At long last I am here to wrap up my telling of my experience.  I hung out w/ Daysi Friday and we had fun as always.  Being with her reminded me of this blog and my failure to complete it.

So- after the race ended we had to fight our way back to our car.  We had parked on the opposite side of the track (as I think I explained before) so we were walking against the flow of everyone else for a while.  It was wild- I felt like a salmon swimming up stream to spawn.  The people were hurling themselves toward us like snowflakes on a windshield.  The fans around us were whooping and hollering, badgering and high fiving strangers.  Many were drunk- most on alcohol some on happiness.  People on the streets far outnumbered cars.  I was tickled to see a line of hungry people on foot in a Checkers Drive-Thru.  We fought our way back to the shuttle bus staging area and joined the throng of people in the cattle stalls.  We shuffled along in a little clump, clutching each others sleeves and hands and trying to stay together.  Long story, short we made our way back to my car and surprisingly got on the road in very short order.  When we had gotten some distance behind us, we went to a Burger King.  We were tired, starving, wind-burned and giddy.  I know our fellow diners thought Daysi and I were drunk and we were stone cold sober.  Everything was funny to us, especially my chicken fries for reasons even we can't explain today.  David just laughed at us.  As we were leaving the parking lot, I tried to make a left turn out and Daysi said "Uh.  There's a median there, Ter" so I had to do my fastest three point turn EVER.  We were howling with laughter.  That night we had a reservation at a hotel outside of Gainesville.  David promptly fell asleep in the backseat as Daysi and I continued to giggle and carry on like fools.  We were doing a full-on routine of our bit about being hookers- worrying that our "corna" may have been taken over by some new "ho's" and planning how we would re-gain control.  We are nuts.  The later it got, we both were trying in vain to get our boyfriends on the phone but had no signal.  When we finally did get through it was out of a sense of "should call" than a want to call because for that one night we had all we needed right there in that car.  Our "sponsor" was snoring in the backseat and we had each other.  Two ho's from the ATL and our pimp.     

At the hotel, as soon as we actually relaxed we were all 3 exhausted.  We were all getting along very well though.  Even David.  The end was in sight and we were parting ways in the morning.  David would head south to his home and Daysi and I would head back to Atlanta.  We turned out the lights and set a "sleep timer" on the television.  Daysi asked me to play with her hair which is long, straight and silky and I drifted to sleep after running my fingers through it for a while.  I wasn't going to include this detail, but it is one that I will cherish, so screw anyone who wants to think it weird.  Any girl who reads this and has a sister knows the tradition of "will you play with my hair?"

It's just one of those things.  A sister thing.

As I make plans for this year's running of the Daytona 500- a part of me says "been there, done that" and is glad I will be watching from home this year.  My sister will be with me, my Dad might watch it at his house,  Daysi will be working and David will probably be in Miami with his girlfriend and I'll have to tell him who won later.  But it is an experience I will always have.  Hope you enjoyed re-living it with me.  Thanks for reading.