Zig and Kate headed out a day
early to get a jump on things, Kevin and I hit the road early on Friday
morning; 4am. But we were in vaca mode
and the excitement was high! We made it
out without any issues and were greeted almost immediately with beer-in-hand.
Oh, and Kate had to show off
the shirt she’d given Mark….
I mugged a sad face for her
but couldn’t hold it very long. Here was
my real reaction…
The plan was to meet up at
the Post later and hang with our fellow nuts, which we did with abandon. It was awesome to see everyone and the
libations flowed well into the evening.
Group pic!!
We made it back to Mark and
Mary’s and played some Cards Against Humanity until sometime in the late hours.
The next day I found that I’d
made about 4 different plans with folks at the Post, and they were all set to
start at noontime. Whoops. Well, the biggest plan was for folks to come
by and do some shooting (at noon), so we hurried off to visit Scrobie at this
shop and stock up on some ammo. I picked
up a nice varmint target, too.
Back at the house, folks were
arriving and we set things in motion; targets were set up and weapons arrayed
for their turns. Oh yeah; Bryan and Mark
had taken it upon themselves to remove the choke tube from my shotgun in an
effort to improve accuracy (I prefer slugs to shot). Coo, let’s see how it does.
The temps were very cold and
the wind was pretty strong, but we toughed it out for a while. The shotgun was definitely more accurate
without the choke on it, which was very cool – even if I did miss the cool
factor that the tube added to the look.
(Yeah, I know; looks don’t mean much when shit hits the fan.)
We didn’t get our fill, but
we were pretty cold, so we cleaned up and headed back inside. Now that shooting was done, the beers could
start flowing again.
After a bit, we headed in to
town to say hello to Tommy and grab some grub.
Mmmmmm, best steak sandwich in the land!
From there it was back to the
Post (I think…this is where things get kinda fuzzy. Did we close out the evening at the Post
again? (shrug) Maybe, it all kinda runs together. Oh wait – yes, we did go back to the Post because
we wanted to say hello to Kathi. I’m not
sure what we did after that, but I think it was the Post for a long while, then
back to the house for more cards…
Sunday, we were up and
chatting in the kitchen. Jerry and Barb
came over to say hello and Jerry had something for Mark. He’d found it when cleaning out (his mother’s?)
car. Those of you in the know will get
the joke….
Mike remembered that he’d
bought us some high-test beers so he handed them out. I was still in vaca mode so it seemed like a
good idea to have one…despite it being 10am or so.
Arrogant Bastard something or other. Anyway, it started off a day I won’t soon
remember…er…forget…
We caught up with King at (I
think it was) his son (nephew?) in law’s place and what a layout. Two car garage, three TV’s, fridges, and all
kinds of food. We felt badly that we
hadn’t contributed anything and offered to order some pizzas but they assured
us no, there wasn’t a need. It was a
great setting and everyone was super friendly – a great time!
Kevin, Zig and I managed to kill
and entire 30-pack, just during the Pats game…
…and from there, we didn’t
let the pace up. We thanked our gracious
hosts and met up with Mark and Mary for a Mexican dinner, where the margaritas
were pretty tasty.
I was leaning toward
ordering the Monster, but thankfully stuck with the more reasonable
(manageable) medium size (and yes, I had more than one).
From there it was back to the
homestead for more Cards against Humanity, and the Myszka’s joined us.
I don’t know what is going on
in this pic…for example; why am I holding a tiny little trophy? And what is Kate doing, photo-bombing us?
We played long, LONG into the
evening. I think Erin and Steve left
around 2 or so. Everyone else had gone
to bed, leaving Mary and me playing beer checkers, and doing shots of my
goddamned Kahlua (you’d think I’d learn not to bring it out with me by now!).
And yes, we got into some
mischief; here’s what I REALLY think of the shirt Kate gave Mark…
Kevin is a trucker by trade
so he’s always up super early, so at any minute I expected to see him coming
down the stairs and want to get going.
So in my addled head, it made sense to just stay up and not bother going
to sleep. If I was still up when he came
down, it’d make for a quicker departure than if he had to wait for me to get up
and get moving. Makes sense, right?
Well, 2 o’clock turned to 3,
and still no Kevin. Then 3 turned to 4,
and still no appearance. 4 became 5…hell,
he’s going to show up at any minute, I can’t give up now! Well, when it was 6am, I was so drunk and
tired that I was seeing things out of the corners of my eyes. I kept thinking something was moving off to
one side or the other. I finally had to
admit defeat and call it a night. I
crashed on the couch, all too happy to let my eyelids close….
...too bad they were only
closed for about an hour or so.
Bam! Time to get up and hit the
road! Ok, let’s do this! I went to grab up my stuff and get it packed,
when I found a nice surprise someone left for me in one of my boots. My friends!
J
We were out on the highway
not more than half an hour before my exhaustion caught up with me (and still
quite inebriated). I reclined the seat…and
that’s about all I remember for the next 8 hours. We arrived at Kevin’s, I then made it home to
my house and collapsed on the couch, a major hangover in full swing. The ill effects lasted into the following
day, and I didn’t feel fully back to normal until about Thursday.
Yeah…Olean will do that to
ya.
So there you go. I don’t think I could handle another New Year’s
out there, which is why I hope we do it all over again next year!
Ride Hard, Take Chances
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