Tuesday night adventure in Race City, USA

So it begins (Part 1)
Last night started off as only slightly abnormal. Being the homebodies that we are, most are spent over a home-cooked meal and whatever is on the tv. Last night, not so much. A friend of ours turned thirty and we attended a surprise party for him at a comedy club. Surprisingly, despite my love of Comedy Central, I've never been to one. It was great, though. The comedians were hilarious. The show ended shortly before 10PM, I think "Wow, I'll actually get to bed at a reasonable time" (because I am the oldest 26 year old fogey you've ever met). There was a rumble among the fellow party attendees about going to a a local hotspot for another drink. I eye-telegraph to the spouse that, no, that's not for us, but the birthday boy prevails upon us to attend, so I relent. The main reason I wanted to go home was I was not dressed cute enough to go barhopping. Ladies, I'm sure you are with me, we all have our standard levels of appearance, and when we feel an unbalanced ratio of personal cuteness to environment it has a proportionate affect on self-esteem. So I checked my cognitive dissonance at the door and reminded myself that I don't have a job to get up and go to, plus I'm married and therefore not trolling for hotties, so what the hell.

The Rusty Rudder
The place was packed. Of course, in my Busted Tee (ok yes, my shirt was cool), frumpy sweater, frizzy un-blowdried hair, minimal makeup and GLASSES FOR HEAVENS SAKE, I was checking out the other girls way more than the boys, looking for some indication I would be called out for extreme dowdiness and chased out the door. So we hung out there for maybe fifteen minutes, listening to music so loud it was impossible to talk to each other and just kind of awkwardly looked around us (it's why I used to hate clubs). I vaguely recognized this short guy in an orange fleece, I know I'd seen him before, possibly a driver. Then birthday guy's wife, who had been mingling with some fashionable girls said "We're going to Jr's, y'all wanna to go?"

I'm sorry...say what?

"I just ran into a girlfriend of mine who used to date one of his boys. She says there's a party going on and I got the gate code."
Further bemoaning the state of my homely appearance (I even forgot to bring friggin chapstick), but also completely curious, we replied that, Hell Yes, we wanted to. We have all come upon forks in the road, opportunities we know may never come again. Frizzy hair or no, I wasn't going to let this pass by.

The drive over was long, but we were giddy with excitement. We followed the birthday boy, his wife, and coworker (let's call him Schmave) and were followed by birthday boy's dad and dad's girlfiend. We anxiously scooted behind the first car when the gate opened and proceeded to drive like, I don't know, at LEAST half a mile on a paved private driveway through rolling green hills covered in trimmed green grass and gorgeous white fencing. Being a country girl at heart, I know to appreciate nice fencing, because that junk is expensive. The drive was winding, and the property was dotted with various buildings and forked several times leading off to who-knows-what. We passed an eight-car garage, with at least half a dozen cars parked in it's own parking lot, but kept going. We passed a modest farmhouse, and kept going still. Over the river and through the woods to Dale Jr's house we go! No, we didn't actually sing that to ourselves. We are not THAT lame, yet anyways. We finally turned off in front of another modest two story house, nothing palatial mind you. There were cars lining the circular driveway and a big screen tv was on in the house, which I could see through the big picture window in front. (Despite how I tried, I could not make out what was on it).

We followed the wife's fashionably hooched out friend (she had awesome shoes I totally coveted) not in the house, but around it, into the pitch black woods. We soon saw lights through the trees a couple hundred yards down the hill. Lots of lights.