Hey there everyone. It's been 4 years since I went to see my family in Evansville and boy was it fun. We were going down for my Great Aunt's 80th birthday, and they were also having their fall festival. Let me break it down day by day.
Day 0.5
I call it "0.5" because we left after work. We encompasses my mom, her best friend, aunt, grandma, and grandpa. All 6 of us piled into a rental Dodge Grand Caravan with a built in DVD player. Actually, it had composite input and a 120V outlet, so I also brought one of my SNES and some games for my aunt to play on the way. I also brought some DVDs, one of them being National Lampoon's Vacation, a movie my family references all the time, and "road trip." I road up front because Mom wanted directions help, and GPS help. I also wore my "Wally World" t-shirt, because "road trip." As we were pulling away, my dad was just smiling and waving to see us off, knowing he's not going on this crazy journey with us.
After about 6 blocks, my grandma was complaining about her back hurting. Since this is a "stow and go" Grand Caravan, we folded down the seat to get in the back and the head rest folds into the seat when folded. Well, we forgot to put it back up, so my grandma was really uncomfortable. Mom pulled over, I jumped out, helped her move out the way, folded the headrest back up, got her situated, and jumped back in the van. Well....I forgot to close her door, so as we were pulling away she saw it was still open and yelled "STOP." Mom slammed the breaks and the door shut on it's own momentum. That was a fun thing to tell my brother and cousin; "we made it 6 blocks before we had to stop." lol
After many hours and lots of references to Vacation, we arrived at our motel. It was a REALLY nice motel. My grandparents and I were in the accessible room, and it was basically a studio apartment with a full kitchenette. My mom, her best friend, and aunt had the "penthouse suit" which had 2 floors, a sitting room, separate bedroom, and full kitchenette. Oh, and the front lobby had free cookies.
Day 1
After the awesome motel and awesome motel breakfast, I played "van Tetris" got everything back packed. I sat in the back row this time because mom was confident with the GPS. I tried to set-up the videogames, but unfortunately the power outlet didn't work. Darn. Oh well. After we got on the road we started watching National Lampoon's Vacation. That was fun. For lunch we stopped at a Steak and Shake, because my grandparents love it. Mom's friend had a sheet of coupons, so all of us ordered to maximize our savings. In total we saved like $10. Yay.
After more hours, we arive in Evansville. We stop at my great Aunt's house to say hello and get my aunt set-up at her house. After an hour of that we unpack my grandparents and I at our hotel. After a little relaxing, we head down to the fall festival. Fall festival is a big thing down there, like school closes for it, and they shut down main street so they can line it with food trucks, carnival rides, and midway games. Also, the food trucks are all Southern Soul Food, aka, EVERYTHING is deep fried.
We got there for dinner, with the plan of having dinner at the festival. On night 1 I got myself a brain sandwich, which is a deep fried pig brain on a bun with pickles. It's a regional German thing, and I can only find them in Evansville. Check out the picture below.
While waiting in line, there was a lady that never had a brain sandwich. When she made it to the front of the line, and when she saw it was actual brain meat, she exclaimed "what is wrong with you people!?" He husband/boyfriend had a brain and she tried it in front of us, for the fun of it and putting on a show for people who encouraged her to try it. She did a sign of the cross, took a bite, and didn't like it. It was funny. I like them, it's soft and crunchy, and tastes like deep fried. This one wasn't as good as the restaurant I normally get them at, but it was still pretty good. I had my first brain like 10 years ago, and I have to have one whenever I go down there. I checked out some other trucks, and some of the carnival. My cousin turtle girl wanted to meet us at the fair, but she unfortunately wasn't able to find parking. It was still a fun time.
Day 2
Well it's now the bid day, the reason we came down and I took off 2 days, my great aunt's 80th birthday. My mom's generation got everything set-up at the hall, while I waited at the hotel with my grandparents. At the party I saw MMT and turtle girl again for the first time in 2 years, so it was really fun catching up. Then I saw my boy cousin (MMT's brother) for the first time in 4 years. I also got to meet turtle girls boyfriend, and he's majoring in the same general area I am. We talked about common skill sets, and that was fun. He's a nice guy, good for turtle girl. I sat with turtle girl's family for dinner, and that was fun. It was a southern chicken dinner, and since I don't like chicken I just had a big plate of southern green beans. My uncle made a great video of my great aunt throughout the years, and another one of my aunt's made a bingo game out of great aunt trivia. That was fun.
After packing up the party, we went to church. After church, we went to my aunt's house for some post party fun. We opened her gifts, and my aunts played a fun joke on her. She has a closet of wedding gifts she never used, in the 50+ years since she got married. My aunts wrapped up some of the gifts and gave them to her as presents. Good joke. My grandma made her a build a bear, and she really liked it. Some of her friends got her gift cards. Good little time.
We went to the festival for it's last night afterwards. Since I had my brain, I wanted to get some other foods. I started with a deep fried hotdog wrapped in bacon and fried broccoli. Now when I read "fried broccoli," I was expecting "lightly battered broccoli that's been deep fried." Not this, this was broccoli, wrapped in cheese sauce, with VERY thick batter. Only half of it was broccoli. It was good, but not what I expected. My family parked it at a local bar that's on the main road with the festival. Because it's fall festival, you can bring in festival food but not drinks (pretty sure that's illegal because they don't know what's in it). I had a glass of wine with my festival food. After some time, MMT and I went back out to the festival and I bought some buffalo jerky. I was expecting "home made, we smoked it ourselves" jerky, but this was "convenience store slim jim serving" jerky. It was good though, and I saved 1 for the trip home. After a little while longer and finishing my glass of wine, I went out to get nachos, and those were good too. I wanted to get Potato Ribbons, which is basically a REALLY large potato chip (a spiral cut potato). Unfortunately everyone was out, so I settled for nachos. Oh, I also saw a broken hypodermic needle on the ground while out getting my nachos. Alllrighty then.
Day 3
The final day. We pack up our stuff, said our goodbyes, piled into the van, and head to our next stop. We stop close where J-man lives, and had lunch with him. I had a steak with broccoli, because I needed something not fried and healthy. After our lunch we went back to the awesome motel. On the ride there I watched Popeye Volume 2 Disc 1. Since my longest friend lives in the same city, we went out for a beer and pizza. It was REALLY fun catching up. He told me about this videogame store that's in the city, and how it has everything and he was considering getting an SP because he needs one when out traveling with hockey. When I got up from the table I felt a little wobbley, lol. After I got back to the hotel, I had the joy of listening to my grandpa complain about how big of a scum bag Trump is (like Clinton is any better).
Day 4
We ate breakfast and I "tetrised" the van. Our plan was to get going before 9AM (which means I would miss the videogame store), but because old people take a while to get moving, we made it to the videogame store right as they opened at 10AM. My aunt and I enjoyed looking around at everything, and I bought 6 games there; Shooting Gallery on sega master system, centipede and star wars episode on on PS1, Ratchet and Clank Size Matters on PSP, and Bloodrayne and George of the Jungle for PS2. Funny enough, when I tested Bloodrayne on my childhood PS2 it didn't work. However, when I tried it on one of my other PS2s it worked. We drove for hours. I watched classic popeye theatrical shorts, and later the first episode of firefly. Just a ride home. Later that night I needed to get away and do my own thing. Lucky for me Batman Return of the Caped Crusader was playing for that night only. Listen to my review here.
Well that was my trip. It was a fun time. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
