Raleigh: Day One

The drive down to Raleigh was a long one. Nick and I drove to my boss' house and picked her up, then he dropped the two of us off at the hospital we were all going to leave from. The woman who drove had a gigantic Toyota Sequoia... she told us when we piled in that the back seats reclined, which excited me, until I attempted it and failed due to the back of the car being packed too the brim with luggage. I tried to go to sleep but the most I could achieve was that awkward half-asleep/half-awake state because my neck started to hurt whenever I would drift off... and it was only for about 20 minutes at that. I was alert and oriented for every painful minute otherwise. I know 5.5 hours isn't that long when you are thinking in terms of trips... some people drive to destinations halfway across the country and all I had to do was sit tight while we made it down the length of Virginia. But I get all antsy when I am stuffed in the back of a car :-( I worry that if I drink too much water I'll need to pee at a gas station, and that is something I most certainly never want to do (...I did). Then I got scared I would start to get sick in the back of the SUV, because one of my dirty little secrets is that I tend to blow chunks whenever I'm in a moving vehicle. I nibbled on some Wheat Thins and pretzels, took some Advil for the pre-carsick headache I felt coming on, and the drive got much more tolerable once we hit Richmond.

We had hit the road around 12:30 and we pulled into the hotel around 5:45. I perked up knowing I had made it without vomiting. There was a huge crowd in the hotel... apparently there was a big event in the ballroom hosted by Kioti tractors (made obvious by the display of orange tractors in front of the hotel doors). There was quite the assortment of guests at this soiree, but it was mostly comprised of men in suits, farmers, Mennonites, and sluts. I assumed the men in suits were the dealers, and the farmers and the Mennonites were the ones who owned Kiotis. I haven't yet figured out why there were sluts at a tractor convention, but there are some things that should be left alone, I guess.

We bypassed the tractor shindig and checked in at the front desk. We each had a separate room, my boss and I on the 5th floor and the two women from the other hospital on the 3rd floor. King beds, a large flat-screen tv, a big desk for my laptop... it was comfortable! Not to mention the bed had a million pillows and a down comforter so it felt like a giant cloud.

Cloud.

I had a decent amount of energy left in me and was willing to start exploring Raleigh right away, but everyone agreed that the evening would be best spent unpacking, eating some dinner, and relaxing for the early morning we were expecting. The hotel had two restaurants in it but the nicer of the two was closed so we settled for the sports bar. The food was actually really good, and it was made even better by the fact that our company paid for it! After we stuffed ourselves to the brim, we all retired to our rooms and relaxed until Tuesday.