Skeptics won't understand, it's strange from the world's point of view

**Brian Littrell - Welcome Home Tour - 11/4/2006 - Elmer S. McVety Centre - Toronto, ON, Canada**

*Part I - The Road Trip*

After seeing Brian live during his Welcome Home Tour in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I knew I had to see him again live and soon.  However, I was in college so it really needed to be during a weekend.  So it totally made sense for me to travel the 9 hours from Muncie when I saw that he would be in Toronto on a Saturday night in November....right?  It made sense to me.  You see when you have an addiction, sometimes you will just do anything to get a fix.  I wanted another Brian fix.  

By that point, Tammy and I had become pretty good e-mail friends after meeting her at the Grand Rapids show.  We talked about going to Toronto together after I had found out about the show.  I had done the last Brian concert and the Never Gone concert before that with Megan so it only made sense that she come too.  It was settled....we were going to travel across the Canada border to see an amazing man.

As the concert drew nearer, I was informed by Megan that her mother could not find her birth certificate.  At this point, one only needed a birth certificate to cross the Canadian border.  Passports were not required yet.  Megan was born in Utah so there was going to be no way for her to get a copy for the concert.  Now I had a dilemma....how was I going to find someone on such short notice to take her place?  I was lucky enough to find Megan in the first place to start going to concerts with.  I mean, I did find her in my sorority so I thought I would take a stab at possibly finding another Backstreet fan amongst my many sisters.  I sent an e-mail out to the Epsilon Sigma Alpha - Phi Apha body, including the girls who had just finished rushing the organization and were currently in their pledgeship.  I was hoping that I would get lucky there and find someone to take Megan's place.  Bingo....I got a hit!  One of the new pledges, named Tara, wrote back expressing some interest.  When she wrote back I wasn't sure offhand who she was since the fall pledge classes are usually pretty large and everyone was so new.  However, I didn't care...it was a chance to meet someone new - a fellow fan and a future sister (which did later change).  Plans were back in progress.

Interior of a Ford Ranger...not mine but not much different

In between the Grand Rapids concert and this concert, Tammy had moved from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Nashville, Tennessee.  The plans were for her to leave right after work on Friday night and drive to Muncie to meet Tara and I.  Because Tammy had been doing a great deal of traveling back and forth between Michigan and Tennessee recently, she did not want to put more miles on her car than necessary.  Tara did not have a vehicle.  I had a Ford Ranger.  Now, I am not sure how many of you are familiar with how small a Ford Ranger is, but there was NO WAY we were going to be able to drive for 9 hours with three of us in that itty bitty truck.  I had politely asked my brother if we could trade vehicles for the weekend, as his college town was on the way to Toronto.  Thankfully, he agreed but it would mean driving 2 hours north in the Ranger with the three of us.  I would gladly take that over 9 hours.  So, we had a car lined up with a CD player so we could jam to the Backstreet Boys for the remaining 7 hours.

Anyway, Tammy left Nashville right after getting off of work at 5 and made the 6 hour drive to Muncie. If you do the math, you will find out that she got into Muncie at about midnight.  We had been debating when we were making our plans as to whether or not we would leave right away and just get into Toronto early or sleep for a couple hours and then leave.  We had decided to leave right away to give ourselves plenty of time to get there.  We loaded up the Ranger with our luggage and were off.  Squeezing three girls into a Ford Ranger for two hours will pretty much lead to a lot of personal bonding so we got to know each other a little better.  Because Tara had joined in on the plans at such a late point in time, this was actually the first time I had met her face to face.

Me and My Brother

We got to Angola, IN at about 2am where my brother attended Tri State University (now Trine State) and was the president of the frat house in which he lived.  He had actually just gotten off of his shift at the pizza place he delivered for and had brought us a pizza.  When one thinks of a frat house, one would probably come up with the images of this particular one.  It was just flat out dirty and disgusting.  We walked in and several of the boys were playing poker around the kitchen table.  They commented on how much my brother and I looked alike and how we could be twins (even though we are 18 months apart).  We snacked on the pizza in his room and was visited by another of his brothers, who decided that Tara's new name would be Barbie.  He stayed and visited for awhile as we ate our pizza but we ate pretty quickly to get out of the filth and because we still had a 7 hour drive ahead of us.  We got settled into my brothers car, which was actually my step-mom's original car and was a two door purple Cavalier.  It still wasn't the ideal road trip car but it was better than the Ranger!  As we set off, we realized that there was one VERY important thing missing....a CD player.  I thought for sure that my brother had changed out the stock radio with cassette player to a CD player....WRONG!  Have you ever taken a long road trip with no CD player?  The constant changing of radio stations is not really much fun and who had cassette tapes anymore?  And while we spent most of the trip talking, it still would have been nice to have that option.  Tammy actually did the driving from Angola to Toronto since she seems to enjoy driving and she doesn't require much sleep.  Both Tara and I would doze off occasionally.  After all, it was super late.  

Sun Rise in Canada

As we were driving through Michigan, we started to here this banging underneath the car.  At first, we thought it was rocks or some kind of debris coming up and hitting the underside of the car.  But it kept getting louder and happening more frequently.  As soon as we could, we made a stop.  Remember how I said that my brother worked at a pizza place?  Well what do most delivery boys have on top of their cars?  A sign.  How does that sign light up?  A cord that plugs into the car's lighter and then into the sign (although he had taken his off to put on the Ranger while he had it).  What was the loud banging on the car?  The cord to that sign had gotten stuck hanging outside of the door and had been dragging and banging along the side of the car.  It completely destroyed the cord and we told one another that we were going to have to give him money to replace it.  I later found out that my truck was not ideal for him delivering pizzas because it has no dome light.  I guess we were even.  Now that the great sound mystery was done, we continued on our way.  We crossed the border into Canada with no problems.  We even got to watch the sun rise.  We arrived to Toronto at about 11am.  So in case you need a recap of that trip:

Our Road Trip Overview

~ Nashville, TN @ 5pm -> Muncie, IN @12am (344 miles, 6 hours)

~ Muncie, IN @ 12am -> Angola, IN @ 2 am (112 miles, 2 hours)

~ Angola, IN @ 2am -> Toronto, ON @ 10 am (396 miles, 7 hours)

~ Grand Total = 852 miles, 15 hours

Oh, the things we do for the Backstreet Boys and their members!

I had only booked a single room at the hotel because it was cheaper for "2 people" and it was supposed to have a fold out couch that I figured one of us could sleep on.  When we got into the room, it was super tiny and did have a couch but I don't think it folded out.  However, there was no way all three of us were going to fit in this room.  We went back out to the lobby and exchanged out 2 person single to a 3 person double.  I took a shower and went to bed.  Tammy and Tara decided to go do a little exploring.  I still to this day do not know how they didn't want to pass out right there along side me.  It was later that I found out that Tammy just doesn't really sleep.  I know Tara had slept a little more on the trip because I had been trying to stay awake for Tammy.  However, when I don't sleep I get very cranky.  The concert was not until later in the evening so I knew I could get a few hours of sleep in.

Passed out after a nice hot shower

Tara just chilling in the hotel

Me, Tara, and Tammy waiting in the lobby with our
"Hello for Muncie, IN and Nashville, TN" sign

The girls eventually came back and we got ready.  We still wanted to grab some dinner.  We quickly found a McDonald's and had some familiar food.  We also found a bank and got some money exchanged over.  We headed to the venue, as this event was General Admission.  It was cold outside but none of us had really wanted to cary jackets with us.  Luckily, we were able to get into the main lobby where the lane snaked around the entire lobby.  This is where we remained for quite some time.  They let  people into the venue in small groups so there would be no trampling.  There were way  more people at this show than the Grand Rapids show.  We sat about 20 rows back but got a good center stage location and found some friendly Canadians to sit with.  Tammy went back to Toronto a few short weeks after this trip to see Kevin in "Chicago" with this same group.  If you could not tell between this and how we were introduced at the Grand Rapids concert, Tammy is by no means shy.  I, however, never interacted with them after this because I had no contact information for them.

Nice Canadians we sat next to

So, I think this post is long enough as there is still SO much to write about between the concert and our wonderful trip back into the states.  Stay tuned for part II coming soon...