The trip from Irvine to Davis lasted from about 11:30 until seven or eight. It entailed three movies, one rest stop, and one trip to McDonalds. Met a lot of the pep band people and pep/symph people that I never talked to. One of them was M, who actually remembered Schurr coming down to visit his school almost exactly one year ago. Anyhow, we finally got to that hellhole of a Motel 6 they stuck us in. They had the most interesting ashtrays. In our room it was placed bottom side up by the phone so we could see the No Smoking sticker that was on it. Oh the irony.

A group of us went to a nearby Denny's and then a number of us went to go chillax in M and J's room. I went to bed at 2:30 in the morning, which wouldn't have been so bad if we didn't have to wake up at seven the next morning. Flute J's (there were a lot of J's) alarm woke me up and we got ready to head over to Davis. We did the whole "hurry up and wait" thing, but it wasn't so bad. The parade was very informal. In fact, I didn't even have my music memorized. I was using a flute lyre I had borrowed from one of the older flutes. What a bum.

I got to meet up with Oishiri and Piyo while I was there which was awesomeness in a trip. Oishiri swiped me into the DC for brunch and Piyo swiped me some snack foods to eat during the Battle of the Bands (I mean swiped their cards). I got back to the "lake" at around two where we proceeded to take turns playing pep tunes, switching off between us, Cal, Davis, San Diego, Stanford, and Humboldt. It was...interesting. Draining but fun. We did some weird stuff. Our theme of dress was beach party, so some of us went all out. Some guy brought a huge inflatable dolphin that SD stole from us. So we stole their drummajor. The whole thing ended at around nine and after cleanup, which ended at about ten, we headed back to the hellhole to get ready for the barn party. Now this barn party was probably the only downside to this trip. It was majorly overhyped by returning members and I know I wasn't the only one who felt this way. In any case, I'm guessing that you'd probably have to had been drunk to have really enjoyed the whole party thing, and needless to say I wasn't drunk.

Anyway, towards the end nothing was really going too well and we left before the party ended. After getting back a lot of us went to go eat. Denny's is open 24 hours so yes, I wound up there again. The mood this time was quite different. That night I watched three guys swear off of alcohol (incidentally none of them had had much to drink all day) and while I don't know whether they'll hold to that or not it was quite refreshing to my dorm-fried brain.

I wound up in M and J's room again, this time until past four. S walked me back to my room where Flute J opened the door for me. We talked for a while about our first impressions since the two of us are both really new to the whole group--in fact, I'm not really in it at all. I went to bed past five thirty that night after showering and packing.

The next morning we went to go grab a quick lunch at the nearby McDonalds (*gah*) and left. And then we made a dinner stop at McDonalds (*gaaaahhhhh*) where I got chicken nuggets that I ate when I got back.

I'm don't want any more McDonalds for a really really long time.

There was actually a lot more to the trip, but I'm exhausted (I'll let you guess why) and I still need to unpack and maybe even get some studying done. It's all good.

Yet another reminder that UJ is selling a really really good cue on eBay.