999.8

Let us peer together into the mists of time past, shall we? Far back, at the dawn of the new age [i.e. January 2007], we see . . . Steph Schaefer talking to Justin and John about a crazy idea. An idea that would change the future. How 'bout the three of them buy tickets to see Dispatch play in New York City . . in July?! Sure, why not!

For those of you--like me at the time--who don't really know who "Dispatch" is, they are a chill, backbeat college band that was huge about 10 years ago, broke up, and has a highly devoted fan base. They played three nights at Madison Square Garden to raise money for Zimbabwe, and we bought 3 tickets to the Saturday show way back in January, right before they sold out. As the months rolled by I got a job, but we still figured we'd make it work. And we did! It turned July 13th - 15th into quite the weekend: Pgh to Stone Harbor (where Steph spends the summer with her Mom), to New York City, to Philly (to crash at the Harveys and hit church), and then back home. And yes, 999.8 was the odometer reading when I pulled into our driveway at the end of it all :-)

This trip was a lot of fun. It was amazing! It sticks in my mind as one of the funnest things I've done in a year or two. Memories of riding in the car, eating snacks, and listening to music (no subwoofer! :-( ) are prominent. Pretty much anytime we went anywhere, we stopped and got snacks, which was hellaciously unthrifty, but a lot of fun. Eastern PA and NJ still have Cherry Vanilla Dr.Pepper around, so I hit that up as often as possible, and didn't worry about the caffeine. We probably supported 4 Wawa employees with our patronage during the trip :-) [Wawa = Eastern Sheetz]

At some point in the weekend I realized, quite abruptly, that I was in the middle of a movie-like road trip -- a classic good times craziness expedition, here in the midst of my work-constricted life. I think it was on the road somewhere in New Jersey, to or from New York City, rolling down the sweet highway in the sweet car with sweet people.

I also realized Saturday, as I sat back in the booth across from Steph and relished my exquisite frozen Heath mocha, that God was answering our prayers for good times during the trip, even though we didn't have much time in any one place. He abundantly multiplied our time in Stone Harbor, making our 12 hours there feel like 2 days: Night beach walk, good amount of sleep, Wawa breakfast (where else?), seeing where Steph spends her days at Tee Time Mini Golf, lolling about on the deck, going back to Tee Time and walking around the cool shops of Stone Harbor, and just soaking in the eminent beachiness of the entire place.

God even richly blessed the concert, which honestly, I didn't really care about. Dispatch's music doesn't mean that much to me, and I find its genera slightly annoying for some reason. But we listened to a bunch on the way up, which was good preparation. Our seats were really really terrible (way up behind the stage with abominable sound quality and pot smokers in the row ahead of us), so we scooted out after a few songs and walked further down and around till we found some unused seats, and sorta hovered there, off the prowling security guards' radar. Nobody ever came back to those seats, so we had them the rest of the night. And they were sweet :-) Spread out before us was the living, lit-up bowl of Madison Square Garden - dipping down and stretching out, across and up. The stage was a little left of us, and the sound was beautiful - crisp highs, pronounced mids, and--even in that huge place--floor-shaking bass. Ahhh, it was a moment of heaven-anticipation. I even found a cheap, filling and NEW food thing to fill my raging stomach (Knish. Basically a big potato pancake.). Standing there, great sound, enjoying the songs, great view, perfect food.. it was amazing! And I even liked the music. Quite a bit. A live setting almost always brings out a more rockin', energetic quality in music, compared to when it's recorded in a studio. With that perspective, I've found most of Dispatch's stuff pretty enjoyable. Their (sloshed/drugged, but still dedicated) fans filled the place with their singing. Everyone seemed to know the words to every song!

So yeah, even the concert was a blast, let alone the glorious weekend surrounding it!

[ I did have a rather dark spell on the way in to New York. Let's just say.. we were using a GPS navigation thingey.. we had the wrong destination at first.. we crossed a $9 toll bridge three times.. and only paid once.. and I succumbed to anger, which is never a pretty thing, for myself or others. We did get in OK, though late, though the show started late so it was OK, and I have rarely been as happy to park a car as I was when we rolled between the lines in the parking garage and I pulled out the key. Oy. But despite the aggravating entrance, our little view of NYC was amazing, and I'd definitely like to see more of it. ]

Church Sunday was nice, and we enjoyed the sleep-innage possible with an 11:30 service (though we had to budget time for a Wawa stop, of course). Then it was lunch with a couple church folks (getting to know Philly people! Yay! Riding in a Celica convertible! YAAAAY!), good-bye to Steph, and hello to Longdrivehome. We did some shifts, did a little sleeping, and wound up rockin' the Mazda to old favorites as we rolled up 51 into the Pittsburgh area.

I think Nick stayed with us that night, but I hit bed pretty quick, 'cause I had to be at work at 6 the next morning to start . . .

TRANSITION!

[dun dun dun]

And that's another post :-)

Yay weekend!

--Clear Ambassador

P.S. Good times = Justin and me driving away from Sheetz and leaving Daniel and Nick there and turning off our cell phones and nto coming back for half an hour :-D

P.P.S. I forgot the tickets, so we had to back home. heheh.

P.P.P.S. That frozen Heath mocha was one of the best things I have ever eaten in my entire life. I can only hope someday to go back to Stone Harbor, back to Coffee Talk, and order another (and pray it's not a let-down :-P).