Adventure Is a Good Thing to Call It....

Our crazy adventure to Atlanta has ended, and it was totally awesome and totally worth it.

We left on tuesday afternoon, after Jessica turned in her paper. We loaded the car with all of our stuff, which included clothes, blankets and food. 

Our first stop was actually at a gas station right down the street to fill up with gas and buy a bag of ice to put in the cooler.

After that we hit the road, starting off a 7 and a half hour drive up to Atlanta, GA.

The car ride was pretty adventureless, we stopped three times, once for dinner and gas and the other two times just to get out and stretch.

At the rest stop 

 I slept a little, maybe an hour, and watched TV shows on my iPod. We also listened to music, mostly the radio, and talked. Overall it was a smooth ride. When we got close to Emory we contacted the president of the Delta Zeta chapter, Alex, and told her we were close. She told us where to park, and after circling a few times we parked successfully and walked up the hill to Greek Row. We arrived around 10 o'clock. The Emory campus was gorgeous. It feel so much more northern than florida and we were only one state up. Their Greek Row was huge and beautiful, it made me wish that we had a house. 

Alex was waiting to let us into the house. The Theta house was not standing individually, it was apartment style, attached to other Greek houses all in a row. They have chapters ΔΔΔ, ΣΔΤ, and ΑΚΑ. Those are the only ones I remember, or that I recognized. The inside of the Theta house was way bigger than it looked from the outside, and it was so cutely decorated. 

After talking to Alex and a few of the other girls for a while we walked back to the car, got our luggage, and got ready for bed. There were four brown couches in the living room, which you can see in the above picture. They were huge and comfortable, and perfect to sleep on. It was either that or two of us slept on a futon that they had upstairs, one on the air mattress, and one on the couch by themselves. Since there were four couches we decided it would be best to stick together. We unpacked our toiletries, changed into our pajamas, and settled into the couches. By then it was only 11 o'clock. We were all dead tired and were planning on getting up early so we were ready for bed. 

Unfortunately for us, 11 o'clock was extremely early for the rest of the girls in the house and people continued to walk through the living room and in and out the door for a while after we settled down. It was extremely amusing because most of the girls didn't know that we were there so they would make it half way across the room before noticing us and questioning what was going on. Eventually we decided that it was best to just pretend to be asleep. 

But sleep did not come quickly at all because of the light from the kitchen and because I couldn't calm my heart rate. Every time a door would open I would jump so high and my heart would race. Luckily, I brought a book and read almost 50 pages of it before I was able to fall asleep. 

We set an alarm at 8 the next morning, and when Jess shook me awake I did not feel like I had gotten a good nights sleep. We got ready for the day, which was cold and rainy. The weather said that it was barely going to hit 60 and the temperature ended up never breaking 50. It was so cold, and we were not prepared for that. 

Our plan for the day was to spend the morning site seeing around Covington, GA. Covington is where many T.V shows have been filmed. It has the nickname "The Hollywood of the South." Currently it is known for being the site of the sets for the T.V show The Vampire Diaries. 

Kellie, Kelicy, and Jessica love that show and so it was pretty exciting to find the locations that they used for filming. The major place to see was The Lockwood Mansion. One of the characters, Tyler Lockwood, lives there on the show. In reality it is owned by two gay guys, Ben and Ralph. who are rolling in money because they own a strip mall somewhere in Georgia. 

The addresses of the filming locations are posted on IMDB so it was fairly easy to find once we got into Covington. It was easy to find not only because we had the address but because it was a HUGE mansion. 

The property was gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. The gate to the property was open because they were setting up for filming later that night. There was a security officer who was posted across the street, she was really nice and gave us some great tips. We knew from a tweet that one of the main actors posted earlier that morning that they had been filming mostly at night. The security officer told us that the day before they had started around 3 o'clock so she was expecting them to do the same again. We told her that that was wonderful news and we would stop back by later to check it out and see if we would be able to spot any of the actors.

It was only 11ish so we headed towards the center of town to find some more of the filming locations. We found Mystic Grill fairly quickly, it was a large, corner building that was painted green.

On the show  it is a dining place that the characters frequent but in actuality it is just an exterior. The building is actually a working accountants office. The only way to tell is a small white sign that is posted out side the door. We also found the courthouse that is used as an exterior and, across from both of these places there is a park that they also film in frequently. We spent a fair amount of time at all of these places. The roommates discussed the different things on the show that had happened at each location, I marveled at how excited they were. I actually thought it was exciting too, I love film and television and seeing an actual set was really cool. 

Eventually we found ourselves sitting on the steps of the courthouse in the cold. We realized that we needed a hot beverage of some kind. The lady in the courthouse told us that there was a cafe right down the street. 

We went in, sat down, and after seeing the menu decided that we needed lunch too. We ordered soup, sandwiches, hot chocolate and enjoyed the warmth of being inside. We sat there for a while, killing time before 3 rolled around.

The next place we went was this cute little cake shop that was right across from the cafe. I wanted to go there because the cakes in the window were so pretty.

I made everyone else go in with me to look at all of the pretty cakes and cupcakes. I decided I needed to own and eat one. I bought a strawberry cupcake for only $1.60.

It is so pretty!! 

Not only was it so pretty and sparkly, but it tasted really good. You know those wafers with the cream inside that come in strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla? It tasted exactly like the strawberry one of those. It was so good, I wish I had bought two. 

We went back to the mansion and the security guard told us that they probably won't  be there until 5. Someone had come by and she asked them if they were going to be there at 3 and he said that they were running late. We were really disappointed because we wanted to see some actors. But then we realized that because they filmed overnight they would be in full swing right when we would get out of the Tyler Ward concert. So, the new plan was to come back to Covington after the concert and then drive home directly after that. 

The security guard told us that fans had told her that if you walk around the back of the property you can generally get a good peak at what they are doing. Turns out she was right. 

 This is the back of the set. When we first saw it, we could not figure out what it was. 

 But when we walked around to the other side we got to see the front. You can tell that it is a stage. 

Walking around was a lot of fun, I got a lot of good pictures of the backyard of the house which included a pond, some swans, a bench that a lot of scenes have been filmed on, and a whole lot of other set pieces that looked awesome. 

This is a location cone. How awesome. 

After our adventurous walk around the block we were talking to the security guard again when another car pulled up. Two guys got out of it and walked towards us. One of them was saying something but we could not understand what it was. It took us all a while to figure out that he were speaking french. He asked if this was from The Vampire Diaries, and we told them it was. Then he asked if they would go in, and we told them no. Then he told us it was for is 13 year old daughter. Then, all of a sudden he motioned for us to get together to take a picture of us. It was really random and we don't know why he wanted a picture of us but we are not in his memories forever. 

After that incident we needed to head back to Emory to get ready for the concert and get the rest of our stuff. When we got back we all changed, tried to do something with our hair without showering, and packed up all of our stuff. We were just about to leave when Alex got back.  I asked her to show us their chapter room before we left since we don't have one, and we ended up talking to her about sorority stuff for longer than we thought. It was awesome to learn about Theta from someone who has been in an already established and smoothly running chapter. 

We talked for longer than we should have and didn't leave until 5. We needed to be there by 5:45 at the latest and it was a 20 minute drive. It should have worked out perfectly except for the fact that we hit traffic in the middle of the city. We still had half a mile to go and time was short so we decided to park in a parking lot that was closest to us. By the time we parked and got out of the car we only have five minutes to walk half a mile. We ran. Almost the entire way. We were afraid that we were going to be late. We made it there a minute or two late.

 The venue. 

We got in the VIP line and were told by one of the ladies in front of us that we had until 6:30 before we went in. But very shortly Tyler's manager came out and started to check off names. It was then that we discussed how we should go in with the gift that we made for him. 

 Waiting in line. 

Our gift was pretty awesome. I cut his name out of poster board and then we wrote things about him all over them in a collage. We wrote song names and people and places and events. It turned out really cool. We took turns writing on it so that there would be different handwritings on it. 

 I love the way it came out. 

 This one is my favorite. I drew that superman symbol free hand. 

We thought it would be cute if we each went in holding a few letters so that when we stood together it would spell it out. I went to hand out the letters and realized that I was missing an R. It was horrible, we had left it in the car a half a mile away. We debated, for a little bit, whether or not we should go back and get it. We didn't want to mail it, and we didn't want to give it to him with out the R. We had worked so hard on it, we wanted it to be perfect.

We decided to go back, Kelicy and I would run back and get the letter. We took only the keys and my phone. We took off running down the street, I am not a good runner but I am very proud of the fact that I ran the entire way. Kellie was texting me the whole time, she told me that they had kicked everyone out and locked the door so when we got back we had to knock and the guy would let us in. Kelicy was running so much farther ahead than me so I gave her the keys so that she would get there first. By the time I had gotten to the corner, almost to the parking lot, Kellie had told me that they were at the end of the line with three groups ahead of them. I was pretty sure that it was hopeless. By the time I got to the car Kelicy had just found the letter under the seat. I told her that is seemed hopeless but we decided to go for it anyway. She took the letter, because she ran faster and I would be ok if I didn't make it.

On the way back we cut through a park, and got many weird looks. I cut through a group of people who were getting on the bus that just pulled up and they all looked at me like I was nuts. We had to cross two streets to get to the venue and so when I got close I cut through the traffic to get to the other side and by the time I had gotten all the way across the light had changed so I was able to immediately cross the other direction. It was very lucky because Kelicy ended up getting stuck waiting to cross the street.

I ran up to the door that we originally went in but Jessica was there, and mimed to me to knock on the main door. I cut through the crowd of people who were waiting to get into the concert and knocked on the large red door. All of the people were giving me the 'what do you think you are doing, you can't go in there' look. I bet their faces were even funnier when the guy opened the door and let me in. I told him that Kelicy was just waiting for the light to change and he told me not to worry, he saw her. Once she got there we were able to go back to where we originally had waited to meet back up with Kellie and Jessica.

We made it!! I definitely think that it was worth it to run all the way back. We made it in plenty of time, and even though I was completely out of breath and sweaty, Tyler loved his gift so much that it made it completely worth it.

He was so nice, and was a great hugger. He pulled me so close to him when we took this picture. 

 He even let us kite him! Multiple times, we have many pictures. 

It was amazing, so worth it. We also got t-shirts, VIP vinyl passes and signed posters. It was great to talk to him, he was so cool and he loved the thing that we made for him. We were brought back into where we started and we had to wait about 15 or 20 minutes before they let everyone who had the VIP passes back into the venue to get a spot before they let everyone else in. 

We had made some friends while waiting and so we put our stuff with theirs in the back so that we wouldn't have to hang on to it and risk it getting ruined during the concert. Then, we got our spots front row and settled in to wait until the concert started. We had about 45 minutes. 

Waiting infront of the stage. 

And the concert  begins! 

 The opening act, Ben D. He was really good, and really chill. 

Then it was time for Tyler! 

Montage of concert pictures: 

When the concert was over we left immediately so that we could drive back to Covington.

 Outside of the venue after the concert. 

We got to Covington in only 30 minutes and parked on a side street that we discovered earlier. We bundled up and walked back toward the front of the mansion. There was a new security guard standing out front who was not as talkative as the other one had been. There didn't seem to be anything going on in the front of the house so we walked to the right, around the side, down the side street that we had took pictures on earlier. Down there there as a lot of activity. There were trucks driving around everywhere and people walking everywhere.

We talked to a guy who was sitting in a school bus waiting for extras to come out and be driven back to base. He told us that people drive by in vans all the time, and that standing on the corner up by the house generally works pretty well. While we were talking to him we got yelled at  by three different people in the span of a minute because we were talking to loud and we could be disrupting filming. 

We walked back up to the house and stood there for a few minutes but nothing was happening so we paced back down to the side street. 

We managed to befriend another security guard. She was really nice and completely honest. She told us that just a few minutes ago Ian Somerhalder had just gotten out of a car and walked into the set. Basically if we had stayed down there we would have seen him. We stood right near his car and stayed there. We then made friends with one of the van drivers and another bus driver. They tried to cryptically tell us about his car but we told him we already knew that. He did give us the hint that Ian was not filming any scenes that night. We concluded from that that he must be there only for a quick visit and will be coming back soon. We also discovered that it benefited us to tell people that we had driven hours to get there to see them. 

Eventually, the finished filming the scene and all of the extras started filing out and getting on the busses.  All of a sudden a guy broke away from the crowd and walked right in front of us. One of us said "Who is that" pretty much as a rhetorical question but someone answered, "That's Ian."

We all said Ian and he looked over at us and said "Hey Kiddos." He was limping because he tore his ACL so we told him we hoped he would get better quickly. We tried to tell him that we were from Tampa, FL but right then the bus started to move and pulled out right in between us. Because of the bus he couldn't hear us so we started to yell and because if that we got yelled at by the security guard who told us to move farther up. 

There was a large group of fans that had been standing farther up and they had probably heard us yelling because they walked down and almost swarmed his car. He drove just up the street, picked up Nina, and then passed back by us.

This is a picture of Ian's car. It is really hard to see but to the left is the grill of the car. 

It took us a while to process the fact that we had just talked to Ian Somerhalden and then we were freaking out. We decided that if we left right then the trip would have been worth it. 

We did leave fairly soon after that, we talked to the security guard for a while longer and left around midnight. We planned to drive through the night, and get back around 7:30 or 8 in the morning. But, we needed food first because none of us had eaten dinner. Before the concert we had been too exited to eat anything. We drove about 45 minutes until we got to the highway and found a McDonalds to get food. We were on the highway by 1. I slept while Kelicy drove and then, at 5 when we stopped for gas, we switched and I drove. 

 On the road, at 5:30. 

The sun rising. 

The ride back was pretty calm too, I just listened to the radio while everyone dozed. We made it back to Tampa by 7:30 but we hit a little rush hour traffic so we got back on campus at 8:00. 

The sunrise was beautiful and it was a great end to a great trip. It was crazy to think that we were up for 24 hours straight. It was the most jam packed 24 of my life. I can't believe that we did all of this within a span of 24 hours. It was certainly a great adventure.