Part 1: The Long, Strange Trip
This will likely be most funny to those of us who were in attendance, but I'd still read it, if I were you. You might want to smoke some weed first, though....and get comfortable. You might even want to print this one out and leave it next to your toilet. I have friends who still read at a 4th grade level, and it might take them more than one sitting to get through this.
This three-part tale documents the three best days of camping in the history of mankind! That's a complete overstatement. It was actually three straight days of a group of friends who are way too easily amused. It took place deep in the woods of Vermont, at a campground named Gifford's Woods, nestled between two large hills in the Green Mountain Range.
It was more than just 3 drunken days of camping. What transpired on this weekend was much more. It was the perfect storm of personalities, leaving our stresses of everyday life behind, and being the people that we truly are. It was a perfect situation, in the perfect setting, to let the very souls of us involved to be seen the way we should be. Every day. It's impossible of course to be what you want to be and still live in the real world, where there are responsibilities and bills to pay. That's not to say we were different people from the time we unloaded our camping gear until the time we packed up. We were all just, I don't know...the BEST of ourselves, for one weekend. And it was fun. It was epic. We laughed until we slept, and then woke up laughing. This entry won't do the memories that we all have of that weekend justice, but I'll try anyways. Ironically, the reason I don't recall every last detail of the weekend, is probably a result of the weekend itself.
And so, on to the culprits. It was me, Slatz, Emma, my sister Trid, her friend, (who contributed nothing to this weekend and will therefore be almost completely left out), Nails, Vixen, Irish Kelley, and Lynn. 3 carloads of campers. Endless food, beverages, and supplies anyone would bring on a camping trip. Admittedly, Slatz and Nails are far better at camping than I am. Hell, most of the 6 women that were with us are better outdoorsmen than I am. My job is to cook, (at least in the absence of B-Ride, who is far and away the best at cooking in our entire crew, regardless of the heat source, utensils, and ingredients available.) It was also my job to be as entertaining as possible while the others do things like remember to bring lanterns, tarps, and those such essentials. They were also the driving force in planning out and building the campsite. I mostly supervised. In the entertainment department, however, everyone brought their A-Games. It wasn't just me...not even close. We were missing some usual suspects, B-Ride had to work all weekend, my brother Joey couldn't make it, Merph was in Florida, (at least he started the weekend there...more on this later.) In retrospect, it may have worked out, as the number of people we had fit comfortably in the campsite we reserved, which had been the same one we had the year before...the biggest one on the grounds. If we had any more people, our group would have been split into two campsites, which wouldn't have made a huge difference, cause we'd all be together except for when we were in our tents, but still.
Day 1: Friday- 6:48 a.m.
I got up, packed my shit into my Jeep, and kissed my 9 month pregnant wife goodbye for the weekend. What? She was fine. She wasn't due for 3 more weeks with my first-born and her pregnancy had gone swimmingly. Did I mention before that I'm divorced? My reasoning at the time that if something DID happen, and she went into early labor, I would be a mere 3 hours away, and would be there in plenty of time. I made sure that our nearby family and friends were aware I was away and could get her to the hospital quickly if needed. The fact that I'm even writing this might be my subconscious guilt coming out, but whatever.
First stop, Trid's apartment, where she and her friend were all packed up and ready to go. Easy pickup. Moved some stuff from her friend's car into mine, take all of Trid's stuff, which had been packed and ready to go since the previous night, and we'd be on our way within 2 minutes. That's when the first bad omen of the weekend took place. Trid, exited her home with her friend to meet me in the parking lot and smoke a cigarette before we left, cause there was no smoking in my Jeep. She closed her apartment door behind her, and locked herself out, with all her packed shit sitting neatly in her living room. Karma had struck me again. It was then that I knew that I shouldn't have yelled out the window at an elderly woman who had the audacity to cross the street in front of me and cost me precious seconds on my way to Trid's. After about 15 minutes of buzzing every apartment doorbell from the outside, and receiving no response, we resorted to literally yelling through the open windows of the building's tenants, aka Trid's mortal enemies. She's a McRoberts. It's programmed into our DNA to hate our neighbors for some reason. They heard us, those useless unemployed fucks...every one of them heard us, and I'm sure every one of them took pleasure in learning that Trid was begging with futility to be let inside.
Finally I took command and smashed through her 1st story apartment window. I asked my sister if it was OK, of course. Her response: "I haven't paid rent for like 4 months anyways, what are they gonna do, evict me?" Classic line #1 of the trip. We grabbed the stuff and we were on our way.
7:28 a.m.
After stopping for gas, Mountain Dew, and other munchies for the ride, we headed to Slatz' house to meet up with him, Emma, Irish Kelley, and Vixen, who drove car #2. We planned on driving up, caravan-style, just to make things easier. Lynn and Nails were driving up a little later in the day. Somehow, though the three of us in my Jeep had lived in our hometown for the majority of our entire lives, we zigged when we should have zagged. We basically went left when we should have gone right, to get to Slatz' house. A minor error, which didn't cost us any time, but still seemed like bad omen #2, and we weren't even on the highway yet. It was comforting to pull up to Slatz' house and see that their carload was just finishing packing the car. Slatz had a certain look in his eye. He was all business, and it was at this very moment the fear from the bad omens had dissipated as quickly as an outdoor fart. I had a real good feeling now. I was fired up now. Game on.9:04 a.m.
After a mostly uneventful ride across the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we stopped at the New Hampshire State Liquor Store. The store operates for the sole general purpose to provide liquor to those of us from the Commonwealth who get taxed up the ass, tax free. New Hampshire is basically a quaint, harmless state where Massholes such as ourselves use as our own personal playground, to buy their booze, camp in their forests, and snowboard down their mountains. They're kinda like an ex-girlfriend, or "buddy" who works the gate at Fenway park, or France, in the way that they're just used up, squeezed for every ounce of fun that they have in them, and then discarded like a used, filthy condom. We loaded up on vodka, Captain Morgan's spiced rum, which is my sister's drink of choice. We even bought some weird banana liquor type filth. I took a few swills of it in the car. It was potent, but disgusting. I mean REALLY disgusting. Despite this, it didn't make it through the trip. By the end of the night, it tasted delicious. You know how it goes, you bunch of alcoholic sumbitches. We made the stop as quick as possible, and continued north, into the beautiful Green Mountains in central Vermont. Hippy country. I'd be willing to bet, pound for pound, Vermont is the hippiest place in the country.
My carload stopped at a small convenient store located on the scenic road that takes you from the interstate to the mountains. Slatz continued towards the market where we stop for food every year, closer to the campsite. We entered the store to buy a few supplies, bug spray, Excedrin, toilet paper, etc. I walked past the clerk, about 65 years old, pretty chubby, dirty blue shirt and circle frame eyeglasses worn low on the tip of his nose, who never quite made it out of the late 60's. He gave us a huge smile as we entered. "How's it going my friend?" I said. The clerk just kept on smiling for about a 3 count, leaned back against the wall on his stool, put his hands behind his head as if he was in a recliner in his living room, nodded his head, and softly answered, "Just right." Epic quote #3. I had never heard that question answered in such a fashion, and I challenge any of you out there to think of anyone else who has. His light brown, nappy dreadlocks spilled out of the sides and back of his bandanna. I thought I could faintly smell the scent of weed on him, and thought to myself, "Why am I even the slightest bit surprised that this dude is high already? His weekend probably starts on Tuesday afternoon."
"Wellsir, I couldn't agree with you more. It is just right, isn't it."
"Right on brother..." and he started to laugh as he leaned forward over the counter. He then abruptly stopped laughing and got serious for a minute. "We had a lot of rain this spring." He said, practically looking right through me with his bloodshot eyes. "Lots of flooding. Y'all got bug spray."
"Well, yeah, we have some, but we're gonna buy some more here if that's cool with you." I answered, becoming more perplexed with every passing second of this conversation. "What's your name friend?"
"I'm the wolf."
"You sure are, man."
We loaded up, and were on our way. I explained the conversation to my passengers and couldn't stop laughing. I just thought the guy was great. I felt even better still about the trip. We caught up with the others at the supermarket, and, like every year, bought more food and beer than the 9 of us could possibly have consumed over 3 days, or so we thought. A few hundred dollars and about 5 coolers worth of beer and food were squeezed into the two vehicles, and we departed on the last, 20 minute leg of the journey. In all seriousness, it is a pretty nice ride. It has some great views, a bridge that overlooks a deep trench with a river a few hundred feet down, and the couple towns you drive through are true, northern New England, old school towns. They consist mostly of one main road with a small commercial area containing a few small diners, ski shops, and stores for tourists that sell little trinkets and post cards and whatnot. All of this is fine, except for the fact that it's a 3 and a half hour drive from home, and the location is basically just a lean-to in the middle of the woods. The only difference between Gifford's woods, and Foxboro State Forest is that it's in the mountains, which we later found made for great hiking. We were blessed with epic quote # 4 of the trip in the parking lot of the grocery store. We were smashing ice against the ground and filling the coolers when Irish Kelley, clearly amazed at exactly how far away we were from home, turned to Slatz, "Dude, what the fuck, were there no campsites available in Ontario?" During the previous summer, Slatz found Gifford's Woods when we were researching, at the last minute of course, places to camp on the weekend of Independence Day. It wasn't really a choice, it was a lack of options. Well we had so much fun on that trip, that we chose to camp there again. It was inadvertently and immediately cemented as a tradition. At any rate, it was still a far ride, and Kelley, out of nowhere, made a pretty good point. Those of us in earshot got a kick out of this, because truthfully, we WERE further north than about 70% of the population of Ontario, Canada. We were far north of Toronto and nearly as far north as the city of Ontario. Slatz was less amused. He actually became a little defensive and felt he needed to explain his decision. Ending his diatribe with a "Fuck you guys, go camp in Canada then!" It's just Slatz though...he said it with a big smile shining through his full, black beard. "These ass-clowns couldn't find anything closer last year either." He was right, and we got a good laugh out of it. I'll admittedly take the ride up to Vermont just for the nostalgia, at this point.
10:52 a.m.
Arrival. Game time. It was on. We unloaded the cars and set up the campsite the way it had been the previous year. We moved the picnic table up into the lean-to, set up our chairs around the fire pit, strategically placed the grill, moved the coolers near the circle, put the dry food and the speakers with the iPod dock and all of our bags in the lean-to. This is another reason I won't camp anywhere else, if I have my way. The lean-to campsites at Gifford's woods were fantastic. These weren't just thrown together. They were well built, Lincoln log style with a clean, wood plank floor, raised up off the ground. If it rained, you weren't getting wet if you were inside this thing. Ours was spacious enough were an entire picnic table could be setup inside with plenty of room to move around and leave room for supplies. Lanterns could be hung from the nails on the outside so we could party well into the darkness of the night.We knew that the faster we got setup, the faster the fun would start. And by fun, I mean the drinking. The proper way to start any camping trip is by firing up the grill and cracking beers. The supplies were unloaded, and next came the tents. The year before, Nails was so proud of his setup, that he joyfully called it "Tent City." He had arranged a series of tents and tarps arranged between trees where the tarps hanging from rope tied around the trees. The year before, we had two separate sites, because we had more people, and by the time I arrived, Nails had his "Tent City" completely constructed. Nails is a carpenter by trade, we don't just call him Nails cause we think it sounds cool. I swear he probably drew up blue prints for this thing and he was so proud of himself. It rained for a good portion of the trip that year, and Nails and his then girlfriend spent two nights sleeping in their car. "Tent City" was a complete disaster. He was determined not to make the same mistake twice. He went the opposite direction this time. 1 tent, 4 people, situated closer to the lean-to. Taking up residence in this tent was Irish Kelley, Nails, Vixen, and then me, in that order from left to right. We strategically set it with the alternating-gender sleeping arrangement in order to decrease the gayness factor. Slatz and Emma were in another tent, Trid and her friend occupied the third tent. Our setup was perfect. We had the lean-to, the grilling area, the fire pit with the circle of fold up chairs situated around it, an area adjacent but off to the side of the lean-to. We then left an area big enough for our outdoor games to be setup. A space now soaked with the blood of the warriors who played in what would become the inaugural, and greatest tournament of Penguin Face ever played. More on this later in the trilogy.
We looked around, proud of the blank slate we had transformed into the perfect campsite. It was pristine. A glorious masterpiece of a site, utilizing every square foot of land that we could. Even the location of the site was perfect. We had the high ground. We were so set back from any other site, that nobody could come close to bothering us, and more importantly, nobody would bitch about us if we were loud and stayed up late. Believe me, both took place in abundance. There were two bathroom cabins with running water, and we were a path down a hill away from one of them. You could pay to take showers there, (more for the women then for us guys), and also toilets. This also benefited the women more than us, but us guys, on more than one occasion throughout the weekend, made great use of the men's room. And by great use, I meant we splattered the toilets with our collective Bud mud in a nice, daily cleaned toilet complete with nice soft t.p. Have you ever had to take Vodka shits in the woods? It's not fun. It can ruin a weekend. They're the type of dumps you take where you'd need an entire tree full of leaves, (or both socks) to wipe. I don't care if it's a luxury that "hardcore" campers don't need. Same with the lean-to. I'd rather not be "hardcore" if it meant hanging out in the woods during a downpour while dodging lightning bolts and not getting poison ivy on my asshole. I'll take the lean-to and the bathroom cabins, thank you. For those of us with penises, we even had a nice urinal at our disposal right at the edge of our site, but away from where everyone sat. It was basically a rock that we stood on near the far side of the lean-to which overlooked a hill. It was perfect, and a perfect campsite is paramount for having a perfect camping weekend. If there was any type of blemish, it was a medium size rock protruding from the ground which was easily stumbled upon if you weren't paying attention, more so when you were drunk. It wasn't near anything in particular, so that if someone fell over it, it would do no damage. More of a nuisance than anything. This insignificant part of nature would become the catalyst for the weekend transcending into something more than a weekend of camping, into something much, much more.
Me, Slatz and Nails, who had now arrived driving up seperately along with Lynn, drove the Jeep down to the office area where we purchased a shit-ton of firewood. I LOVE campfires. I love being in charge of the campfires. I love to build up the base, get kindling, construct the perfect structure of logs, and lighting that bitch on fire and keeping it burning for the entire day. Nails and Slatz took care of the fire throughout the weekend too, but I loved to do it, and I tended to it until I started seeing two of them late in the night and had to relinquish the duty to someone else before I fell in and gave myself 3rd degree burns and smoke inhalation.
12:13 p.m.
We brought it in and stood in a circle between the lean-to and fire area. We all made eye contact. We had fierce determination in our eyes, the sheer joy of children in our hearts, and ice cold beers in our hands. We cracked the cans open and raised our frosty beverages up in front of us and we all let out a primal yell to announce to the grounds that we had arrived. The first taste of beer was perfect, which if you hadn't noticed by now, is the running theme of the story. Perfection. I blasted up the grill. It was lunch time. I got myself in the zone, and we cracked into the first food and drinks of the weekend. It reminded me of when I was a kid going outside on a snow day and being the first one to jump in the freshly fallen snow in the yard.The long, strange trip to Gifford's Woods was complete, but our journey was only beginning.
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