Celebration

Yesterday was the long awaited Celebration on the Grand here in GR. Last year my class and I all went to Britts house after school then downtown for the fireworks. This year was supposed to be the same, but we were going to go the Heather's house instead as of Wednesday. On Thursday we were going to go to Ang's instead. By Friday morning half were going to Heather's, half to Ang's. Friday afternoon came around, three people to Ang's, two to Heathers, 6 to Brent's, 4 to John's, and the rest to their own houses in acute frustration. I was one of the accute frusteration cases. I arrived home late, having missed my bus due to the Chemistry class's fieldtip to Grand Haven's GVSU water quality boat thing running half an hour past the end of the day. I called about 5 different phones getting about 500 different answers as to what we should do. Finally I decided to go to John's house and go from there. I got in my beaaaaaaaaaautiful grey van and did just that, arriving without a problem.

Once there it was decided that we should all meet at once place for supper and then drive down together. This was an acceptable plan, and after conferring with my better 1/4's, we decided to go to our preferred set of fast food places, the MickyD's/Arby's/Adobe on Leonard. We called everyone and told them to meet us there at 6:30 and that we would leave for downtown at 7:15. This plan was carried out to a T...or as close to at T as 17 teenages can manage.

My mothers parting words to me were no groups of kids riding with you, and make sure you park at the Kendal place. I left Arby's with 3 passengers...not large group, right? I was the last one out of the parking lot, my first signal that something was not as it should be. I had specifically asked for at least one car to stay behind me in case of seperation. This request was apparently too much to hope for. As we drove, everyone made it through a crutial light...except me. By the time I got through the light the rest of the group was nowhere to be seen. Christie, my official navigator, told me she had thought they got on the highway, and so I did too. By the time I realized there was a detour on the exit I wanted, I also realized to get to the Pearl Street exit one must cross 5 lanes of traffic and ignore the sign that expressly forbids such an action. We got off the Market street exit instead, and frantially called John's phone, inquiring WHERE they might be.

It turns out that they had never gotten onto the highway!! This sent me into a panic. The next 15-ish minutes were quite traumatic for everyone invoved. The reason my mom didn't want me to park anywhere but the Kendall building was so I wouldn't have to navigate through the various one way and many laned and chaotic downtown GR streets. That is exactly what ended up happening. John told us to get on Michigan Street...ok, we did this. We went around a couple blocks searching for the next cross street. In our search we neglected to pay attention the the proper lane, and ended up turning right onto a street from the left turn lane...or something like that. In anycase it was hightly illegal and seemingly very dangerous. Well, guess what. as we were going UP Michigan street, everyone else was going DOWN it!! This resulted in us going on a wild goosechase.

The phone was handed to Sarah by now, who was better at explaining directions then John was. Now we had to figure out a way to turn around or at least figure out where on EARTH we were. We did this, pulling into a tiny lot to regroup. Next to us was a man in a car who looked a LOT like the cartoon Gollum in the Hobbit movie we watched last year in classic lit. He was pale as anything and incredibly skinny and generally scary looking. Anyway, so we figured out where we were going kind of, but not exactly. I was rather upset at this point, and then I noticed we were parked next to an "adult movie theater".

After nearly hitting a family with a stroller, I managed to pull out of the lot and get back to where I needed to be. Unfortunately the road I was supposed to turn onto was one way and I was totally going in the wrong direction and in the!! This seemed rather unsafe to me as you might imagine, and I refused to turn. I went through the intersection and turned into one of those ramp parking things. Turns out trying to turn around in one is VERY hard, I wouldn't recommend it personally. Finally we got to the right street and continued on until 6th street, where we found Sarah, the only person who I wasn't mad at by that point, on the corner by herself waiting to direct us to the Kendall building. Upon reaching the building I was more than releaved, let me tell ya!!

We set off for the Pearl Street bridge where all the cool people, including the whole Plymouth group and supposedly Janna and the rest of the Jurries and the Sikmas and whoever else from that group. It's a bit of a hike from the Kendall building, but we got there eventually. We reconnected with a group of guys we'd lost way back at skool. One of them told me that Gordon was there with the Sikma brothers. I was really excited, as I'd been waiting to meet John and Pete for awhile.

What I forgot to consider is the mild impossibility of finding someone you really want to find at Celebration. After walking back and forth a few times I gave up, figuring I'd find them eventually. Once one has reached the bridge there is the issue of finding a seat. Since we were all standing around talking at that point no one was really doing this. I considered it, and then suddenly Gordon appeared, John and Pete in tow. It was really cool to see 'em in the flesh, not singing Good Night Ladies or with their harems. They mingled well with the Plymouth-ites I think. Di, being her loud and slightly overbearing self, did a wonderful job talking to them. We love her anyway though. Then out of nowhere came James. It was also good to see him, and he recognized me right away, which was cool too. After Di almost killed his phone he left, but not without taking a picture of her, with me looking dreadful in the background. A few of us stood in the middle of the bridge for awhile talking. Pete left presently, citing the friendlessness of a friend of his back at his blanket. John hung around with another friend of his, Joshua, who I didn't know at all. I think John and Pete all got along pretty well with us crazy plymouth-ites. Hopefully they didn't get too scared:-)

The night was a lot of fun. Despite the traumatic driving experience, the crazy figureing out what we were going to do and where we were going to go, and all that it was definently a sucess. The fireworks were colorful and abundant. The grand finale made the bridge vibrate like crazy, it was awesome!! It was really cool to meet some of the blog people, thought I would have liked to meet the Jurries. Some other time. I made it home in one piece, thankfully. And now that I've spent like 4 hours getting this done I'd better just post it!!