Unforgetable Trip

This past weekend Rachel & I left for Indianapolis to see a Sugarland concert we had been waiting for since February. We left Friday night in the middle of a monsoon & arrived around midnight. Bob & Jackie were sweet enough to offer their apartment so we didn't have to pay for a hotel. Thanks!!

Saturday we slept in, and then the three of us girls laid out by the pool while Bob was at work (lame). It was Rachel's first time meeting Jackie & I am happy to say the three of us got along GREAT! Somewhere in our 2 hours of laying out Jackie mentioned how it takes awhile for her to warm up to the girls that date the boys in the "group" not only to make sure they are right for them, but to see if they are really gonna be around for awhile (since Rach isn't dating anyone she got the warm welcome right away, lol). I then asked if she was cold to me at first, which she laughed at and said, "oh yeah!" Good thing I am naive and didn't really notice. Lucky for us that didn't last too long, and I now consider her one of my good friends that I know I can trust and talk to about anything.

Well, people usually don't drive 5 hours to see a concert when the night before you can see the same concert 45 minutes away. Let me just say...Rockford's date for the Sugarland concert was released wayyyyy after we had already purchased our tickets for the Indy show. So here we are in another state, another time zone & the day has finally arrived.

As the paragraph up a couple stated, we laid out on Saturday. I got burnt, which hasn't happened since the beginning of summer. Jackie & I are new owners of iPhones, and we both were checking the weather constantly. It said 30-40% chance of rain at night, but we all got ready and drove to the Indiana State Fair in the hopes of not getting too drenched in rain.

First things first, we walked along fair food row and ate. Bob, Jackie, Rach, and myself all wanted a funnel cake, but decided we would wait until after the concert. Our plan was to meet at the Croc (tHom) stand after the concert was over and then finish the night with our healthy snack. Well, needless to say plans changed and that never happened.

Saturday, August 13, 2011 will be a memory in my head forever. Here is a picture of the stage before all the chaos.

I'm sure you all have seen the video of the stage collapse & heard the timeline of events, but I am going to give one more side to it.

I am happy to be safe and well as I type this, but am still sad the concert didn't happen as selfish as that may be (it's honest). So when we got to our seats, I saw the storm clouds coming in and checked my phone one more time and hoped the storm would go north of us and all we would have is some rain, but that did not happen. My camera is usually attached at my hip so of course I started taking pictures of the clouds. I thought back to my days in Atmospheric Sciences, Severe & Hazardous Weather and couldn't help but be amazed by the clouds and think Charlie would really like to be seeing this right now.


Within 5 minutes everything changed. We went from waiting for Sugarland to come on to at least attempt to start the show to running to a building in the fears of a tornado. As soon as the wind burst came in, I turned my head towards the stage not because I thought something was going to happen, but because the dust was flying from the left and I wanted to look the other way. What I saw is something that will forever be engraved in my mind. Rach & I stood there and watched as the top of the stage started to fall to the right, and it paused for what seemed forever. I thought oh my, let's hope it just stops there and goes back to the left to settle back into it's home, and at that moment it left its paused position and came out onto the "Sugarpit". People were running and then they weren't.

Rach doesn't like storms, and she turned to me and said "Britt, people just got really hurt" and my response was "I know, I love you, (in my head I asked God to keep us safe) let's go". I grabbed her hand, and instead of trying to get to the isle like everyone else we started to climb up the bleachers. A very nice man helped us up and over the bar once we got to the landing and we walked very quickly past the Croc (tHom) tent and into a brick building to take cover from the storm. My first thought at that moment with the quick change in weather and strong enough winds to bring down a concert stage was that we were in a tornado. It's not that I wasn't worried about the people that got injured, and as we later learned lost their lives, but you go into survival mode. I am happy that I could be the strong person that my best friend needed & we made it out unharmed.

After being in the building for 15 minutes and a dozen a failed phone calls because the towers were so clogged with calls, Rach & I decided to make a lap to try and find Bob & Jackie. We were in different sections of the grand stands, and they were directing us to 3 different buildings so I was a little worried we wouldn't be able to find each other in the midst of a tragedy. Luckily, we were in the same building and found each other within minutes. We began to walk from building to building to get to our gate, and since there wasn't going to be a concert I decided to make it into a petting zoo trip. I mean it's the Indiana State Fair, which means there were tons of pretty horses, pigs, cows, and other farm animals that greeted us along the way.

Once we escaped the craziness of the fair, we went back to Bob & Jackie's apartment after picking up some beer on the way back. We decided to play a drinking game to try to salvage some of the trip. Drinking Made Easy is a TV show that is just what it sounds like...a drinking game made easy. I hope I can find it either through Comcast or DirecTV.

Our weekend came to an end, and we made the 5 hour drive home. Again, a little disappointed with no concert, but thanking God for keeping the four of us safe. Please pray for the 5 lives that were lost, their families as they grieve, and the 45+ that were injured, and the people that a lot have overlooked - Sugarland.