Rockin' in the Free World

I'll just go ahead on and admit that it's taking me a really long time to recover from my trip to the north country. I talked a lot of smack about the World's Most Amazing Karaoke Machine, but the truth is, even I was not prepared for the wonder. For various reasons, I cannot be specific about the exact number of songs, or the exact location of the system, or even the city and state that we visited.

What I can say is that what was originally going to be a trip with four girls in a Subaru turned into five girls and one very cute poodle puppy in a Chrysler mini van. We headed out in the early afternoon Friday (thus conveniently escaping the quilters...praise Jeebus!) and made it to the hotel at around four p.m. There we were distressed to learn we had unknowingly booked ourselves into a hotel with large sign posted in the lobby ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDING pets upon pain of a very large fine.

Of course, crating poor little Oreo in the van at night was not going to be an option. Luckily, among five girls, we didn't have too much trouble locating one with a little extra purse room. In this fashion, the puppy was pretty easily smuggled in and out of the establishment as necessary.

After throwing down our luggage and stowing our beer supply in the room refrigerators (because HELLO? we couldn't be anywhere EVER without beer), we headed to a local bar for many games of pool and our first real whistle whetting of the journey. And I'll just tell you now that once whetted? We pretty much stayed that way for two whole days. As my mostly incredibly blurry photos bear a sad silent testimony to.

From the bar (where Oreo made new friends among both the staff and the patrons) we headed to The Undisclosed Karaoke Machine location.

There we fell in love, felt the earth move under our feet, stopped in the name of love, rode on the City of New Orleans, put on our boogie shoes, decided it was too late baby, fell for a shooting star (one without a permanent scar), thumbed a diesel down, fell to pieces, and tried to slow our mustang down (without a whole lot of success).

This went on. And ON.

And then? It went on a while longer.

It went on until we were forced to stop because we were desperately in need of nourishment. This called for a trip through the Steak-n-Shake drive-thru. Backwards (don't ask). (But you can technically still get [really bad] food that way.)

Saturday found us (surprise) all feeling a tad queasy and sleeping until nearly noon. We were lured from our fluffy hotel beds only by the promise of God's perfect food: a grilled out burger. Said burger was helpfully provided by the owner of the Karaoke machine. And soon after lunch? We were down on the corner, out in the street, rollin' on a river, feelin' better now that we're through, drunk the day our mama got out of prison, on our own with no direction home a complete unknown like (sing it with me) a rolling stone...

We were people possessed. Every song we knew? The karaoke machine knew too. Every song we thought of? Was just a few seconds away. Stevie Wonder? Got it. Juice Newton? Suzi Quatro? Yep. Indigo Girls, Alison Krause, Mary Chapin-Carpenter, Linda Rhonstadt, Stevie Nicks... We even did a rousing version of this little number, one we all just happened to know the words to. Because, back in those days--the seventies if you must know-- it was the law that one purchase (and memorize) the Grease double album soundtrack.

This went on until our host fell asleep. And poor Oreo looked like this...

...having fallen out from either exhaustion or gone unconscious in self defense (more likely both), a limp, furry bag of puppy bones. On the plus side? She was even easier to smuggle up to the hotel room.

We headed for the hotel but not before we made a WalMart stop where we picked up some important items (that every girl needs on a trip out of town):

-Boy Shorts Bathing Suit

-Press-on tattoos (tribal)

-Apples to Apples Game

-Handcuffs

Back at the hotel, we played a few rousing rounds of Apples to Apples and afterwards enjoyed a soothing soak in the hotel pool and hot tub. Right up until the management tossed us out.

All in all, it was more than any five girls could hope for in one weekend and just what the doctor ordered for one girl in particular who, rumor has it, is on the verge of (whisper) Going Back to Work.