There And Back Again, An 18eh Tale.

In a twist of irony so cruel that we thought we were under the sway of the Greek God's of old, our 3,000 kilometer trip to Holland Michigan began with the 6 of us (four 18eh boys and 2 wives) waving goodbye to Mike and his wife who had returned to Edmonton for a family reunion. Here we were seeing friends that we'd not seen since their own wedding almost 3 years ago and we were leaving them in our own city for yet another... 18eh Wedding.

The night before though saw us out on the town to celebrate Mike's visit and to kick off what was sure to be one epic trip in an epicly small van.

Peter, capable or emitting odours from his body that are positively inhuman, had been ordered on a strict diet of steamed celery 3 weeks prior. 

Shiggs had lost 75% of his hair for the wedding. My CanJapaJesus was gone. He'll return though like he promised.

Dustin was worried about his comfort levels on the long journey but he would be alright as he had packed an inordinate amount of womens underwear. As he tells us, "It's strictly a comfort thing guys."

"Did you get Chris a wedding gift Mike?" I asked. "Yea, I'm getting you to punch him in the face for me when you see him for timing his wedding like a complete retard." he replied sourly and promptly returned to his drink.*

I was pretty sure I'd gotten all my bad juju out of the way on my last wedding weekend two weeks ago and that this wedding weekend (W^2) would be a smooth, healthy and productive one...

Hahahahahahahaha

ANYways. Let's see, what happened during the roadtrip?

We uhh, ate breakfast in Estevan, Saskatchewan.

Dustin drank a lot of Red Bull.

Oh! And this one time, Pete totally moved up to the front of the van while we were driving. It was AWESOME!!! Pete, man that guy's crazy.

You see, the problem with relating stories about roadtrips that happen across the Canadian prairies and the American midwest is that these locations are mindblowingly boring. I mean, Saskatchewan, North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin aren't just boring... God doesn't even know they exist. It's godless, heathen coutry. When you're in Canada and you have faith in such things, you literally leave God's hand of protection when you travel between the City signs of Edmonton and Ottawa. In America, God will not set foot upon the land between Denver and Chicago. I see this now. It is fact. It is science.

So when I say "Nothing happened in between Edmonton and Chicago." I'm dead serious. If you weren't born in that region, you have no business being there. When we consulted HAL, our onboard GPS system, it basically drew a straight line between our city and that of Chicago as if to say "Put your head down and go. It'll all be over soon." 

Chicago welcomed us with open arms. It's sky scrapers a beacon of light against the sea of barbaric wastelands we had just come through. And when I say "welcomed us with open arms" I really mean "welcomed us with burning car on the freeway". Awesome. Pure awesome. Chicago is a city that continually punched me in the face with fistfulls of awesome.

Because of massive construction delays on I-94 we were forced to ditch the highway. Fortunately for us, we had HAL. Like it's namesake though, I think our HAL had a little death wish for it's human compatriots and instead of leading us to the highway in a logical manner, it decided to tell us to drive through some of the roughest neughbourhoods I'd ever seen in my life. There we were, 6 kids from Canada (4 from the prairies and 2 from the city but after seeing Chicago aren't so sure they're from the city anymore) and we're in the middle of what looks like Escape From New York. Seriously, I swore Kurt Russel was gonna jump out at any second with that badass eyepatch and blow us all away.

But after godless, heathen country, burning cars, Bloods and Crips and a vindictive GPS computer that thinks it's freaken SkyNet, we made it to Holland Michigan where Christopher Leigh Zeller was waiting for us at 7am.

For more on Chris, go here and read up. For that matter, go back and read other posts. I'm actually very entertaining and I promise I won't waste your time. Being far too tired to punch Chris in the face for Mike, I settle for a big hug from the lovable little guy then passed out on the couch for 5 hours while "The Marrieds" went and napped on the beds upstairs... or whatever.

At this point we'd been driving for 36 straight hours.

That night was the wedding rehearsal. I don't remember much of it except for finding out that I was playing guitar in the ceremony itself and then realizing that I didn't have anything but jeans and a suit jacket to wear. This is actually pretty close to what I was actually seeing the night of the rehearsal...

After the rehearsal, we left for the supper and had great game of "Shake Face". The greatest new camera game ever.



ACT BREAK

We went and watched Transformers that night after the reception. Not only did Michael Bay completely make ammends for the steaming piles of crap that were Armegeddon and Pearl Harbour but he managed to reference the fact that no one likes those movies in his new film. Self deprecating humour+The best looking thing I've ever seen on a screen=Jake's new favorite summer blockbuster ever. Go watch it now. NOW!

END ACT BREAK

The next morning, after our torrid drive and relentless schedule the previous day (filled with such activities as eating out and shopping at Target) the boys and I were all woken up at 7am E.S.T. That's 5am for the normal world. We were to go golfing that morning.

I was happy.

Luckily, we of the 18eh variety pride ourselves at being able to "Up The Awesome Factor" of any event and at all hours of the day (or morning). So we prcticed our mad sword fighting and celebrating skills that we always keep in tip top shape for the impending zombie apocalypse.

Something cool of note: There isn't a single picture of all 6 of us together in existence. I like to think this Ups Our Own Awesome Factor, much like our shirts in the photo below (since in the photo above we're wearing shirts from the golf course. Apparently we were below dress code there and had to put on collars. So really we were kind of "Downing The Awesome Factor" of the golf course...).

If we were in Japan the caption would read: "Transformers Shirt Yes!"

That afternoon, I fell asleep in the sun for far too long and ended up with blistering skin all over my chest and arms. The bad juju I thought I'd left in Medicine Hat at Dustin's wedding apparently has a cousin in Michigan.

These wedding weeknds will kill me yet. It'll probably be my own too no doubt.

The wedding was awesome. The reception was... well a reception. The food was awesome, the toasts were, well they were toasts (I liked Dustin's though) and Ana (Pete's wife) made some great comparative analysis of the bride's maiden name to parts of male genitalia at a table of complete strangers. I accidentally sang Pete and Dustin a love song through a microphone that was apparently turned on through the room's PA system. All in all, it was business as usual.

Chris acted like a prepubescent retard: Check.

Jake got on Shiggy's nerves: Big time check.

One of, if not the best roadtrip ever (so far). Hell, I even met a girl who had a zombie escape plan! Up until this point the only people with enough foresight to prepare for a zombie apocalypse has been my 18eh Boys. Apparently we're no longer alone. The highlight of the trip for me by far was when Chelsea, Chris' new sister in law, confessed to having a zombie escape plan of her own. My knees may have buckled a little bit and, I've gotta be honest here, I may have had flashes of the two of us growing old together right there. I had to restrain myself from asking her to marry me on the spot (the only reason I didn't was because I didn't want to steal Chris' thunder). Also, had I done such a reckless and insane thing, I would have been met with this face right here:

Jake says: "I'll take that as a yes."

That was a good one guys. So who's up for California?