PCB Recap, Part 1

A few things first...

1. I am writing this mainly to remember this weekend.  I realize it was almost three months ago.

2. To say that I ate a lot today would be an understatement.

Fall is officially here.  As much as I looooove fall, I also looooove going to the beach in the summer.  I never recapped my beach trip in July, so, let's take a trip back in time, shall we?

When: July 4th weekend, 2011, Friday through Monday

Where: We begin our journey in Atlanta and make our way to the Redneck Riviera, or Panama City Beach

Who: Myself, Paula, Jessica, Manny, Bryan, and Ashlee

We all met up at Bryan and Manny's apartment in Atlanta to head down to Florida.  There was a theme of being late everywhere we went the entire time we were in Florida, and we should have seen it coming when we got to their apartment and neither of them were even close to getting ready.

It had already been decided that I was driving and Paula was driving.  Jessica already said she was riding with me, and when I mentioned Lady Gaga was playing in my car, Manny decided to ride in my car.  Crucial decision on his part, only he didn't know it yet.  We had suddenly become two driving teams- Team Tanner (my car) and Team Rawlins (Paula's car).

If you don't know me that well, here are two important facts:

1. I am a horrible driver, but I am also a very fast driver.

2. I am extremely competitive.

So we take off and hopped on 85 south and headed through Atlanta and I eventually ended up on 75 south.  I had passed Team Rawlins miles earlier and I assumed I was going in the right direction.  I mean, we had the GPS and it looked like we were going in the right direction.  We also all assumed we were going to beat Team Rawlins to PCB.

We were playing our version of TRL with our iPods, heading south, when Bryan called.  He asked us where we were and I told him.  He told us that he's almost to Alabama.  Let me tell you this, we were NO WHERE near Alabama.  We had totally missed the directions and were on the completely wrong interstate.

In my defense, I have never used a GPS.  I didn't know they talked to you.  And we had Bryan's.  And he had turned off the sound.  So there.  Not my fault.

Team Tanner had to cut across half of Georgia to try to catch back up with them.  We were a good forty five minutes, close to an hour behind them.

Does that get us down?

No.  We continue to drive {fast} and continue to be positive.  But it pretty much looked like we were not going to beat them to PCB.  We still kept in contact with Team Rawlins every so often, getting updates from them and giving them updates.  We may or may not have stretched the truth when we told them where we were.  And when I say stretched the truth, I mean telling them we were twenty minutes behind where we really were.

Also, let me clarify this, no one from either car had ever said it was a race.  We joked that I would get to PCB faster because I am a faster driver than Paula, but it was never declared a race.  However, you get me, Jessica, Manny, and Bryan in a room and you have instant competitiveness.  

So, when we got close to Dothan, Alabama, we said we were going to stop at Chili's and enjoy a nice, leisurely meal because Manny had heard of some "deal."  There was no deal, and we were all forgoing eating just to gain time.  We took competitiveness to a whole new level.

Little did we know, Team Rawlins had stopped at Checkers and enjoyed their own leisurely meal.  

Lucky for us, they took so long in their meal that we bypassed them without even knowing it!  A few lies from both teams later, we assumed they had already beat us to the hotel, so we finally stopped for some Taco Bell and headed towards the hotel.

Didn't matter that we wasted time on Taco Bell, though, because Team Tanner came back from a 45 minute "mishap" and beat Team Rawlins.  BOOM!  

Team Tanner saw this view FIRST.

I'll be back tomorrow with the highlights of the rest of the trip...