Day 5: The day that never ended

My alarm goes off at 6:00 am and I snooze it three times unintentionally. I end up waking up at 6:45 am, only 15 minutes before I'm supposed to be arriving at Rocking Frog coffee shop to meet my girl Launa. You know that feeling when you oversleep and you freak out for a second. Yeah, I had that feeling. I hop off the long uncomfortable couch and race up the stairs to the bathroom. Side note...the street we are staying on is called Couch St. You would think it's pronounced couch, like a couch you sit on, but no it's couch, pronounced cooch. Awesome. So I get ready quick style and peace out for The Rocking Frog. I get lost for about twenty minutes in downtown Portland. I arrive at the coffee shop about 45 minutes late. I despise being late, mainly because I hate when people are late when they are meeting with me so I try my damndest to never be late. I failed miserably this morning. Seeing Launa was epic. We took some not so candid candid photos and my granola took about 20 minutes to make and I was getting pretty annoyed but when I finally got it, I realized it was well worth the wait!

After we said our goodbyes at Rocking Frog, Dannah, Will and I head over for a quick visit in McMinnville with my friends Brent and Tyler. We literally only have about an hour to spend there before we have to move on and boy was it an eventful hour. Brent and Ty take us to Sandwich Express where you can order a sandwich up to 2 feet long. Dannah and I play it safe and share a foot long. We squeeze six of us into a booth but not for long. We got our order

to go so we could maximize our hang out time and Brent had to get pretty for a class trip. We head back to their house and watch my other friend Ben's debut on Price

is Right. Ty makes sure to slow mo the facial expressions and reactions and it was literally priceless! After some boisterous laughter Ty and their other roommate Brian take us on an MTV cribz tour of their house, which smells like a caged animal, although they have no pets. I'm not the first one to tell them this either. Brian and Ty did a wonderful job showing us around and they wrapped up the tour by showing us the inside of their fridge. Dirty. Then Dannah and I took a little trip on the tandem bike that had no right break and a broken back chain. Dannah insisted on riding in the front and I was terrified for my life. Needless to say, it was an epic adventure, especially when we went off-roading in the neighbor's front yard. We said our goodbyes and headed out. Next stop Salem. 

On our way down the 99 we realize that we are gonna pass right by David and his friend on their way to somewhere so we stop to get one last dose of David. We pull off in this janky liquor store parking lot and basically say hello and goodbye. So good. Hop back in the car and head to Salem.

We pull into Salem for a quick catch up sesh with my girl Lora. She's super tall and blonde, my kinda girl. We kick it at her counseling office for about an hour. There are bright happy colors, soft contours, and lots of tissue boxes meant for comfort for her clients. I felt slightly awkward. We chill for an hour and then head to the next destination, Eugene. This is where we say goodbye to Will. He is meeting up with some peeps he knows here in Salem and we are heading off to hit the open road again.

We roll up in Eugene a little before 5pm. We get to my friend Teagan's house and we've

all decided we are gonna make enchiladas for dinner. Dannah and I's first home-cooked meal the whole week. Teagan takes us to WinCo, which apparently is known for being 

ghetto, but I didn't think it was that bad. I guess everyone's standards are different. :) We pick up enchilada fix-ins and some rock stars for the 

next leg of our trip. Oh, almost forgot, we bought Jarritos...Mexican orange soda. Bomb. After WinCo we decide to take Dannah by Value Village, only the best thrift store chain ever! Dannah is a Value Village Virgin so Teags and I decide to jack her V cubed card. I found some pretty sick framed photos of unicorns and a priceless 80's windbreaker to add to my collection. Dannah finds a cute purse and an awesome knick knack to add to David and Kyle's random crap corner. After a successful trip to the village we head back to Teagan's to make ench-y-laaaadas!! 

Once we successfully make it back, Dannah takes control of the kitchen sitch because she is the only on who knows how to cook. Allison, Teagan's roommate, makes it back from a run she went on and proceeds to express her frustration with the irony of her haggard break times perfectly coinciding with when all the hot boys decide to run by. I mean you can't just pick up your perfect form running right when you see them because that would just be too obvious. Apparently, this happens to her quite often. 

Back to the enchiladas. Dannah's doin' somethin' crazy, fryin' the tortillas in enchilada sauce, never seen that before. She makes the cheese, chicken, and onion concoction for 

the inside of the enchies. I don't care for onions, in fact I despise them, but I decide to suck it up because everyone else wants them. I can just pick them out. Turns out there were FAR TOO MANY onions in the enchiladas. They were basically onion enchiladas. No cheese, and negative chicken. It was pretty epic. You know the look you get when you're trying to pretend like something tastes good and it actually tastes foul. That was the look on everyone's face. The enchies were salvageable though...We just had to scoop out the heaps of onions. :) After finishing up dinner, Dannah and I grab our rockstars, one passion fruit and one roasted mocha,  out of the freezer, well my rockstars, not hers. We are now going to drive from Eugene to Lake Tahoe. It's now 7pm and we still have one more stop before we hit the road again. I've decided I want to drive the entire way from Eugene to South Lake Tahoe. I refuse to let Dannah drive because I know that if I let her drive, I will fall asleep and I don't want to leave her stranded driving with no companion to talk to. I grab my rockstars and we head out. We stop at my girl Elisa's for a quick hang out/ catch up sesh. It lasts about a half hour and then we embark for Tahoe.

This is where the real fun begins. It's 8pm. We have a 9 hour drive ahead of us. Keep in mind I just ran a marathon yesterday followed by about 4 hours of uncomfortable rest on a lumpy couch. After gassing up and draining the bladders, we hop back on the 5. Dannah promises me she won't fall asleep. I'm fine for about the first three hours. I have a nice long phone convo with my good friend Zachary but then we lose reception and Dannah is "resting her eyes." It's pouring rain and there are tons of threatening diesel trucks wavering inches from my tiny corolla. The rain stops and the fog rolls in. Vision is limited, yet I'm still driving fast. Where's the rationale in that you say? There is none. We made it through the fog just fine but you know what I hate? I really can't stand the redundant construction zones freckled alllll over the 5 that don't really revolve around any construction at all. I'm convinced they are just speed traps for cops to give you over-priced tickets.

About half way through the trip we stop at a gas station to re-fill the tank and load up on some food because I'm famished. The onion enchies didn't stick. I also desperately need to wash my face. It has successfully sucked up all the make-up I was wearing and I can feel the pimples

brewing. Wash my face and brush my teeth in the gas station bathroom and come out to Dannah taking pictures of herself while filling up the tank. Epic. We head back into the gas station for some grub. I come up with a turkey lunchable and a strawberry lemonade flavored Powerade. Dannah grabs Munchies and a Blue Powerade, yeah the flavor is actually Blue. As we are checking out I'm looking at this glass display case next to the register. It's about 1 in the morning and the two of us are pretty delirious. I'm looking at the little knick knacks in the case and I have no idea what they are. They look like pencil holders, but for only one pencil. Why in the world would a gas station sell pencil holders you ask? Well I was mistaken in my conclusion. A random lady behind us pipes in after hearing our confused banter, "those are cigarette snuffers." "Cigarette stuffers?" I reply. "No cigarette sNuffers. You stick your cigarette in there and it goes out." "But they're bottomless," I say "how would it not burn the surface of whatever the snuffer is resting on?" "There is no oxygen for the cigarette so it immediately goes out when you stick the end in the hole." She finishes. Wow, now that I have been enlightened to all that is a cigarette snuffer, Dannah and I head for the car with our lunchable and Munchies in hand. As we are walking to the car, the snuffer lady intercepts us. Here is the epic conversation that follows, "You might think I'm a weirdo, but you guys look LIT! Where's the dank at?" "Oh we aren't high, we're just really tired."  Dannah replies. "Oh, well you guys are the tweakers! I just smoke weed!" And then she proceeds to run away from us to the Motel 6 across the street. Dannah and I bust up hysterically.

Once we're back on the road I open my Lunchable and start grubbin'. Dannah makes a comment about how my food smells like dirty underwear. Oh, we also bought some Sour Patch Watermelons. She's grubbin' on those. As we're drivin' along we see this big giant majestic looking building covered in lights in the distance. As we continue to get closer we realize it's just a factory and Dannah says, "Dude I'm soo lit! I totally thought that was Oz!" Again we lose it in fits of delirious giggles. We eat our cheese flavored munchies and revel in the delirium. Then...the panic attack hits. We're driving on the two lane 5 and it's pitch black at 3am. A diesel truck pulls out in front of me to pass another diesel truck. Then a pickup pulls up behind me and starts riding my ass and flashing his lights. I clearly have nowhere to go as there is a massive truck in front of and to the right of me. He proceeds to flash his lights and ride my ass. As soon as I can, I try to get out of his way. He pulls up beside me and lingers for awhile. This truck is janky. It's pretty decrepit and it had a weird motorcycle thing in the back. After he passes me he moves over to get in front of me in the slow lane. Then he slows down to about 60. I'm terrified to pass him because all I can think about is Jeepers Creepers and how he is going to run me off the road the moment I try to pass him. So I stay behind him as he goes 60 for about 5 miles. This whole time Dannah is just telling me to pass him pass him and I'm freaking out! Finally I get over and gun it. I'm going about 95 and watching him in my rearview mirror. The distance between us should be growing...but alas, it is not. Then I really start freaking out. He's staying a decent way behind me but he isn't getting farther away. It was a nightmare. Finally we get away from the crazy who probably wasn't even a crazy, I was just having a panic attack due to lack of sleep. We get to Sac town and Dannah, with the bladder of a 3 yr old, has to pee again. This whole drive we've been sharing some pretty epic tales about middle school when I was fat, gap-toothed, and friendless. We also talked about how sour patch watermelons are made of gelatin which actually comes from horse hooves. We are consuming horse hooves among other atrocious ingredients I don't want to think about. As we are getting off the freeway Dannah complains of a stomach ache and how the ball of gummies in her stomach is re-forming into a horse hoof. 

Our directions say to take the 99/80/50 exit. Apparently three freeways merge and we are supposed to take all of them. We see a sign for the 80 and we take it, completely disregarding that the sign says nothing about the 99 or the 50. As we are driving down the 80 Dannah and I start playing the most ludicrous game of Would you rather? I won't even go into detail but just know that Dannah would rather have a dangly belly button protrusion and I would much rather use mayonaise face wash. After driving on the 80 for about 30 minutes we start seeing signs telling us to pull over and put on our snow chains. I start flipping out. I have never driven in the snow aside from the escapade in Seattle earlier this week, and I certainly don't have chains, nor do I know how to put them on my vehicle. We keep driving since there is no snow on the highway. Now we start seeing signs for Reno, not Lake Tahoe. After driving for another half hour I decide to text Cha Cha to see what the deal is. For those of you who don't know about Cha Cha, you are truly missing out. It's an all knowing entity that when texted any question in the world, will give you a very accurate answer within the minute. Just text 242 242 and sit back and relax cuz Cha Cha has your back. So Cha Cha tells me to hop on the 89 S...needless to say, I am at the very top of the lake. I have to drive all the way down to the bottom of it and it's 5 in the morning. We keep thinking we are so close and then we pass a sign that says 30 more miles. That happened about 3 times. By this time our bodies are literally shutting down. My throat is closing up and my spine feels like it is compressing into itself, and my eyeballs feel like they have dried up into salty raisins. I'm getting pissed because we are lost and I want to cry. Finally 6am rolls around and we have turned around about 4 times and still can't find my cousins house. I call him and he gets us there finally a little after 6am. 

We crumple up into bed and sleep for about 5 hours. End of day 5.