The day was stressful to say the least. All throughout the state of Virginia 19-28 year olds were gearing up for the most important weekend of John and Stef's lives. That's right, it was wedding weekend. The bus was scheduled to leave for Lawrence at 8:15 p.m. from a desolate Wal-Mart parking lot in Richmond, VA, and there was so much left to do. Packing, homework, class; I cared nothing for my daily tasks with the trip so close at hand. All day I hurriedly finished my work that was due and packed my bags to the full with cool/hipster clothing so I could fit in with the Kansas/Chesapeake crowd.
At approximately 4:13 p.m. Jeremy, Sam, Joe and myself jumped in Jackson's van and headed down to get Charlie Blakely (also known as Chud, or Sunshine) from his apartment and to the bus. We found him sitting on the curb behind the Chipotle parking lot, holding his pillow in his lap and using his lacrosse bag as a back rest. We all let out a small cheer as he gave his slow, surfer wave and approached the car. Nonchalantly throwing his gear in, he gave us a "what's up?" with shred-knucks, and we hit the well-beaten path known as I-81 to our next location: Stuart's Draft, VA.
For some reason that morning, Evan "Bug" Underwood had left for his hometown. Though none of us at the time knew what he was doing, we steadily gleaned information throughout the day through tweets and instagrams. In a classic Evan maneuver, he was snackin' on a lady from Charlotttesville. They did classic Evan activities together (walking, apple picking) before Evan went to say farewell to his family in the late afternoon. No matter what he did throughout his day however, we knew the plan was to meet at the Chic-Fil-A, drive through for some dinner and put Bug in our car so we would know where he was.
The entire way to Stuart's Draft we remained in contact with Bug, texting, calling, etc. etc. Yet when we arrived at the Chic-Fil-A, we discovered Bug had yet to leave his house (another classic Bug move) so we went inside and stood in a huge line. Luckily, I was standing by Sam, because when we got to his front, we found that his former Young Life Leader Bruce, who is now a regional manager of Chic-Fil-A, was working the cash register. Bruce heard about our trip, and hooked us up with free meals. They were glorious.
After the long wait, Bug arrived and hopped into the backseat with Joe, happily munching on an apple and sipping on a soda (or 3). We were then off to the parking lot in Richmond. The rest of the drive went smoothly, with Sunshine working the iPod. We arrived relatively early to the parking lot, met up with old friends and new friends, and loitered in the aisles of the megastore for a while.
Around 8:30, the bus rolled into town. We launched our belongings in it's vast undercarriage and looked for seating arrangements which would be prime for sleeping. The Chesapeake boys were gettin' rowdy in the back, Joe was cuddling with Claire, and J.T. and I swapped stories about our lives. As the trip went on, Jake Fleming told a fabulous wives tale about Jim "Snackman" Pullizzi, and we were later moved to tears by the smell of the bathroom.
Soon midnight came, and people began to drift off to sleep. As I closed my eyes, I could only imagine what the rest of the weekend would hold.
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