means to act on his threat… I can verify the entire event; by the way, I was a mere two feet from the exchange. The groom had already heard about the threat by the time I went to clear things up and told Steve to get out of town as quickly as possible. I am joking. He apologized for his old man. It was all too much for me to handle, I cabbed it back to the hotel around 1am, exhausted. I showered as soon as I got back. The Velvet Cloak Inn shower, I might add, is one of the best ever, it was like standing under a water fall. If I'd had a wrench, I would have unscrewed the head and took it home with me.
Sunday morning, I was up and on the road by 8am. I had to duct tape my eyelashes to my forehead just to keep my eyes open. The drive was longer than expected, but I made it to Roanoke Island by noon.
