Reminders

  

 So the Girls' Weekend to Fayetteville was awesome, of course.  We spent all day Friday just catching up with each other, playing cards, munching, and hanging out.  We had to make a Sonic run, of course - our friend who lives in Oregon has to have a Sonic run because the closest one to her house is nearly two hours away.  So her vanilla diet coke runs are few and far between, and our Sonic runs are tradition. 

 

 Saturday we actually managed to get ourselves out of the house at a reasonable hour - mainly with the siren call of HUGO'S!  If you are at all familiar with Fayetteville, you have to be familiar with Hugos, home of the Derek's special sandwich (one of the best damn grilled chicken sandwiches you can get anywhere).  Their fries are great hangover food, and the laid back, below street level atmosphere rocks.  These things are all well and good, but the real reason to go - Grasshopper Crepes. 

Holy cow guys, these things are soooo good.  Yummy crepes stuffed with mint chocolate chip ice cream and oreos, covered with more mint chocolate chip ice cream and chocolate sauce.  We were all completely full after lunch, but obviously that did nothing to impair our ability to make those bad boys disappear.  Awesomeness. 

 

  

We spent Saturday afternoon before the concert at Wilson park, a park about half a mile off the U of A campus.  We met up with some good friends from our college years, and watched everyone's kids run around with the disbelief that comes when you realize time isn't standing still.  It's bittersweet to mark time with old friends, you know?  It's always so much fun to catch up on what everyone is doing, but at the same time, we're starting to think in terms of our kids going to college down the road, and high school reunions with too many years in front of those words.  At the same time, we've turned into those older folks you used to see walking down memory lane  I used to watch them, being glad I wasn't there yet.  Heh.

Saturday night was the alleged reason for our Girls' Trip.  We went to see the Black Crowes at - get this - the Northwest Arkansas Amphitheater.  When we were buying tickets, we all somehow failed to see the tagalong line "at the Northwest Arkansas Mall."  It was a tent.  In the mall parking lot. That was when we realized why the tickets had been so cheap - you could get yourself a pair of Dockers at JC Pennys and see a show, all at the same time!

Of course, the show wasn't the main goal of the trip - they could have canceled the show and we would have all been just as happy; it was just an excuse to get together.  And honestly, the concert itself was pretty damn good.  I thought the acoustics were fine, and the Crowes played for nearly 3 hours - awesome, awesome show.  There was still some irony in the fact one of us flew from the Oregon, one from the North Carolina, and one drove from the Alabama, for what was essentially a mall parking lot concert.  

The details of that night shall remain confidential; however, there might have been one or two folks who rolled down a grassy hill just for the hell of it in the middle of all the exiting concert traffic.  I'm not sure they needing the rolling for the world to be spinning, but whatever.  It was a blast.  I get bogged down in real life a lot and forget to be grateful for the many things I have. Sometimes I think I forget how to feel happy.  This weekend, and these girls, are a reminder of that feeling.  I'm incredibly fortunate.