anxiously awaiting
the story of the NKOTB adventure that was
Atlanta
(and, the inception of the NKOTB Super Sleuths)...
Well, wait no longer!
The guest blogger for this is the one and only...
(This is us on an adventure... see the map?!)
Hi! My name is Desiree and I'm a NKOTB supporter.
I would like to take this opportunity to
blog about my awesome 3 day super sleuthing adventure in Atlanta.
It's really hard to accumulate one's awesome adventures into
one or two short paragraphs,
so i wrote more of a.... short story.
(Actually, I'm going to leave Tuesday out because that day actually ends with me looking like a loser at the bar at the Ritz Carlton with
a stomach full of wine and a weird assortment of nuts, frizzy hair and blisters on my feet.
even after we got kicked out of the parking lot of the venue.
Trust me... that night is a story in itself!)
So Wednesday, I pull up my 2004 dented up Honda Accord to the Ritz Carlton
(I gotta tip from a very reliable source that the boys were staying there).
Okay really quick, here is a side story...
So anyways, the rooms at the Ritz are PRICEY.
I knew right away my bank account wasn't having it, so I booked the room but knew
I needed quickly to find a few partners in crime.
And I find them all on Twitter.
Actually Holly pointed me in the direction of my first partner in crime, Christy,
who happened to have a cousin Candi who was down for the ride.
So now i just needed one more.
I'm not sure exactly how i came across Erinn (aka EJ),
but she was my 3rd partner in crime to jump aboard.
Now after reviewing their profile pics on Twitter and past tweets I assured myself they were safe.
Although I have to admit i was little worried about EJ because
her Twitter pic was a cat with spaghetti all over its head and I just wasn't sure what that meant.
These were my guesses:
A) she was a gang member with tattoos on her face
B)She was a little 16 year old teeny bopper or
C) she was a crazy psycho fan*
*(If you have ever been to a NKOTB show you realize that this is an OK question to ask,
because lets just say NKOTB fans are a very "diverse group of people").
Ok so i check into the Ritz Carlton.
After having every single door opened for me, bottled water offered to me 5 different times and the manager offering to show me around the hotel, I finally make it to room 1429.
I go ahead and unpack my 5 different outfits, 3 different pairs of shoes, my laptop, etc.
(I mean, a girl can never have too much stuff for one night at the Ritz).
Then I lay back on the super comfy beds and wait for my PIC's to arrive,
all while eating everyone's bedtime chocolates.
At about 7pm I get a call from Christy asking me directions to the hotel because they're lost.
After about 20 minutes of confusing them and getting them more lost, I decide to give them the hotel number so they could call and get directions
(and accidentally i gave them the fax number because sometimes I just can't read).
Meanwhile, I got a few texts from EJ telling me she stopped by Nordstroms
to buy makeup because she forgot hers.
I was feeling better about her because I now realized she was a shopaholic like myself.
Who goes to Norstroms to buy makeup when there is a Target down the street?
Later after meeting and talking to her I realized my first impression was correct, she began telling me about the amazing shoes at Norstroms as she was pulling out a really cute outfits she brought for the night...
A very fashionable,stylish girl that EJ is.
Rewind, so we all meet up in the hotel lobby.
After hugs and introductions, I realized that
Twitter really hooked me up.
We all had stuff in common other then NKOTB.
Christy is dancer and promised she would teach me some moves
(which oddly enough she tried to teach me the moon walk later that night in front of the Ritz...
Let's just say I didn't bother to try... it just wasn't happening).
She also showed me this gift she brought for the guys...
it was a box of energy drinks called
Bawls.
At that moment i knew we would probably get along just fine. After getting up to the room and about another hour and half of primping, talking, Tweeting and looking at old NKOTB memorabilia
we realized it was getting late.
It was already 9 to be exact! We had some work to do!
After reading tweets we make the decision to hit up the venue first.
We knew that the band was still rehearsing and thought we could follow them back to the hotel.
(Yes I know, we are now categorized as stalkers).
I go ahead and warn my fellow PIC's about the sketchy neighborhood that we are about to descend upon.
If you would like to meet homeless people, burglars, kidnappers this is the place to go.
And since this venue has been surrounded my girls for the past 3 nights, you can bet all were out to welcome us to their neighborhood.
So we pull up to the gas station across the street from the venue and I position my car just right, so we can watch to see what cars pull out. Meanwhile, we realize we that we are all starving. So this means that some of us need to get out of the car to go into the gas station and get some snacks.
We manage to do this safely. :)
There are several other cars parked around the gas station, even some over in the gravel parking lot next to us, all of us patiently waiting for something to happen.
Then at about 11:30 a few cars pull out, then a few more, THEN a dark SUV with tented windows pulls out. People start waving at the SUV.
And the chase begins!
I am the first one to pull out directly behind it, then a few other cars pull out behind me including this white van with tinted windows that I will soon begin to feel agitation towards.
So down the highway we go, apparently I'm not following closely enough to the SUV and the white van thinks that its totally acceptable to cut me off.
Some NKOTB fans feel its ok to drive recklessly and
leave less then 6 inches between you and the person you are following.
I think Jon wrote a blog about that.
Anyways, I begin to get a little worried because this van isn't going to the Ritz that we are staying at, more importantly its going to the one that we are NOT staying at. See, here in Atlanta we feel it normal to put two Ritz Carltons within a 7 mile radius.
We pull up to the Ritz all of us holding our breath.
Christy jumped out of the car so she could see who was getting out.
And then we see them..THE JABBAWOCKEEZ!!
Yeah we made a mistake..we thought we were following one or some of the guys from NKOTB.
And instead, we were following their opening act.
So we laugh at ourselves, and begin planning our next move.
What happens to us in the next 2 hours is a result of bad karma... period.
After much discussion we decide to head back to our home base which is the Ritz in Buckhead. We are less then 2 minutes away from the hotel and I get a call from a friend who is there and she tells me
that we just missed Danny and she got her pic with him.
This is when i begin to get upset. I love Danny and the fact that i missed him by less the 2 minutes...
Just did something to me. So we get inside the hotel and some of NKOTB band is outside taking pictures with fans, Ethan and a few others I cant really remember their names.
(Christy with Ethan, the NKOTB bass player)
As we are standing there Joe and Jon come in. Jon seems to be in a bad mood (he later walked back out and this is the only picture we got of him...)
(Yes, that's his back... white shirt.)
and Joe smiled but both pretty much went straight to the elevators.
Which is cool, I was happy to know we were at the right Ritz Carlton after all.
Then we hear through the grapevine that Jordan and Donnie are still at the venue.
So, yep, we get back into the car and head back to the venue. On the way, I get a text from my awesome friend who says somebody told her that Donnie was at a Waffle House but wasn't sure which one. So by this time we are already back at the venue and parked in front of our favorite place...the gas station.
EJ finds out that the nearest Waffle House is the one off of Virginia Ave., which is also in sketchy area.
I thought there was no way D-Dub would go there.
So she calls and asks them if they are "busy", and the person on the phone says "yeah we are busy."
Then EJ comes straight out and asks "Is Donnie Wahlberg there" and at this point they put the phone down so we can hear whats going on at this Waffle House off of Virgina Ave...
Yep you can bet we are hightailing it out of the gas station parking lot and on our way... and all we knew was that it was near the airport.
So we get there, 5 mins after Donnie leaves!!!
And he bought breakfast for everyone...
Except us, of course.
We get back to the hotel at 2am. We pretty much had our game plan figured out for the morning since we knew that they had a radio interview and at some point they would need to leave the hotel.
We get back to the hotel and see some fans in the lobby who are on the smiley excited side.
So we ask them what's up?
Do u know what they tell us? Yep you guessed it!
We just missed Donnie and Jordan!
I cannot even discuss what we are feeling at this moment..
We get up to or room and we pout a little.
Christy and I decide to get up at 6am and go to the gym to see if Danny is there (yeah we were desperate). Candi is getting ready for bed, and EJ who is wired decides
not to go to bed at all but decides to go to a 24 hour Wal-mart to shop.
Christy and I decide to walk around the hotel to see what kind of trouble we can get into...
We played on the elevator, we went floor to floor until we discovered which floors we couldn't get on (which BTW was floors 17-19). This lead us to believe that those were the floors that the boys were on. So whats a girl to do when you cant get to a floor by elevator?
You take the stairs!
Actually we were only able to play around on the 17th floor.
We heard a lot of talking and laughing in the suites on the this floor we think it was the dancers,
but then again you never know.
So we realized it was almost 5am and that we were only going to get about an hour of sleep before our adventures started again..So off to bed we went..minus EJ because she was out shopping and eating at a Waffle House..without D-Dub of course..lol
One hour later at 6am, we was up! Christy and I headed to the gym to see what we could see. Which was nothing except an unbelievable pool and a beautiful morning.
We realized that Danny was not coming to the gym esp. since he had a 8:30 interview. We walked around the outside of the hotel to see what was going on, which was nothing.
So we went back to our room, changed into presentable clothing and freshened up and all 4 of us with bags under our eyes waited down in the hotel lobby.
EJ was smart and wore sunglasses.
I wish i would have worn a plastic bag on my head.
I was a little worried because we were the only fans in the lobby.
I kept wondering where everyone was at.
We saw a few body guards in the lobby and their manager came down.
Paris/Pajama Dave was also in the lobby. We knew somebody was about to come down. I
seriously was so nervous, not about seeing the guys but i was afraid of something not working out.
I knew this was our last chance of getting to meet them.
I wanted so bad to have a little facetime and could think of a million things that would/could go wrong. Seriously though, can you blame me?
They were running really late and I was getting scared. Interview was at 8:30 and it was already 8:15.
EJ, Candi and Christy managed to talk and carry on a conversation.
Christy even went over and talked to their manager.
I just stood in one place and stared at the elevators like a dork.
All I have to say is when I saw my future baby daddy come off that elevator.
OMG.
Danny looked so sexy, he had a on a sleeveless shirt and aviator sunglasses..seriously he is something else. I just smiled, i was so happy!
All 4 of us were able to get individual pics with him..He was really nice.
Christy also gave him the Bawls energy drinks,
He said we could go sit on the couch with him but we didn't, we left him alone...
like good little supporters.
(Secretly though i wanted to take his shirt off and kiss him.
So while he was sitting on the couch I just imagined it in my head.
And I'm pretty sure Christy was making the official conversion from Jordan to Danny at the same time...
Not sure what she was thinking, but I can imagine!)
About 5 minutes later, down came D-Dub! I love him, I really do.
He came right over to us and said "group hug, guys." We all huddled in a little circle with our heads together. He "needed us to hold him up." Those are his words, not mine.. :)
(Christy told him we could hold him up all the way to the radio station if we could ride with them!)
We didn't get individual pics with Donnie because they were really rushed at this point.
He took 2 pictures with our group and even asked us to switch so we all would have a pic standing next to him. (Although I know the real reason for this was because he wanted to put his arm around EJ.) :)
So... that's it!
(Except for the main event... the opening night of the Full Service Tour... which was that evening!)
After that i went to eat my $30 breakfast, Candi and I just people watched.
(And Christy went to shower and
stepped off the elevator just in time to have a brief one-on-one chat with Danny
and get a nickname from him... Green Girl!)
We saw Jon, Joe, and Jordon come down but they didn't want to be bothered.
So here's a recap:
$300 hotel
+ 1 tank of gas
+ $30 valet parking
+ 1 hour of sleep
-------------------------
Almost $400 and extreme exhaustion
Facetime
+ pics with the Double D's
+ meeting my new Super Sleuth friends
-----------------------------
Priceless :)
*Note: Again, if you'd like to follow any of us on Twitter, click below:
And don't forget to e-mail me if you want updates on this blog!
