Poppin’ My Road Trip Cherry with Chocolate

Until Saturday morning, I was a virgin…a road trip virgin that is. My first trip was going to be to Lewisburg, WV for a Chocolate Festival with two of my best friends…Could it get any better? I think not…

Around 7 a.m. Saturday, Nirmal and Liz pulled upto the Starbucks where I was sipping my coffee and trying to wake up. When Nirmal opened his trunk for me to put my bag, I said “Who brought the pillow? Oh…both of you did.”

“Yeah…you’re a newbie. You always bring a pillow & towel on a road trip.” Oops.
“OK. Well, I forgot my phone charger so we have to go back to the house so I can get it out of my car.”

So we go behind the shopping center where my car is parked, I grab my charger out of the car and we drive out to the light once again.

“Do you have an iPod player?”
“No…didn’t you get yours?”
“No…go back to my car.”
“We are never going to leave, are we?” (That was Liz from the back seat.)

We DID leave…it was the most beautiful day for a road trip, 70s & not a cloud in the sky!!…we started jamming and rocking out…It was awesome because thanks to Liz, I was introduced to Flight of the Concords (It’s Business Time!) and Nirmal heard “I’m a Boss” for the first time (PRICELESS!!). I, naturally, asked for the pit stop…simply because I had coffee and we know just how awesome my bladder is…We saw a Dunkin Donuts/Gas station…So Liz & I got a bagel with cream cheese and a donut…and Nirmal got two donuts (That came back to haunt him later in the day…). I also found Snapple Apple and Nirmal was making fun of my enthusiasm so I said “Don’t judge my choices!”…which I later repeated when I pointed to the condoms…we are just that awesome.

Jamming some more, laughing & just having a great time, we made it to West Virginia.

About 4.5 hours after we hit the road, we finally got to Alicia’s new hood…I was very disappointed that T-Mobile had no service in her hood though…So we did our “AHHH!! WE’RE HERE! HUGS EVERYONE!!”, saw her crib and set out for our mile walk to downtown where the chocolate festival was taking place. Alicia had bought our tickets ahead of time…during our walk, Alicia tripped about 5 times…which prompted “Walk much?”…I can’t even tell you just how much I laughed…Once we got to the chocolate festival, we decided that our first stop would be the wine out of chocolate cups. Yes. Wine in chocolate. YUMMY!

But Alicia had forgotten her wallet with her tix & ID in it so after the three of us had our wine, we walked back uphill to her house…At one point, I made a comment about how out of shape I am…and Nirmal, who was walking behind me, said

“Yes, I can see that.”

*freeze…audible gasp from all three girls*

Nirmal, realizing what he said and how it sounded, turned around to where I was frozen in space, held out his hand and apologized a bunch of times. I know he didn’t mean it like that but for the rest of the day, everytime he said something, Liz would tie it to how he called us fat (He had made a comment to Liz in the car earlier which she took as him calling her fat…jokingly of course…but he would regret his words…)

So we go BACK downtown and walk around, figuring out which samples we would try…of course, the entire time, Liz & I kept saying “Chocolate martinis. Chocolate martinis.” which were at the end of the street…

There was a chocolate mousse eating contest and I am SO glad I didn’t enter…& Some cool pix we saw walking around…

At one point, we were in the antique store…I was drinking water and Nirmal said something that made me laugh and I choked…laughing and turning red…When we were walking outside, I said “Nirmal, you always make me choke” to which he naturally replied “That’s what she said”…and we bust out laughing.

Later, Nirmal put his head on Liz’ shoulder and she said “Ow! You hurt me…You have a bony head…” to which I replied…

Anyone? Anyone?

“That’s what she said.”

We were feeling a little chocolated out so we decided to grab a slice of pizza…I would like to take a moment here to say that there were some amazingly cute boys walking around Saturday. Everywhere I turned, I would see another gorgeous boy…And I don’t think it was the chocolate talking.

Once we were all chocolated out, and after we made dinner reservations for 8, we headed back to Alicia’s. I had never seen Slumdog Millionaire so we settled down to watch it. We were interrupted about 8 times by my parents…but my friends being awesome, paused the movie, let me deal with it and then when I hung up the phone, restarted the movie as if nothing was wrong…which was what I needed. We hung out for a bit, changed & headed out for dinner around 7:45..We took the car this time because there was no way we were going to be walking around in the dark…

After dinner, we drove to the Fort, the infamous bar in the basement of an EconoLodge only to see that no one was really there so we didn’t even go in…and we decided that we would just stay in, watch Hot Fuzz and drink our wine because no one was around…Which was disappointing because Nirmal and I had a pact that if he made out with a random girl, I’d make out with a random guy. (We’re like each other’s wingman but better…)

As we were driving around, C texted me…& this was our exchange.

“Hope you’re having fun, I’m trapped in Gaithersburg. The horror”
“Gaithersburg is my hometown”
“They have a Gaithersburg in Turkey?”
“My hometown in US”
“Do you have hometown in the we?”
“Only the US”
“We is very upset. Time will heal we. What is us doing?”
“Us is driving around in WV”
“We/us should be in bed, not in god’s country. Beware.”
“God’s country had a chocolate festival today.”

Later, he called me, we chatted for a few minutes & said goodnight. That was awesome because he always gives me a distraction…He’s like House but with a lit degree and an awesome friend.

Sunday morning, I was woken up around 7 am by my mom…and then around 9 am because Liz sent Nirmal a text message from 10 feet away to see if he was awake. We hung out and had breakfast…headed back home around noon. I knew we hit civilization when we finally saw a Starbucks! It was right across the street from James Madison Uni. (Figures.) After I got my Starbucks, Nirmal was hungry so we headed to McD. I ended up getting fries & chicken nuggets so this is what my meal looked like.

Naturally, once we hit I-66, we hit traffic…good ol’ VA…Would you like to see my…

All in all, it was an awesome trip and so worth it…I finally broke my road trip cherry and I cannot wait for the next one.

You can see the some of the pix, including one from an antique medical museum on my Flickr. If you’re on my FB, there are more pix on there.

What was your first road trip? Memories, memories…Do share!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!