Hotlanta

So, this bus just stopped rolling and I managed to roll myself out of my bunk—only to find us parked at Disney World! I knew were were going to be here today, as the House Of Blues is in the Disney complex, but it’s still fun to see. I have been to this park twice before, once when I was 5 and once when I was in the sixth grade. I’m not going to tell anyone how many years ago that was, but it was more than 10, plus I had braces and a perm. I am old.

Anyway, last night the tour played in Atlanta at the Masquerade. I’m not 100 percent sure how I feel about the venue. It was somewhere between super rad and super creepy. But it was really, really hot. I thought Louisville had been hot the night before, as we’d been up on the open second level and all the heat from the crowd was rising. But last night, me, Erica and Kevin (FTSK merch) were all set up right on the floor. It. Was. Really. Hot.

After the show is when we had a little adventure, though. We had a fairly early bus call again (In touring world, 2 a.m. is a “fairly early” bus call), so Shawn, Monica, one of Monica’s old roommates and I decided to go to this club a few blocks away called Paris on Ponce. Shawn even made me a temporary passport that said “Rachel Is American True” in case they were going to be sticklers about getting into ol’ Par-ee. However, once we got to the building (with two Eiffel Tower replicas in the parking lot), we discovered it was closed.

(Warning: The following passage contains illegal activity in the form of trespassing. AP does not endorse trespassing.)
We had an hour and a half to burn at this point, so we ended up scaling the embankment next to the club so we could get to the top of the overpass that went over the road. Turns out it was old train tracks going across, and well, we decided we needed to shuffle across them (we didn’t trust stepping off them, since we could see down to the road through some of the cracks). Once across, we found ourselves in some sort of abandoned lot with trees and a drop off on one side, and the back of buildings on the other. We took our very own nature walk following the old railway ties, back to a second overpass that happened to be right next to where our buses were parked. We had to scale down the embankment again, ending with a brief climb down a chain link fence. Everyone made it intact and with our hats.

But that was not the end of our adventure—no, no. Apparently on Thursday nights, the Masquerade becomes an '80s Dance Party. We decided we really couldn’t leave without checking it out, so we grabbed Erica and Justin and headed over. It pretty much looked like the goth aisle in Hot Topic exploded on the dance floor—in a totally good way (it’s just been a long time since I’ve seen that much black pleather and platform shoes together in the same room). About three songs was all we could handle before the club started playing music that was definitely not from the '80s I remember. However, three good dances were enough for us, and we made it back to the bus, sleepy and ready to crash.

And now here we are, at Disney World. Today is my last full day/show on the tour. I don't like thinking about saying goodbye to everyone tomorrow, so I'm just gonna concentrate on doing my small part to help make tonight another successful show. Chris (who was out on the tour first for AP) told me that just as I was feeling comfortable, it would be time to go home. He's right, at least in part. My awesome busmates have made me comfortable from the beginning, but just in the last couple days I feel like the rest of the crew (other techs, merch peeps etc.) have figured out who I am, so it's a bummer to say goodbye now. I'm glad the last show is in Cleveland so I will get to say hello to everyone one more time before they all scatter to whatever it is they have planned next.

So, if you're one of the lucky peeps coming to the show at Disney tonight, make sure you stop by and say hello at the AP table--my mug won't be there tomorrow night! :)