Gruyeres, and the HR Giger Museum

 Such amazing scenery around here!!  Here, Gruyeres can be see atop the hit it sits upon...


Here's the town itself. This was my first taste of an old European town, and it's just exactly as I pictured!

At the entrance to the Giger museum.  They don't allow cameras inside, but there were a few statues outside...

The pic above is a snapshot of the floor.  It was made up of these tiles, throughout the entrance patio, as well as the entire floor and staircases of the museum.

Again; no pics inside the museum, but I found one spot where the wall cameras couldn't see me, so I snapped a pic of this statue.  Didn't do a great job of taking the pic, though...

This was taken inside the 'store', which was allowed.  It wasn't much of a store, I'm afraid.  Not many things to choose from, and the items they did have were priced in the hundreds.  That's hundreds of euros.

A bench on a little patio out back.

The Giger Bar!  Amazing stuff - it was like being on set of one of the Alien movies!

Back outside in the township.  Amazing scenery!

And there you have it!  Next up; Munich!

Europe Vacation - The Beginning

I’ve only one day to get my trip posted up on here, and there are Tons of photos, so I’m just going to dive in.  First will be a little bit of detail for your reading enjoyment, then I’ll just start hammering away with the pics and adding little blurbs to them as I go

Vacation Time!!  I’d left my Jeep at work, gotten a ride to the airport shuttle from Lori, and had made it to Logan with plenty of time to spare.  The folks at the American Express currency exchange booth were kind enough to give me a full colonoscopy when I exchanged my USD for the currencies I’d be needing overseas - man, the US Dollar is getting hammered!!

(And speaking of foreign currencies – why do other countries have a different sized bill for each of the different denominations?  I was told it’s to quickly tell them apart.  I could be mistaken, but isn’t that what the big numbers in the corners are for?)

Still having some time to kill, I opted to find a quiet seat and do some reading.  I’d been smart and had bought a paperback book beforehand, figuring it’d be much cheaper to buy it at Target than at the airport.  So, imagine my joy when I’d spotted the same book at an airport kiosk for $6 dollars cheaper than I’d paid earlier that day…

But enough about that – I was on vacation!  And I wasn’t going to let a mere $6 dollar loss on a paperback, or a staggering 35% loss on my currency exchange dampen my spirits!  Time to board?  Let’s get this thing rolling!

I was off!  And too tired to sleep, despite the late hour in the day.  Oooh, each seat has it’s own viewing screen – free movies?  Nice!  I chose Secret Life of Walter Mitty.  Meh, it was pretty decent.  Decent enough for me, anyway.  Ok, I’d better get some sleep – I keep hearing about this thing called jet lag.  (shrug)  Not really sure how it’ll affect me, but whatever.  So with eyes closed and my seat fully reclined a full 10 degrees (I shoulda upgraded my seat!!), I headed off to slumberland…

…and was repeatedly awakened by the gentleman a few rows up who kept retrieving things from his overhead compartment and then slamming the door shut.  Why do you need to slam the door, sir?  The stewardesses closed many, many of those overhead bins during the boarding process – a process which you were witness to, and not one door was slammed.  Yet you feel the need to open and slam the door many times.  Why, sir?  Why?  (Idiot!!)

Touching down in Reykjavik, I’m sure I looked a bit out of place.  Ya see, when I travel (car or plane), I like to wear light clothing.  So there I was; walking off a plane into 46 degrees and a decent wind…in a t-shirt, shorts and mandals.  Good plan!

I figured I should snap some pics of Iceland while I was there, right?  But from the airport, of course, since the layover was only a little over an hour and I wasn’t about to take a chance on getting lost, or denied re-entry to the airport.  So how did Iceland look?  Well, from the airport at least, it looked…barren.  Barren, as far as I could see.

A quick bathroom break and then I’ll be…whoa, this bathroom stinks.  It smells like…what the…is that shit on the floor?  Yep; shit.  And guess who stepped in it?  Moi!  Who the hell shits on the floor in a bathroom?  You’re in the bathroom already!!  Ugh.  Welcome to Iceland.

After giving my mandal a thorough washing, I was back out and kicking back in the lounge area.  And by the lounge area, I mean the corridor.  With seats long the sides.  Ok, I’ll just sit here and do some reading.  Hey now, check out that stewardess.  She’s hot!   And that one is, too!  And that one…and that one…and…holy crap, they’re all gorgeous!  Tall and blonde – everywhere!  Hey ladies, any interest in a middle-aged, slightly overweight, balding short guy from Boston?  Hello?  Bueller?  No?  Ok, I’ll just sit here and read my book then….

Oh yeah – I got my first passport stamp!  The lady at the customs booth was all kinds of friendly.  She reminded me of Large Marge from that Pee Wee Herman movie, but with less personality.  I’m guessing she’s never been a stewardess.

On to the next leg!  Zurich, here I come!  That flight was uneventful so I was able to grab about an hour of sleep.  Deplaning and doing my best to follow the signs (how come folks don’t speak English around here?), I was finally able to locate the baggage section.  I had to keep an eye on the time, because I still needed to find a train to take me to downtown Zurich, where Erin was going to meet me.  I had an hour and a half – certainly enough time to find one little train, for one little short hop, right?

The luggage started flowing out almost right away – Mint!  Uhhh…but where is mine?  Hello, anyone seen a black, non-descript piece of common, everyday luggage around here?

Thankfully, I recognized some of the other folks who were standing around with me, as having been on the same flight, so I just waited it out.  Finally, after almost 45 minutes, there was mine.  I think it literally was the last piece out, but no time to dwell on that, gotta get moving!

Let’s see, let’s see…if I were a train, where would I hide?  Uhm…let’s follow that sign that says Tram.  Ok, tram it is…just gotta go down these stairs….along this corridor…up these stairs….take a right….down some stairs…up these stairs….whoops, not up these stairs….ok, back down….another corridor…cool!  A bunch of track entrances!  Uh-oh, I  hafta buy a ticket…from a kiosk….in a different language.  Wait!  There’s an English option!  Sweet!  Ok, click this button, select “1”…uhm…I don’t know what it’s asking me now…I thought this was supposed to be in English?  Ok…this looks like the button I want…press it…put in some funny sized (but colorful) foreign currency…and voila!  A ticket!  And another piece of paper…(shrug) must be a receipt. (Erin later informed me that I'd bought 1 adult ticket and 1 child ticket.  D'oh.)

Ok, let’s find the right track…this one says Zurich HB, that’s what I want, so off I go.  Down the stairs, and…uh-oh…two sets of tracks, each have a bunch of destinations listed on them.

Uhm, pardon me, do you speak English?  No?  Ok, thanks.

Hmmm…let’s try this person…  Excuse me, do you speak English?  No?  Ok, thank you…er…Merci’..uh…Danke...(ugh). (I’m beginning to have a different perspective on the whole “Learn The Language” thing…)

I finally found someone who spoke my language and she directed me to the correct track.  I was able to navigate the tram map well enough (staring at the T maps in downtown Boston finally paid off!) and found the correct stop.  Yay!  Now I just need to find the big blue woman, suspended from the ceiling.  That’s the landmark that Erin said to meet at.  Ok; time check.  2:15, I gotta get moving!

Let’s see…let’s see…nope, no ceiling hanging woman around here.  Let’s wander around some more.  Man, this place is huge!  But no hanging blue ceiling woman!  Wait, there are some stairs…nope, these bring me out to the street.  Ok, back down  I go…more wandering…more stairs…nope, another street.  Aargh!  Time is running out!  Wait, another set of stairs…these bring me up to street level, but I’m inside an Enormous train station!  Huh…and look; a giant blue woman hanging from the ceiling!  I made it, and it’s 2:30!! And here comes Erin!  Ta-Daaaaa!!  Whew!!

Ok, first things first; let’s get a beer!  Wait – Erin, being the voice of reason suggested we go find the Harley place and make sure that I’ve got a bike lined up.  Ok, we found it (pretty cool little place), they don’t speak much English, so thank goodness Erin was there to talk to them.  Yes, they have the Road King reserved for me, and yes, they will see me next Tuesday (pun intended for those in the know).

Ok, off to get a beer and a bite!  Oddly enough, Irish pubs are the only pubs open this early, so off I go to an Irish joint, in downtown Zurich, for my first out-of-country beer.  Mmmm, tastes just like back home!

After that, it was off to the local grocery store for supplies, then back to Erin and Jack's place for dinner (home made pizza with fresh grown herbs – mmm!) and more beer.  Jack arrived home from an after-work event he’d attended, and we all caught up.  It was kinda late now (approaching midnight, their time), and Erin commented on how well I was doing, considering the jet lag.   There’s that phrase again; jet lag.  What’s the big deal about jet lag?  I feel fine!  (But maybe I should do some math in my head)  Let’s see…I’d been up since 5am Tuesday morning, my time…that meant…holy crap…I’d been up for almost 37 hours!  Well, I did get the ~4 hours of sleep on the plane rides, but still…I felt great!  I don’t even feel tired!  I don’t…wait, why am I hearing Jack’s voice in my head, counting down from number 10?

And with that, I woke up.  Seems I’d dozed off immediately after saying that I didn’t feel tired.  Ok, time for some bed!  Erin said she’d knock on my door @ 9:30 the next morning.  9:30?  But that’s over 9 hours of sleep!  There’s no way I’ll sleep that long in one stretch!

So the next morning when I opened my eyes and looked at the clock, only to see that it was 9:30…  Huh.  This jet lag shit can be a bitch!  But no matter; it’s time to get the real vaca going – today; off to Gruyeres and the HR Giger Museum!

And there you have it; the beginning of the European vaca.  Now to speed things up with pics...

Ciao For Now!

I'd hoped to be able to get a couple of posts up before I left but I've been too slammed with trying to wrap up work stuff to get on here.  Anyway; tonight I am outta here!  Depart Logan @ 8:45, land in Reyjkjavic, Iceland for a bit, then it's up in the air again, finally landing in Zurich tomorrow @ 1.

Once I land, I need to find my way to the train tracks, then buy my ticket using Swiss Krona (or whatever the Swiss currency is called), then find the right track and hop on for a short ride to Zurich HB train station.  Arriving there, I should see a sculpture of a blue lade hanging from the ceiling, and below here; ta da!  A bar!  That is where my friend Erin is going to meet me when she gets out of work.  I tried to explain that leaving me alone in a bar in a foreign country for any length of time is probably not the best course of action, but she says she trusts me to behave.  Silly girl.

I've got my fingers crossed for my Harley rental next week.  In email discussions back and forth with the dealership owner, I think I have a bike set aside and waiting, but I'm not really sure.  We seem to have had a couple of miscommunications along the way (like when he said I could rent a Street Glide or a Road King, so I said I'd take the Street Glide, and he replied "ok, Road King.  Then I said "no, Street Glide", and then he sent me the confirmation for the Road King.  I guess I have have my choice, just so long as I want the Road King.)

Anyway, he asked me for my credit card info over email so that he could secure the reservation.  I know better than to send that information over email, so I asked him when a good time was to call and give it over the phone.  I never heard back from him.  (Shrug)  If there's no bike waiting for me, there are other bikes I can rent.  Besides, I'm told that a Harley really isn't the bike I want for the roads over there.  (Ha!)

So bottom line is; I've got options (just so long as I choose the Road King, apparently).

Ok, enough rambling.  I've still got a ton of things here at work to wrap up.  I hope everyone has a great couple of weeks and for those that are making the Labor Day trip this year, I'll see ya soon!

Ride Hard, Take Chances....in Europe!!

Gots Me Some Spending Money!

Keep an eye on your motorcycle insurance carriers.  I read in the news a couple of years ago that the State of Massachusetts was going after insurance companies that were insuring motorcycles.  Apparently the companies hadn't been depreciating the value of your motorcycle each year, when they renewed your policy.  So a lot of folks were paying more than they should have been, and the State was looking to get some money back for the folks that had had these policies.

Well now, that sounded pretty allright to me!  So I'd researched it more, and found the list of insurance companies that were guilty of doing this, and damn - my insurance company wasn't on the list. It said that my insurance company had been doing things correctly.

Oh well, look on the bright side, right?  Even if it meant that I wasn't getting any money back, at least it meant I hadn't been overpaying for all those years.

So imagine my surprise when I received a letter last week, saying that I had a check coming to me as a result of the lawsuit the State had brought against the insurance companies.  Really?  That would be pretty awesome, I'd better keep a lookout for a check.

Sure enough; a hefty check arrived just the other day.  I guess the State thought I'd really been overpaying!  Sweet!

Found Money!  And just in time for my Europe vacation!

The Missing Olean Activity...but no Vids!

I was going to post some videos of what we were doing out in Olean, but unfortunately; Blogger (the Google website that hosts this blog) is having errors uploading videos.  I researched it and it seems everyone that is trying to load videos is having this problem.  Google is aware of this problem (allegedly) and is working on it.  In the meantime, I'm afraid you'll just have to do with some pics;

First up; some of the ammo we were using.  "Ammo?  What do you mean; ammo??"

Ta da!  Bryan's cannon!!

It's a custom made cannon (I forgot who it was that made it for him.  It was a friend of Mark's.)  Bryan has this whole process down to a science.

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, though.  Mark, Mary, Rob, Natalie and myself were kicking back on Thursday night and Mark tells us that Bryan was coming by the next morning to fire it off.  Well, far be it from me to not cause a bit of good natured fun, so I began texting Bryan, telling him that  Mark was doubtful that he'd show up at all, let alone on time.  Bryan, never one to back down from a challenge, assured us that he'd set off a reveille report promptly at 8am the next morning.

8am came and we were sitting about the breakfast table, and no cannon fire.  I was just about to grab my phone to start a new round of good natured insults, when; BOOM!!!  The house rattled, the back yard was instantly filled with smoke, and the echoes were bouncing off of the hills behind us.  We all ran outside, and there was Bryan with a big shit-eating grin on his face.  Good Morning!!

He'd come prepared, too!  With premade black-powder charges and a whole firing kit consiting of a rammer, cloth for wadding, a priming iron and gun oil for a good pressure seal around the shot, he was ready for action.  We started out by firing some golf balls into the hills behind Mark and Mary's house and we marveled at how f'ing cool this was!  Man, this thing is loud!!!

But we needed something more to shoot at.  Ah-ha!  Mark had a couple of old, discarded 4-panel wooden doors that we can try hitting...

Our first attempt...we were going to use the steel ball and we didn't want the shot to go to waste, so we we took our time to sight things carefully...  When we were confident that we were dialed in on the doors, we lit the fuse and jumped back... BOOM!!!!!

The doors didn't even move.  What the...we missed?!?!

Walking down to check the doors, we found that we hadn't missed at all.  In fact, we were just about dead-center on one of the doors!

The ball had been going so fast, the door hadn't even flinched when the ball blasted through it.  We'd expected it to expode the door, but the ball was going just way too fast.

We located the ball's path on the far side of the stream.  It'd carved an easily recognizable trench through the weeds and grasses, but we couldn't find where it'd actually struck the ground.  The best guess we could come up with was that each time it began to graze the ground, it'd 'bounced' back up and continued on, deep into the tangle of brambles and assorted overgrowth.

Ok, the doors weren't offering enough resistance.  We needed something more.  Behold; a barrel, filled with water and its cover sealed tightly!  Surely that would give us quite the explosion!

We each took turns sighting the cannon, but success was elusive.  Here, you can see we were close...quite close, in fact, but no luck.  4 shots, 4 near-misses (the 4th one is midway down, on the right side of the barrel).

Bryan thought maybe if we tried a bolo style of shot, we might have better success.  So we drilled two golf balls and secured them together with a section of weed trimmer line.  It was a grand plan...but it threw the trajectory way, WAY off, and the only success we had was against the innocent water hose that was laying on the ground between the cannon and the doors...

Whoops...  Ok, back to shooting just one ball at a time.

We only had one steel ball left, and we had to make it count.  I started out and did my best to sight it directly on the barrel.  Then Bryan got in there and made a couple finite adjustments until he was satisfied.  It was time to light the fuse and cross our fingers...

SUCCESS!!  We scored a direct hit!!  The barrel didn't launch into the air as much as I'd thought it would, but it sure did explode!  Water went everywhere, and the doors were knocked backward into the stream bed.  (The fact that they had old paint flaking off of them anyway, did much to enhance the effect of debris being exploded everywhere.)

Here, you can see where the ball struck the barrel.  The force of the steel ball striking the outside was countered with the force of the water - now under pressure due to the top being sealed - and the shock waves from the impact bouncing around inside the barrel.  The ring around where the ball passed through the side almost looks a bit melted in spots.  It's probably more of a compression effect than actual heat/melting.  And just look at those cracks in the plastic!

Bryan definitely stepped things up this time around!  I sent a pic to McCarthy and he (of course) wants to build one.  And I (of course) am completely on board with this plan!  I've got measurements and pictures and we'll have to get together soon and see if we can get a plan into place.

I really wish I could've loaded the videos!!  The pictures don't begin to convey the sheer power and NOISE of this thing!  I guess if you want to see this thing in action, you'll just have to come out to Olean with me next time.

And there you go; the Olean pig roast trip of 2014.  It was a fantastic time, with fantastic people.

I wish I was back out there right now!

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Dragging things out...

I'm slammed at work so you'll have to wait another day for the big reveal about what I omitted from my Olean write-up so far.  In the meantime, here's a couple pics I forgot to load and talk about...

King and I stopped by Mickey's to say Hey to Tommy and enjoy his scrumptious steak sandwiches.  Ok, I had the steak sandwich, King ordered fish-fry and fries to bring home to Pat and Alyssa.  Anyway, Tommy has new gifts for out-of-staters!

Yeah Baby - koozies with his restaurant's pepper mascot on them!  Mint!!

As we were shooting the shit, I commented how the only beer coasters he had were Yankee ones, and that he needed some Red Sox ones to spiff things up around his joint.  He wasn't on board with that plan, and the conversation soon moved on to other things.  He was busy getting ready for a large dinner party that was coming in that evening, so he was back and forth between the kitchen, chatting with us, the back dining room, etc.

After a bit of time had passed, King and I got ready to roll on out.  He was needed to bring dinner home and me, I was headed back to Mark and Mary's.  We said our goodbyes to Tommy and a few of the other folks, and ambled out to the parking lot...

...and when I lifted my helmet to put it onto my head, I was greeted with a sneaky surprise.  Tommy had grabbed a handful of the coasters and tucked them under my lid!

I grabbed them and looked at King, and shouted "That Rat Bastard!"   And that was when I heard the evil laughter coming from the deck we'd just walked off of.  Turning back, there was Tommy, all in his glory, and laughing joyfully.  We all chuckled at the prank, and I made a mental note that Zig and I really need to get moving on the great prank (for Tommy) that we've been discussing for several years.

Ok, now I think you're caught up, all except for the last thing that I will post tomorrow...

Olean, Part III; Saturday...somewhat

I screwed up.  I'd said that we rode out to the Kinzua Bridge on Saturday.  Nope, that was Friday.  Oh well - I was on vacation, you can't expect me to keep things striaght in my head.

Anyway; when I'd arrived on Thursday, we'd put the word out to Jerry to see if he was up for a ride with us.  I was quite psyched when he said yes, he wanted in.  King was up for it as well, so we all agreed to meet up at Mark and Mary's (which was easy for me, since I was already there).

The day was bright and shiny, the temps were superbly comfortable, and off we went...

This first pic has a bit of a funny backstory.  I've been to the Kinzua Bridge before, but didn't remember the way there, so of course I was taking up the rear and enjoying the scenery, following our trusted leader.

As we were rolling along, we came to an interesection where Mark wanted to take a left.  But there were signs saying that the bridge up that way, was closed for repairs.  Well, we went left anyway.  And as we got closer, we passed more signs saying the bridge was closed.  I guess Mark didn't beleive them, because we rode with up to the barricades.  Only then did we turn around and discuss a different route.

The first pic doesn't give you the full effect of the ROAD CLOSED signs...

 ...so I zoomed in for ya...

But after that minor bump, we were off in another direction, and sailing along the beautiful roadways.

Jerry was having a really good day - he was steady, solid, and kept right in the middle of the lane.  It was such a great feeling to see him having a good day and being able to be out and enjoying it.

Kinzua Bridge!

I did a write-up on this the last time I was here (something like 6 years ago or so), so I won't go into all the details again, but for anyone that is curious; Google the Kinzua Bridge and you'll find all the info you need.

They'd done some serious upgrades since the last time I was here.  A nice path leading up to the bridge, not to mention an observation deck all the way out at the edge of the tracks.

Amazing to see this behemoth split in two...

Here I am on the observation deck.  Thick (thick!) panels of (glass? plastic?) are secured in the floor so you can look straight down.  Yeah, no vertigo going on here!

Amazing scenery all around the valley around us...

The wreckage reminds me of the electrical towers in that made-for-tv-move The Langoliers, right when the Langoliers were coming over the hill by the airport and the towers were buckling...

More great scenic shots...

And what a beautiful day, too!

The last time I was out here, the public wasn't allowed to walk on the tracks (I'll let you guess if that stopped me).

Here's a shot looking back at the tracks...

Here's King, pointing all the way down to the ground, below.  When we first started walking out along the tracks, King was talking about the platform and how safe it was.  He proved that he had complete faith in the stuctural integrity because as soon as we got to the platform, he walked out to the middle of it and jumped - and I mean Jumped! - up and landed with a solid Wham!.  Everyone that had been on the platform bolted for the edges, fearing it was about to shatter, but King just stood there, laughing.  Oh that King.

After King cleared off, I walked out into the middle as well.  Man, it's a long way down!  I jumped up and down on the platform as well, but my jump was pretty tame - I wasn't as daring as King.  As I walked off the platform, Jerry smiled and said "That looked pretty half-hearted to me." I laughed and replied "Yup, and that's all you're gonna get outta me."

Walking back along the tracks, you can see between the wooden beams...again; all the way down...

A quick bit of history on the place...

And there you have the trip to the Kinzua Bridge.  Now let's move along to Saturday, the original plan for this posting...

I did make it over to King and Pat's house on Saturday, for the annual water fight with Alyssa.  I didn't take any pics of this, but Pat had a great view, watching from the deck above us.  She even got squirted a couple of times - I'm pretty sure it was Alyssa that did it.  :-D

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  When I showed up, I was handed a bucket and a squirt gun.   Ok, seems pretty legit.  But then I noticed that Alyssa's bucket was at least half-again as large as mine.  What the?  I see house rules benefit the family that lives here.  Ok, ok, not an insumountable obstacle, I'll just have to think outside the box...

...which is why I excused myself and went out to my bike and put on my rain gear.  Ha!  All's fair in love and water fights!

Ok, I didn't put on the full suit, just the jacket.  I had plenty of confidence in myself that I'd be fine with just the top covered.

When I came back the house, Alyssa wasn't too keen on my whole rain gear plan, but she accepted it like a champ and we got to work.  The battlefield would be their back yard, and we each had one bucket of water to work with.

As soon as we started trading water shots, I realized that my legs were going to get pretty wet, so I kept running away and circling back, doing my best imitation of kamikaze attacks.  It worked ok for a short while, but my pounding chest soon remined me that running is a young man's game, so I had to come up with a different plan...

...so I hid behind a tree.  It wasn't a huge tree, just wide enough for me to safely hide behind while I blasted Alyssa over and over again.  And when she realized that she needed to hit me in the eyes in order to improve her odds of winning, I simply slid my riding shades down, allowing me to continue firing, unfettered.  Winning!

Alyssa quickly realized that she, too, needed a different plan.  So she picked up her bucket and tried throwing the water on me.  This, was easy to dodge, and her bucket was soon empty.  Nice!  Uh-oh...now she's going for my bucket.  Ok, no problem, I'll just dodge it again.  Piece of cake!

Before she knew it, she'd just about exhusted the water in my bucket as well.  There was just one more slug at the bottom, and she was lining up to try and toss it again.  This was too easy!

And then she pulled a fast one - she tossed the entire bucket.  I blocked it with my hand...but the water launched past my hand, past my arm....and landed square on my legs.  Drat!  Foiled!  And soaked!

Next year, I'll have to keep that little trick in mind...

With the water fight concluded for yet another year, I retrieved my phone and wallet from inside.  Uh-oh - I had messages.  Myszka was at the V and looking for me!  I hadn't thought I'd be seeing him on this trip since he was running a separate charity event of his own that day.

Saying my goodbyes, I shot over to the V and caught up with lots of folks I hadn't yet seen this weekend.  The libations were flowing, the food was cooking (and looked and smelled great!) and it was nice to kick back and catch up with folks.

A bit later, I was off to one side, shooting the breeze with Tim, when we suddenly noticed everyone out front was walking up toward the road.  Joining them, we saw that a deer had just been struck by a pickup.  The folks in the truck were ok, but their truck was going to need some attention.  Sadly, the deer didn't make it.  :-(  But, ever the resourceful folks at the V made the most of things and soon the pork on the grille was joined by some venison backstraps.

The rest of the evening was uneventful by comparison and we all filled our bellies with some excellent fare (no, I didn't have any of the venison).  When dinner was done, we got a decent sized game of 1-card going, and that was a blast as always.  Rob's daughter Natalie was seated across from me, so I was safe for a little while.  She's like a mini-Jerry!  Sit next to her, and you'll soon be broke!

King will attest to this.  He was sitting next to her and wasn't faring terriblly well.  Natalie looked at him at one point and said "We're kickin' butt!".  King looks at me and says "More like suckin' butt..."

I managed to stay in the game for longer than I usually do, but it didn't matter. The end result was the same; I was out, and someone else went home with my quarters in their pocket.

When the sun had set and the darkness was beginning to settle, I said my goodbyes and headed back to the homestead.  I wasn't going to be staying over this year - I needed to be up and on the road early (and with a clear head) the following day and staying over at the pig roast would not be conducive to that plan.

Back at the house, Mark and Mary had more food cooked, and while I wasn't hungry, I of course still ate some.  Not because I'm a fatty-atty-ola, but because I knew it would be delicious as always, and it was!

We hung out for a bit longer and then it was time to hit the hay.  Rob and Natalie also turned in as they, too, were making for home the following morning.  Damn...another Olean trip was drawing to a close.

The next day, we were all up quite early, and saying our goodbyes.  Natalie wanted more pillow time, and as soon as Rob set her down, she went right back upstairs and into bed, LOL.

I said my final goodbyes and hit the road.  The trip home was rather uneventful, save for the horrible traffic and the heavy downpours for the second half of the trip.  Oh well, at least there was a great lightning and thunder storm going on above me to keep me entertained.

Arriving home safely, I washed the bike out back (yes, it was still raining, but I needed to get all the road grime off).  Once that was done, into the garage with her and then I could towel her off completely.

And there you have it - the Olean Pig Roast trip of 2014!!

Wait...what's that?  I'm skipping something?  There was something else that we did while out in Olean this year?

Maybe you're right...maybe there's one more post coming...but that will have to wait until Monday...