So you’ve probably heard of The Booze Cruise (made infamous by that episode of The Office in season 2), but Tuesday I went on The Booze Bus to Baltimore. So check this out, the past few days Rockwell Automation has been having their annual automation conference where thousands of people from all over the world come and gather, exchange and display project ideas, pretend like they are the smartest people ever, and give hand on labs and lectures regarding the latest in automation technology. So our distributor of Allen Bradley products took a few of us down to Baltimore to join the “festivities.” These are the actual events that took place during this three-day “business” adventure.

So our coach bus left Ebensburg around 3PM on Tuesday headed for Baltimore. About 5 minutes into the drive one of the guys in the back of the bus yells, “Who wants some beer?” Here the group from Pittsburgh brought 3 cases of beer with them to make the trip go quicker. Our whole bus group consisted of about 20 people (somehow there were 23 people on the bus on the way down, but only 19 on the way back. I don't quite understand that, but oh well, I'm not one of the four that may or may not be super upset). So the whole flippin’ bus partied all the way down to MD. Then Tuesday night we checked into our hotel, unpacked and got back on the bus to go to Cheers, a sports bar and grill, where it was CED-paid-for all you can eat and drink until 10PM. So me, and and a few other members of The Booze Bus started the evening with beers. And then moved on to more beers, at which point I then moved on to hard liquor, and then more hard liquor and more hard liquor and the next thing you know, it’s time to leave. The bus ride home was entertaining as the whole flippin’ bus was hammered!

So wake up time came pretty early there in Baltimore, especially for some members of our group who were unable to get themselves out of bed and down the hotel stairs. Another group member nearly threw up on the way to the conference, but eventually everyone caught up with each other Wednesday afternoon at the fair exhibits. So Wednesday evening we were wined and dined at Camden Yards (yeah that’s right, the ball park). There we had a tour of the ballpark and got to step onto the field and enter the dugout. Also of course we drank, and drank, and then came back to the hotel and drank some more.

Now the trip back was its own adventure, but let’s flashback to Wednesday morning though first. Our hotel was approximately 17 miles from the convention center and we were told we had to take the train to get there, as our bus would not be making the trip. However we opted to get on The German Bus that was on it’s way to the same convention center from our hotel. Who were these Germans in suites on the bus? We have no idea, but it was free and it worked.

So lets get back to the trip from Camden to our hotel. We were supposed to take the train back to our hotel from the ballpark, however we opted to hop on The Syracuse Bus that, low and behold was on its way back to our same hotel. Since we heard the train took about 1.5 hours to get back, and there may be approximately 3 white people on board, there wasn’t much of an option. So we pretend we were from Syracuse and began to make our way back. Then we missed our exit on the highway so we turned around, at which point we missed it again coming back. After about an hour we pasted a road sign that read, “Camden Yards next exit.” WTF! We were going in a flippin’ circle! So then we stopped at a gas station where some guys caught a smoke and bought some Nowalators (which apparently were 50 cents, but used to be 5 cents when they were in school). The bus driver then got off the bus and just started walking around. Sweet mother! We just wanted to get back to the hotel! So we beeped the horn and hollered for everyone to get back on the bus (keep in mind, we are just stowaways on this bus). So they got back on and finally after an hour and a half of driving, and stopping and driving again, we made it back to the hotel.

Once back we, of course drank some more. Are you kidding me?! I thought this was going to be a job function affair? It turned out to be The Booze Bus Party of the Century! It had been quite some time since I had that much to drink in two nights.

So now we’re sitting on The Booze Bus making our way back to PA as I’m typing this. Half the bus is hung over and the other half is talking about trains that don’t have steering wheels. Oh yeah, I did get see some booths and junk at the fair, but all I kept thinking about was, “I can’t believe people couldn’t get out of bed this morning!” And then of course I would laugh out loud to what other people there must have only perceived as me being retarded.