New Jersey-the first time around

We got a call over the weekend while in Stroudsburg, that one of the Camfel guys had hurt his foot and was told by the doctor to stay off of it for a week. Since we were scheduled to have most of the week off, Karen told us we would be heading to New Jersey to help them out. We were not excited about this to say the least, but on Sunday night we headed to Cherry Hill NJ to meet them. We didn't have any problems getting to New Jersey, but we didn't have actual directions to the hotel we were staying at, just to Cherry Hill. We followed the directions and then decided to call the hotel to ask how to get there. Of course, the desk clerk had no idea how to get to their location. Seriously?? We needed to find somewhere else to stop and get directions, we were in luck because low and behold we turned the corner and what should our little tired eyes see...big red letters that said "The Cheesecake Factory!" Since we needed directions, we decided it would definitely be in our best interest to get them there. It made sense to us anyways. We got our cheesecake and a point in the direction of a road to check out for our hotel. The directions weren't very helpful, but well worth it! We spent the next hour driving around New Jersey trying to find our hotel. We stopped for gas 3 times, almost ran into a man trying to come pump our gas, ended up in the ghetto, ran a red light on purpose, and had a conversation about the price of cigarettes in California with an Asian man. We'll just put it simple...WE HATE NEW JERSEY! We learned a few things about NJ that night...you pretty much can't make a left hand turn anywhere in the state, you can't pump your own gas, or talk on your cell phone and drive. They even build these weird little turn around things so you can turn left. It's so strange, I don't know how people who grew up there know how to drive once they leave the state. After much confusion, we found our hotel thanks to a guy at "WaWa." It ended up being only about 9 miles from where we started! We spent Mon and Tues with Chris and Michael helping them set up and tear down their shows. It was nice getting to be with another team and being able to compare stories and share our experiences out on the road. On Wed we had to drive about 4 hours to Johnstown PA for our own show. On Thur. we headed back to NJ to help the guys out. They had a show on Friday in Delaware. We couldn't find any hotels in the budget, so we ended up spending the night in Maryland. It's pretty crazy, we were in 5 different states that day...PA, NY, NJ, MD, and DE. We had the privilege of staying at a Motel 6 that was connected to a truck stop. Yeah, you can image how nice that was, needless to say, the two of us slept in the same bed that night. It was fine though, because we only had to be there for a few hours since we had to get up early on friday. In the morning we all headed to what we like to call DULL-A-WHERE? We were very unimpressed with the state of Delaware, it's seriously like 25 miles wide and it's just blah. We were told to check out the beach, so I'm sure that was probably nice, but we figure they tell everyone to check out the beach because it's the only thing the state has going for it. We did a show at an air force base in Dover. We passed the school at first, because the guys drove right passed it following their GPS (aka Gloria) which had a tendency to lead them to places that didn't exist. When we got to the school and unloaded the van, the principal comes into the gym and asks who's in charge. Now remember we're at an air force base and this woman principal is much more intimidating than most of the men principals we've encountered so far. Michael (the country boy from Georgia/Florida) replies in his slow southern drawl, "Well Ma'am, we're all kind of in charge." She snaps back at him, "Well I need a leader! Who's going to be the leader?!" So Michael decides he'll be the leader this morning. She informs him that the assembly which is supposed to start at 9:00, needs to start at 8:15 so we need to be ready to go in 20 minutes! Since there really isn't a way to say no to this lady, we busted our butts and got the equipment up and ready by 8:15! The principal somehow forgot to inform the not so happy janitor of her changes. He was unpleasantly surprised when he heard the announcement over the loud speaker as he was pulling out the bleachers. We felt sorry for him. We did another show that afternoon in Dull-a-where. Overall, we had a good time working with Chris and Michael and we figured out why Karen would want us to go help them. It's because we're girls and someone needed to nag Michael to sit down and stay off his foot. We had a good time harassing him that week. While in Duhlawhere we got a call from our friends Meg and Sandi that they were going to be Washington DC for the weekend. We decided to drive over and met them there.

Michael the country boy