Monday, July 18, 2011

DMB Night 3; Part 2

Now the pictures, setlist and the video are only half of the story. For the Sunday show, it was just The General and I. Liquid and Myra went back to Minnesota on Sunday morning. So it was just the two bulls. Once the concert started The General and I sort of got separated. This left me with all of the alcohol that I smuggled in, and of course I drank it all. My cell phone battery also died over the course of the concert. I will credit our disconnect to miscommunication and alcohol. After the show, I made my way back to the parking lot, but couldn't find The General's car. And by the time I got back to the parking lot it was pretty empty but I did not see his car. So I didn't have a lot of options. I would have called him but as I mentioned my cell phone battery was dead. I headed back towards the concert venue and found my way to the shuttles that went back and forth between the concert venue and the CTA Red Line. I was on the last shuttle heading towards the red line. When I got on the red line, I was pretty much the only one in my car. I got off the red line in downtown Chicago. So I was out of the "Cracktown" neighborhood that hosted the concert, but I was still stuck in downtown Chicago at 2 in the morning with a dead cell phone, an empty backpack, my wallet and the clothes on my back. I went over my options. There really weren't too many. I grabbed a cab to a hotel near Union Station and went straight to bed. I was up and out of the hotel by 7 in the morning. I paid nearly $25 an hour to sleep in a bed. I got an Amtrak ticket to Milwaukee and boarded the train at 8:00 a.m. It wasn't ideal, but I was headed back home. That was until the train was about 45 minutes outside of Chicago and I learned that the storm that blew through Monday morning had knocked down trees and power lines onto the train tracks. The train stopped for 3 hours waiting for the tracks to be cleared. And once we started moving again, it was at about 25 miles an hour because there was concern that there maybe other obstacles in the way. My train which was scheduled to pull into Milwaukee at 10:00 a.m. reached the station at 3:00 p.m. I think it is time that I start cleaning up my act because I have been to hell and I don't want to spend eternity there. Hell is extremely hungover on a stopped train with the sun beating down on your through the window. Originally I had placed much of the blame of my misadventures on The General, but the more that I have been able to reflect on the events of Sunday evening, the more I realize it was more my fault than his. Between the shuttle, red line, cab rides, hotel, train ticket; my inability to find The General after the concert cost me over $200. Now the question is, "Have I learned anything?" Time will tell, I am headed to see U2 this coming Friday in Minneapolis. And Labor Day weekend is two nights with Pearl Jam at Alpine Valley. Stay tuned.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That sounds horrific. Ugh. It all fell apart once the girls (ie the glue) left Chicago!
Lisa

Bubs said...

Best phone call ever!

Stegall: "Bubs, can you walk across the street and make sure Rickie is alive?"

Me: "Sure buddy."