Friday afternoon - rent the Dodge Caliber (hereafter known as Safety Car), from a very nice lady with cool sunglasses whose signature looks like the word "Butt." Pack a bag, fitfully nap. Try on suit, test pockets and wrinkly bits. Make sure you have essential items like a book, an additional stack of comic books, your iPod, and toiletries. Burn numerous comedy CDs. Mssrs. Izzard, Gervais, Hedberg, Gaffigan and Beaz.
Friday, 6:30pm - pack the back of Safety Car, bring some cashews, wasabi peas and sodas, comedy CDs. Make sure that smokes, shades and suits are in the vehicle, Blues Brothers style. Put sodas in cooler compartment, phone in cellphone compartment. Realize car has too many fucking specialized compartments. Unleash the mighty 4 cylinders of Safety Car (as it locks its own doors and reminds you to wear your seatbelt)! Turn on your GPS, hereafter referred to as Tabitha. Get on I-65 and head south. Leave Nashville, Tennessee. Drive for hours and hours. Stop for gas and weird road snacks (chocolate / peanut butter Bugles, chili encrusted dried mango slices, jerky), eat at an Arby's that seems to be made out of stage prop materials and dates back to 1984. Ring the bell. Smoke cigarettes, piss, wash hands, feel the power of the hand dryer, at last leaving the dreaded and damned State of Alabama, after taking 113 to Highway 29.
Saturday, 2:30am - Arrive destination, more or less. Fight numerous involuntary facial muscle tics that started when you smelled Cantonment, Florida's paper mill. Swallow geographic hatred in the face of your traveling companion's incessant pseudo-enthusiasm. Drive by old house, observe changes. Chew gum. Drive to father-in-law's home, walk around on the lawn at pitch black three in the morning, knocking on windows and ringing bells before finally just calling. Enter through garage. After pleasant but groggy kitchen conversations, walk around place you haven't been in for over two years, declare room assignments and then crash motherfucking hard watching Justice League movie on iPod.
Saturday, 10:25am - Awaken from best night's sleep in months. Text person about wedding time, watch end of Iron Man on iPod, read some kung fu comics. Drink remainder of room temperature soda. Enjoy ceiling fan. Finally compelled to leave bed by bladder, wander out to see how house and grounds have really changed. Reflect for a while, chat about comic books, other random stuff. After everyone is awake, eat a delicious homemade egg breakfast and smoke Partagas cigars by poolside for an hour. Coffee. Discussion about impending tobacco tax. Walk around house, talking about it. Converse about the idyllic parts of the past, and the harder parts of the present. Adjourn to iron, shower, shave, primp, dress and re-pack. Short goodbyes in driveway, start listening to that bossy tart Tabitha again.
Saturday, 4:35pm - after wrong turn, have Greek lunch of calamari & gyros at Founaris Brothers in Pensacola. Call various people, watch cell phone video. After lunch (?) be guided by Tabitha to nice but unhelpful police officer downtown at the bayfront. Illegally parallel park Safety Car, tuck shirts and straighten clothes in parking lot. Attend wedding at lovely bed and breakfast.
Saturday, 5:55pm - Wedding. Lyla's wedding to Jason, who I had only just met, was a beautiful and intimate affair, with only their close friends and family in attendance, which was still something like a couple of hundred people. Lyla designed her dress and made her vintage-looking headpiece by hand, and she looked perfect. The ceremony was quick and personal and sweet, and the reception was flawlessly put together with plenty of roam / mingle spaces, delicious food, free drinks, and engaging guests. There were some fun parallels with my own Pensacola nuptials of nearly 14 years ago: Clark and Company, a two piece strings act which has one of my brother in law's old bandmates in it played both weddings, Lyla's bouquet hit a light fixture on the way down from the second story, just as Christie's got hung up on the chandelier back in the day. The wedding was a wonderful affair, and I was proud and honored to be invited to see Lyla get hitched to the love of her life. I wish them all the best. I'll have to do better than that, though. When it was over, and the first few dances had been danced, the bugs under my skin were all screaming that it was time to leave Pensacola.
Saturday, 9:03pm - Cell calls and message checking, shoe changing occur in the parking lot. Cigarettes. Tabitha is reactivated, and we once again fire up the power that is Safety Car. Just before the exit to i-65, bathroom breaks, gas, drinks - complete change of clothes. This last leads to me yanking my dress shirt off the stall door just as a another man enters the restroom. He is startled, and says, "Oh, I'm sorry," to which I reply, "It's alright, sir - I'm a superhero," as I walk out the door. Drive for more hours and hours, spill wasabi peas in car. Listen to more CDs, one of us (me) naps for about 45 minutes in total.
Sunday, 3:50am - Arrive back in the Nash. Only partially unpack car, drag bodies upstairs, and after pointless jitteriness, fall asleep by 4:30 or so. Leaving the whole of the next day before vacation's end for zoo attendance, packing, and laziness. My kids woke me up at about 8:30 or so, which was not ideal, but was okay. Safety Car was returned to its home by 1:30 or so in the afternoon.
Jimbo, I couldn't have done it without you. Fuck me, "BEST ROAD TRIP EVER 2009!!!" Lyla, I wouldn't have done it without you. I can't think of many other reasons I would ever return to Pensacola, and I wish you and Jason unqualified love and happiness on the next part of your adventure together. Ron, thanks for putting us up, making eggs, and smoking stogies. Best night's sleep in a dog's age, seriously. C, thanks for letting me bail for a couple of days to do it.