I spent the weekend at a roller derby event in Nashville, Tennessee. Sounds interesting doesn’t it?

Interesting doesn’t even cover it!

The Music City Rhythm & Bruisers vs. The Bleeding Heartland Derby Girls.

Originally, I agreed to accompany my mother, her friend and her friend’s daughter (Allison) because of the outlet shopping opportunity. I knew there was some roller skating event that night we were going to.

I didn’t know my mom brought me a t-shirt promoting Allison’s team. Normally, I would disagree to wearing the same shirt as my mom in public, but compared to how everyone else was dressed, I looked way normal.

There was so much excitement! I can remember watching roller girls on TV with my grandmother and thinking it was fake (like wrestling), but this was real. I didn’t quite understand all the rules and terms (like jammer & bout), but I got the bottom line. Allison did awesome and I was impressed with her skills.

I don’t know how these girls kept their tempers in check. If some girl came racing by me and pushed me down, I think I’d come up swinging. There were a few penalty box elbows and the other team purposefully sandwiched Allison after the whistle during the first round, knocking the breath out of her.

In the program they all had names like “Smith N. Wesson,” “Killah B. Killed” & “Bamma Slamma.” There was also an ad from Aflac! Which I found very ironic.

Allison’s name was “Killer Kindness” which fits her very well. I would have never thought of her in this rough sport, but even though she comes off passive, she’s a killer on skates.

What’s even more ironic is that many of these woman skaters are professionals in real life. Allison has a full-time position at a university in human resources and is going to school to get her master’s degree.

My favorite was on the Nashville’s team - Hildabeast. Oh, what a beast she was! More like a tank that split the red sea when she skated by.

Aside from throwing sunglasses out the window, our vacation went fairly smooth. Except the fact their was another woman traveling with us. My husband was thrilled. Ethan was even pretty excited too. I could have cared less…until we needed her.

When I announced our upcoming vacation I mentioned that as a result of my Detroit trip, GM offered to drop off a 2008 Saturn Outlook in my driveway for the trip. Yes, a brand new SUV for us to test drive. Marketing genius on their part, because I can’t think of a better way to put a family car to the test other than vacation.

We drove over 2,000 miles in 10 days from Indiana to New Orleans and Florida. To say the Outlook handled well is like confirming the Titanic sank. It did!

Both my husband and I were extremely impressed. It combined style and luxury in a well thought out family vehicle. The storage compartments alone were enough to make me drool.

You may already heard that GM introduced the Saturn VUE as a hybrid which can travel up to 585 highway miles on a single tank of gas! Impressive. I’m hoping they may consider making the Outlook into a hybrid model. According to the built in gauge we averaged 19.3 MPG on our trip (which includes a mix of city and interstate driving).

The reason my husband may leave is a woman named Sarah. She was a sweet talking lady who traveled with us on vacation, sitting directly between us in the front seat. Even our son was intrigued by this woman and told me I was jealous.

What’s to be jealous of? If anything I was thankful because she helped us avoid A LOT of arguments on our trip. These heated moments tend to happen when we travel and I say “turn right here” and Nathan turns left. Or when we miss a major turn and he gets directionally challenged trying to get back on the correct interstate and won’t listen to me. Somehow in years past I earned the nickname “Ms. McNally” (because I’m always right).

If we were in the market to buy a new vehicle I would have absolutely no reservations about the Outlook. My 2000 Ford mini-van has about 96,000 miles on it so we’ll probably be looking down that road in a few years. My aunt and uncle vacationed with us in Florida and are currently researching vehicles for an upcoming purchase and fell in love after driving it. The chances are good they will either purchase the Hybrid VUE or Outlook soon.

Our only issue with traveling was the seat belts in the middle captain chairs. If you notice in the picture the belt fastens on the inside of the seat. In most vehicles it is placed along the outside.

The problem was buckling Ethan in his car seat. When we reached over his seat with the belt we couldn’t get it to connect without going up and under his car seat to buckle.

I admit Ethan’s car seat is 3 years old and newer seats may be more contoured to bucket seats such as these. He has probably reached the height to move into a booster seat, but any family with car seats would have found it difficult to latch seat belts in this vehicle. And the design may have something to do with the fact that all the seats fold down, which is a nice feature, but so are seat belts you can reach.

Sarah certainly came in handy driving in downtown New Orleans and helping me locate an outlet mall. Overall she took care of satisfying my husband for me and got us where we needed to go.

Saturn I just have one question. Why is the navigator a woman’s voice? Is it because we truly do read maps and directions better than men?

You know we can change locations, but life is still stressful.

The 12 hour drive to New Orleans was a breeze. Ethan relaxed in the backseat watching DVD’s with his headphones while Nate and I enjoyed the XM radio in the Saturn Outlook (courtesy of General Motors!).

The drive from New Orleans to the Panhandle of Florida should have been even easier since it was a mere 5 hours….but life never goes as planned does it? Ethan was so restless! No movie suited his mood. He wanted nothing to do with the LeapPad either. Maybe he was exhausted because we walked his little legs all over the French Quarter and downtown New Orleans the day before.

Needless to say by the time we crossed the Florida state line Nate & I were both completely stressed by the constant whining, annoying noises and yelling coming from behind us. I tried playing games like ‘I Spy’ with him in the car, which lasted all of 2 minutes before he was yelling and throwing stuff again.

I admit my temper is sometimes very short. I have a tendency to lose it quickly. Which isn’t something I’m proud of because I see Ethan exhibit the same temperament and feel as though I’ve role modeled that behavior to him as acceptable.

About the third time he threw one of his toys at me I lost it. Somewhere on HWY 98 is a pair of kids sunglasses.

I’d threatened the entire 5 hour drive to throw his stuff out the window if he threw it up in the front seat. So finally I made good on the promise.

Only I just meant to “pretend” to throw it out the window. I swear it was a total accident.

The effect was just what I didn’t want. Ethan begins to yell, scream & kick. (Wasn’t this behavior what we were trying to stop in the first place?)

I can tell you this - Ethan has rode in the car fairly well since. And every once in a while he mentions me throwing his sunglasses out the window. So the memory stuck with him as a lesson.

But is it the vacation memory I wanted him to have?

I don’t need an umbrella in my drink to enjoy vacation. Just give me the bottle.

We interrupt this regularly scheduled vacation to bring you a picture from the French Quarter. Did you know you can buy drinks (like strawberry daiquiri’s) and walk around the city with them? How cool!!