Tuesday, September 3, 2013

labor daze.

three day weekends are the best. the only thing better than three day weekends are 7 day weekends. those pretty much happen... i don’t know... never so i’ll take what i can get. long weekends are best spent relaxing, napping, eating and full of movies. you have nothing to do and all day to do it.
yeah this three day weekend was not so much all that. we all had monday off of work (hence labor day) so instead of being responsible adults and resting our ever-working bodies, we decided to act all 18 again and have a complete #yolo weekend running nonstop. planning this a few weeks ago seemed like a piece of cake for my 24 year old body, but this morning at work, i quickly figured out that was not the case. however, it was a blast and i’m glad we did it. read on to find out why.
friday at 5pm is a special time for me. i can take off my work hat and hang it up for a few days, let down my hair and let down my guard. i’m free to be me.
after swinging by and picking up this lovely lady below and a few other friends, we were en route to raleigh, nc. lee graduated from nc state university and is a pretty big fan. myself, being a tarheel fan (GO HEELS), really isn’t huge on the fact that we clash there but what are you gonna do? state was playing louisiana tech on saturday and we knew a few people going to the game aka tailgating so we figured we’d join.
{francesca.}
saturday we opened a brew at 7:30am. idiots. i know we are. but when it’s game day, it’s game day and if you’re a football lover, you know there’s no abnormal time for tailgating. catching up with longtime friends, making new ones, a couple games of cornhole, a few beers, and me running to a car tire later, we were ready to get into the game.
{corey & i.}
{lee & i.}
{the whole gang.}
the stadium looked something like the red sea, if you will, with all the die-hard fans dressed head to toe in the school's dominant color. the football field was buzzing as this was the season opener. state crushed louisiana 40-14 by the end of the game, but we left a little after half time because it was 754  degrees and nc state had a substantial lead. i’ll pull for them, but i’ll admit i’m excited to be on the opposing side when state takes on my unc tarheels on november 2nd.
{carter-finley stadium.}
later that night, we decided to be dummies part two and go out for the evening. after a successful nap and shower, we all gained our second wind which lead to a little bit of fireball, shag dancing, and some n’sync serenading. seeing all the old friends in raleigh that i got to see was pretty special too.
{being serenaded.}
{taylor, me, audrey, hannah at c. grace in raleigh.}
sunday morning, we crawled out of bed (aka had to drag each other out because the score ended with fireball: 1 ; us: 0) at around 9am to make the two hour drive down to wilmington to freeman park. it’s a car accessible camping beach complete with miles of soft sand and porta-johns. i think i tend to mention the porta-johns to everyone because if you’re a girl, you get it. hanging out on the other side of the dunes isn’t fun – if you know what i mean.

{our home for the night.}
so we set up camp. yes i camped. aka slept on the beach. aka no air condition. aka sand crabs. aka 90 degrees. aka your hair will look terrible after drying in ocean salty water after dodging waves and swimming in it all day. however it’s nothing that a beer and a braid can’t fix.
we spent the evening laughing around a campfire and chomping down on some papa john’s pizza that freakin’ delivered to us on the sand. i found this fascinating. there were about 8 of us out there camping so we figured 5 pizzas should do the trick. it was a great trip/long weekend exploring north carolina with my pals, and even though, we got minimal sleep, i would definitely do it again.
..........except i would take out the one minor detail where we woke up on monday morning at 4:30am to a monsoon/lightning/hurricane combo that we failed to catch on the weather radar and we forgot the top of our tent so it was all see-through mesh and we got soaking wet and left at 5:30am to drive four hours back to charlotte. i’d take that little excerpt out. yeah definitely would. totally. 100%.

xo,
-A