Let's pick up where we left off... arriving at the Straight White House. 

We were greeted with food (courtesy of Bou who made an outstanding dinner) and drink and merriment.  It was too cold and wet to sit outside.  Rain and sleet had put the kibosh on the campfire, so everyone was gathered indoors.  Either in the house itself or in the garage - home to a terrific pocket pool table.

It is mostly a gathering of long acquainted friends with the yearly addition of one or two people.  Of course we have already met up with Erica and Leslie. To this was added:

Eric (of course) 
Denny
Elisson & SWMBO
John Cox
Jerry
El Capitan
Bou
K-Nine
Rick & Georgia
Jimbo & Da Bodyguard
Later that night Eric's lovely wife Fiona arrived home from work to find her house taken over. 

There was much talking in loud voices, many pool games complete with trash talking, and lots of cameras.  Sadly I am not a good people photographer so even if people wanted their pictures online, mine mostly didn't turn out well.  Give me some trees and scenery every time.

As Denny was leaving the gathering to get back to the hotel, he noticed that a car had a flat tire... well, you guessed it boys and girls. The little icon on the dash was telling me there was a leak and while we were having a merry time, the air quietly left the tire.  How I was supposed to know that from the icon on the dash... it's a mystery to me. 

Bou kindly gave me a ride both to the hotel that night and back to Eric's the next morning.  Saturday morning being the day that Big Stupid Tommy  finally made it to the party.  Eric woke up early on Saturday and proceeded to change the tire on my car and call the car rental place.  (he is the best of the best folks)

I was able to take the car to a local shop.  While they fixed it, we were off to the local diner for breakfast.  They do the best buffet for breakfast ever.  The coffee cups don't match, but the food is excellent and the ambiance is unequaled anywhere. 

After picking up my car, there was shopping at a local Fair Trade store, pool, music provided by The Elderly Brothers (Jimbo and Denny accompanied most ably by John who is far to young to be an Elderly).  Add to that the most delicious BBQ ever smoked on a huge smoker in Eric's back yard.  Elisson did the honors and completely blew our socks off. 

It's always sad to see Saturday draw to a close.  Denny, Jimbo, Kenny, Georgia and Rick all took off early Sunday morning.   Erica, Leslie and I had to head out fairly early, but we were able to stop by Eric's for a quick and very good breakfast.

The drive back to ATL was non-eventful, except for the few minutes of panic when I couldn't figure out if I was still on the right highway when in the middle of downtown.  Since I didn't have much wiggle room in timing, I was very happy to find I hadn't detoured on to another highway by accident.

We returned the car and then of course I had to wait in line at the office to have them give me the money for the tire repair.  After we got into the terminal and got our boarding passes, we had some lunch.  This was not the best choice I could have made. Lunch service was slow and I still had to get through security.  However, while we were eating we were treated to a group of soldiers headed home on leave - as they walked through the terminal, everyone gave them a rousing ovation.  It was wonderful.

I arrived at the gate just as they were boarding the last "zone" on the plane.  Whew! I really don't like cutting it that close.  No one even looked twice at my carry on bag this time.  It fit fine in the overhead.  Good grief!

Other than a little turbulence it was an uneventful flight.  Once again I was too tired to do much people watching.

Thus endeth another Hysterics. 

Posted by: Teresa in Ultimate Blog Meets at 11:16 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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