My Day with Chipper

Love is old friends remembering your crazy obsessions and including you in the fun.

iT's been a long, exhausting week to say the least. I got a message a couple of weeks back from Kala (her mom was my 2nd grade teacher, her dad was my little league coach, and we practically grew up together sharing 2 crushes... one was her teacher's aid, Jerry and the other, Chipper Jones) to tell me that she was going with a lady she knows to a Braves Exhibition game to meet the Braves. Guess which Brave was going to be there... Chipper! And since the lady said she had another pass to invite a 3rd person, Kala thought of me. How cool is that?! SO, I loaded up the car at 6:30am and headed to Atlanta, by myself. I followed K and Patricia for most of the way, but once we hit Spaghetti Junction, K whipped over 5 lanes of traffic and I was lost. IN Downtown Atlanta. By myself. It took me 3 tries to FINALLY get on I-85. I was a nervous wreck. However, once I finally made it to the Ballpark, all stress left. I got to go on the field and meet the Braves. Not just one. ALL of them. Bobby Cox, Chipper Jones, Brian McCann, Mattie Diaz, Martin Prado, Jason Heyward... you get the picture. It was a lifelong dream come true. Then, we were on the front row for warm ups, about the 8th row for some of the game, and then after a brief shower, the people on the front row left and we ended up RIGHT BEHIND the dugout. This is a Braves Junkie's Dream Come True. You have no idea. I was planning on being calm, cool and collected, but that only lasted about 2 seconds. I then had to navigate out of Atlanta. Again by myself. IN the pouring down rain. The stress returned. I got off at the first exit to get gas. I had no idea this was the ghetto. I couldn't get anybody to answer the phone so they'd at least know where to look for my body. High tailed it out of there. The GPS took me off the interstate and through Piedmont. Again, I thought I was going to die. There were no houses, cars or lights for miles and miles and miles. AND for added fun, since my SIM card died, I had NO phone numbers. NO being I didn't have Coach Holladay's who lives in Oxford and would've been closest to come to my rescue. Didn't much matter. In the middle of utter darkness, there's no cell signals. Finally made it back to the wonderful world of Muscle Shoals around 1 am-ish. It was an adventure, but totally worth it. I have some awesome pics of Chip and memories that will last forever. :0)