Day 2: The Ninja Sandwich Artist

We only slept about 3 1/2 hours. It was one of those mornings when your eyes feel like they're being stabbed out when you try to open them. We meant to be up and out by 8am but alas we were largely unsuccessful. T's roommate Ali's boyfriend's mom was going to be on Good Morning America for finishing top three in Emeril's slow-cooker contest and we just couldn't miss that. Her recipe was called Chalupie, could be easily mistaken for Taco Bell's Chalupa, but certainly not even close. Long story short, she didn't win. The lady with the shirt that blatantly pointed out where her nipples were won the giant gold plated slow cooker. Poor Ali's boyfriend's mom. I think her name was Nancy, or Penny. Dannah and I finally hit the road at about 9. We were supposed to be in Moraga/Arinda at 9 to pick up my friend Will. We didn't get there until close to 11 due to a series of unfortunate events. First I passed the exit to the highway we were supposed to take. We didn't realize my mistake until 20 miles later. Awesome. We nearly had to pay a toll for a bridge we weren't even supposed to cross. We turn around and I decide I need a drink. We stop at Starbucks and order bagels and double shots...of caffeine. We get our bagels only to find out they are out of cream cheese. What the hell? Dannah hops out of the car, while I am paying at the drive thru Starbucks window, and runs over to the liquor store, because maybe they will have cream cheese? Surprise. They don't. Of course, we can't eat our bagels without cream cheese so we drive to a Safeway nearby. Dannah buys cream cheese and plastic utensils to spread the cheese. Since the box came with spoons too she thought it would be a waste not to buy something to use those spoons with. She came back with three fruity yogurts. Also for some reason I decided to stray away from the norm and order a drink I don't normally get. A grande vanilla latte with extra vanilla to drown out the taste of the espresso. It didn't work. Yet again, a beverage that tastes like asphalt. What a great beginning to what will be our longest day of driving.We finally arrive at the "green" building that is actually very gray. It's Will's old roommate Tyler's Prudential building in Arinda. After using the bathroom with the neon key ring and the phenomenally smelling Febreeze spray that I wish I could use as perfume, Will, Dannah, and I hit the road. Next stop Corvallis, Oregon. 

We're drivin' along, drivin' along, driving safely, obeying the rules of the road when all of a sudden we spot this vast field

 of golden yellow flowers. Millions of them. We feel called to pull over and take pictures frolicking in them. So we do. Will is perturbed because he is not very spontaneous but he quickly learns that he needs to learn to cope because Dannah and I might be the most spontaneous people ever created. That might be an exaggeration. Hyperbole if you will. You get the point. We take some sweet hippy pics and hop back on the road.

We see a 7-11 sign and decided to christen our friendship with a tasty treat. We take a self-timed photo 

outside of 7-11 and hop back on the road. As we are about to get back on the highway we spot a cheesehead. Yes, there was a man on the corner of the street holding one of those big 

advertisement signs with a big piece of cheese on his head. And he was talking on his cell phone. Epic.

We get jiggy to TLC's No Scrubs and pull off to visit with another one of Will's old roommates. His name is Jimmy and he goes to a school for people with supernatural gifts. Yes, supernatural gifts. We pull up to this megachurch on a hill and Dannah parks in a spot labeled SENIORS. I tell her she must hobble to the entrance if she is going to pull this off and not get smited by the supernatural powers of this place. We peek in on one of Jimmy's classes in which thousands of students are perched, watching this tiny woman, who appears to be the leader, at the front of the room who is magnified on two big screens to either side of her. Everyone has badges on. It's weird. I feel uncomfortable. So uncomfortable I have to go to the bathroom. Dannah and I hit the ladie's room and by the time we come out Will has bid his farewell and we hit the pavement again.

Next stop Redding. We use Will's sick nasty iPhone to find the closest Subway. Big mistake. Come to find the nearest Subway likes to disguise itself as a Shell gas station. Little did we know we would spend the next 45 minutes waiting for three sandwiches to be made, granted they were footlongs, but still. The sandwich artist was just that, an artist. It was truly fascinating to watch her take 15 minutes to make one sandwich. I'm not sure how her body moved that slow, but it did. At one point she had to go back in the back and cut some more cucumbers for my sandwich. She goes into this walk in refrigerator and comes out with two cucumbers. Then she walks out int

o the store of the gas station and grabs a jug of water. 

She walks back to the back and somehow cuts

the cucumbers with ninja speed and comes back to us with a whole tub full of cucs. I think she must have snorted a line while she was back there because honestly I'm not sure how she cut them that fast considering her slow motion movements from before. Dannah and I spend some time perusing the store while we are waiting. We end up purchasing two neon beanies (slightly too small for our heads, well my head moreso than hers), some aviators, four clif bars (Will insists Carrot cake flavor is the best), and some gummy bears. Finally the crazy lady finishes our sandwiches and we clean all the dirty bug juice off my windshield. We hop back on the 5 reminiscing about small town tweaker gas station attendants and how I'm going to write a book about them one day.

We straight shot from Redding to Corvallis averaging 80-95 mph. I nearly get pulled over entering Eugene. Very nearly. I'm flying into town at about 95 and I come upon what appears to be a rent-a-cop, you know, one of those bubbly blue and yellow cars that looks like a mall security cop, but no, in Eugene they like to throw you off. It's definitely a highway patrolman and he beeps his little horn at me and turns to Dannah, who is in the passenger seat, and yells at her through his window, "SLOW DOWN!" Dannah and I conversed a bit about whether he actually yelled or if he just mouthed the words. She seems to think the emotion in his facial expression could only have come from shouting. Seems preposterous and a waste of vocals considering I was two window panes and about 10 feet away from him. Silly cop. You're no match for me.

We finally make it to Corvallis, home of the OSU Beavers. Driving into town we pass a giant Beaver sign. The artist did a great job of making a tiny cutesy little beaver look downright terrifying and I pose a question to the group. What would it be like to be attacked to death by a beaver? We laugh and add it to the quote log. We make it to my friend David's house. My friend Kyle lives there too. I didn't know how to write that ( my friend's David and Kyle's house, my friend David and Kyle's house, my friends' David and Kyle's house?) Anyway we get to their house and I shower because my body feels like it just got dunked in a Port-a-poddy toilet. Then we all go out to McMenamin's to celebrate the birthday of a boy I don't know. His last name is Nicodemus. We take some pictures, have some drinks, and peace out. 

David, Kyle, Dannah, Will, my girl Megan, and I go to this legitimate beer store where you grab a recycled 6 pack holder and pick out 6 random beers. I'm a girl. I picked out 6 random fruity beers...blueberry, apricot, raspberry (it was called purple haze ha) and some others. We pile back into Megan's car with Dannah sitting on my lap. I make a comment about how the seatbelt must fit around the both of us because there are obese people in the world and car companies have to account for that. Upon arrival at David's Will announces that it's Pi day. Yes, he is a math nerd and it is March 14th aka 3.14 aka pi. So we go to WinCo and get him a pie to celebrate Pi day. I push Dannah in a shopping cart around the store and Kyle throws an apple fritter.

David judo chops it and then Dannah holds it on her head through the checkout. We make it back to David and Kyle's and Dannah falls out of the car onto the pavement. She is not drunk. Not even tipsy. Her sleeve got caught on the door handle and before I could use the mad ninja skills I learned from the Redding tweaker sandwich artist, Dannah had already fallen out and nearly broken her tail bone on the cement.

The night comes to a close with an orchestra performance complete with harmonica, piano, and stand-up bass. Will has a phenomenal voice and sings The Piano Man while playing the piano and the harmonica. Megan is the harmonica holder and David plays the stand-up bass. Kyle attempts to tell riddles and fails miserably but he does successfully teach Megan and I how to play rummy. I challenged him to a dual and he kicked my ass. They call him Mr. Unstoppable for a reason. 

Everyone goes to bed: Kyle in his bed, David and Will spoon on the futon in the living room, and David sacrificed his bed for me, Dannah, and Megan. I slept in the middle. Bad idea. The room was sweltering because David forgot to turn off the heat. I woke up sweating repeatedly throughout the night. Never a good thing. Day 2 of the epic adventure comes to a close.