LET THE BLESSED BOREDOM BEGIN!!

After packing, packing, and more packing--with the help of my special spatial Dad--I am now at home. Didn't get here till 11PM. Promptly called my pal Dave K., who would be leaving for a sweet internship in Atlanta tomorrow morning. Somehow, we are never both in town for more than like a day. Maybe that's a good thing. Oh well, Dave K. arrived in a jeepload of people, transported by former Speech Team-mate Patrick, infamous for his *adventuresome* driving style. I got in, and turned around to find the jeep filled with many AP class folks, although they're all Dave's junior-high friends. I feel a bit extraneous, but ok!

So, what do young people in Marshall Co., West Virginia do for fun? Drive. It really does seem to be a local pastime. If you're not drinking, or making out somewhere, you're just driving anywhere. That's really all there is to do. So we take to the backroads--where I shame myself by being anxious on a couple turns. I blame it on the boring, flat Ohio roads. Backroads at night are not unlike rollercoaster rides, with the added drama of cliffs and valleys to either side and the occasional deer frozen in front of your speeding car.

We had a goal in mind: See out THE RED TOWER OF DEATH. Dave K. has described the discovery of the tower before. Teenagers get lost on the backroads, don't see cars or houses for miles: find themselves at a tower with eerily slow-blinking red lights. The buildup for this thing is unbelievable. So, with nothing better to do, we take to Emergency Route 2 South looking for The Red Tower of Death.

I'd like to have some epic and entertaining story about finding the Red Tower of Death. . . but it was actually quite anticlimatic. It wasn't too long before we spotted it, but it quickly ducked behind the hills and trees. It would glide into view occasionally, and I once pointed it out, only to have it drift quickly out of sight, leaving nothing but me sounding like a wacko. We got closer and closer, and finally came closest to it's horrible base in the middle of nowhere. But the service road was closed. So alas, the story ends there. They drove me back, I gave Dave K. a good hug, and then I came up here and typed this. Why, i don't know. Maybe I just wanted an excuse to say RED TOWER OF DEATH :)

Love,
-Amber-