2244 Miles and a cloud of dust

Camp Clearfork 2006.

What a great weekend! My non-hashing friends continue to stare in amazement when I tell them that we’re heading to Arkansas for the weekend. The ones who realize we’ve been making this pilgrimage since ’97 simply sigh, and shake their heads.

Let me give you some background here;

We first ran into the Little Rock H3 mob in Trinidad, during InterAmericas Hash in 1997. Piggy had screwed her knee up upon arrival and couldn’t do trail. On the bus, she ran into The Great Kahuna and (then) Twin Peaks (later to be renamed Queen Bee). Barb (TP) took care of Piggy while we were on trail, ensuring that she had plenty to drink, kept her foot elevated, and paraded an endless line of sweaty lifeguards past for her enjoyment. I came in from trail and was told that I simply had to meet this group from Arkansas, and that we HAD TO figure out a way to make it to their 200th run celebration.

9 years later, we continue to road trip to central Arkansas every summer. Back to 2006:

Plan A was for Piggy, Prep, and me to drive out in the car, towing the cooker, stop in Memphis, drink too much on Beale St. (always a good time) and then continue to Clearfork Friday morning.

Plan B came around when EweSF retired and found himself unemployed for the summer. Having scored enough kitchen points for an extended pass (we leave on Thursday and don’t return until Tuesday) registered for the weekend. It would be a tight squeeze getting everything in the car, but we had a plan.

Plan C evolved when Cinderfella announced that his Clearfork Hiatus (he has missed the last 2) was coming to an end, and would be joining us. This looked like it may become one of the Road Trips of old.

Plan D involved Rack-N-Sack flying into Memphis and driving with us from there. (She has hip problems and 32 hours in a car wouldn’t be very good for her…)

Plan E was the Memphis H3 (lead by Piggus Dickus) meeting us Thursday night in order that we may set new records for Thursday evening drunkenness.

The Onset:

So, off we took, 0630 Thursday morning, heading west. The itinerary involved a single rest stop in Western Virginia and fueling just past Knoxville. That would leave us a single remaining rest stop before Memphis. We short pitted on I-81. So much for the plan.

Not to worry, we had plenty of time, food in both vehicles, and were still ahead of our schedule. Memphis was still in our fuel window, and we arrived in time to check in to the hotel, head over to Beale St. meet up with some old friends and make some new ones.

Synchronized Shopping

Friday morning was a display of efficiency. We were out of the hotel exactly on schedule, met Deep Snapper at Sam’s club 5 minutes early, and began the last of the shopping. Piggy had divided the shopping list into 3 sections; paper products, non-perishable, and perishable. We split into 3 teams all armed with radios and lists. An hour later, we were on our way out the door with 3 flatbed and 4 regular shopping carts loaded with our treasure.

Clearfork:

Arriving at 1300 Friday, are greeted by BJ, Wow Mom Wow, and Harry Palms. Many of the “Clearfork Regulars” began arriving early. We took over the “Cool Kids Cabin” while Mom and company began their culinary art.

The galley was a flurry of activity as Piggy orchestrated the efforts of Wow Mom Wow, Madam Yuck, Preparation H, and others. By 1600, all of the food prep was complete, the cooker complex was set up, and there was nothing left to do but peel our clothes off and jump in the lake.

What a great weekend. This is probably the best hashing venue in the world (for events under 100 hashers) and certainly has the best crowd I’ve ever seen assembled. Every year, it seems that 25-30 Clearfork Virgins show up with the rest made up of a slowly evolving group of “regulars.” As I’ve said before, it’s the people who make the event, and there’s something about Clearfork that brings out the best in people.

The flotilla was in full force every day. There’s something about floating in the middle of a lake, drinking and laughing with good friends. It’s just plain civilized. I will have to sort out a way to keep more beer cold and floating down there for next year, but that’s just a small detail.

The nekkid runs seemed to start early both Friday and Saturday evenings which worked for me. I was flat-out beat by 2300 Friday and when the run started early, that meant I could get to bed early. (The nekkid run typically goes through all the cabins and you really don’t want to go to bed before they finish…)

Things just seemed to go much smoother this year, leaving us more time to join the flotilla, drink beer and catch up with those whom we’ve not seen since last year.

The Return trip:

Monday morning, we made our tearful goodbye and headed east. It’s always difficult to leave Clearfork, and this year was no different. The journey was relatively uneventful. We got to Salem, VA (our planned stop) just in time to miss last call at the hotel bar. Seems the barkeep wanted to go home early that night and called it early. Bastard! Now, here’s a tidbit you may want to keep in mind if you ever find yourself in Salem, Va after 2200: DON’T GO TO THE OMELETTE HOUSE! ‘Nuff said…

Tuesday morning brought us home. Seems it takes 2 days outbound and you arrive at 1300, and 2 days on the return leg arriving at 1300. Must be karma…

All in all, a great weekend.

Hats off to Deep Snapper, Blowjob? DNR and the rest of the LRH3 mob.

Making the best of a bad situation.

Parking tickets… 29 years of driving and never had one… Until recently.

To make a long story short, I unwittingly parked my car illegally and got a ticket. On the naval base so there’s no fine, but you do have to go admit to being a dumb ass (something I’ve gotten very good at over the years) so you can get your base driving privileges restored.

Part of the process involves updating all of your information in Big Brother’s database of parking infractions, base stickers, and known jaywalkers. Another part is running your license through the BIG computer (in the sky someplace) to see if you have any parking or jaywalking violations outside of military installations.

Background information: My driver’s license was issued in 1977. I enlisted in the Navy in 1979. My driver’s license would have expired in 1981 except for the fact that I’ve remained on active duty since and therefore is valid until 60 days after I retire. This is honored in all 50 US states and territories. It is also good enough for the Naval Station to ISSUE you a base sticker for your car. (At least it was 6 months ago when I registered this car…)

The nice lady who takes care of parking tickets ran my license and of course, it came up blank. Seems the state of Ohio didn’t have a centralized computer system in 1979, either that, or my license disappeared in the ether since. In any case, she couldn’t restore my base driving privileges and I had to go see the Lieutenant.

The Lieutenant informs me that, as far as he is concerned, I do not hold a valid driver's license and that I may no longer operate a motor vehicle on ANY federal reservation and he has annotated this in the parking ticket / jaywalking database. I call the DMV and the nice lady there explains to both me and the Lieutenant that my license is, in fact, still valid in all 50 states, and as far as The People’s Republic of Virginia is concerned I can drive anywhere I like. Not good enough for the young Lieutenant.

At this point, I am ready to kill someone. I am certain that I can win this, but at the same time, I won’t be able to drive to work in the interim. I put killing the little bastard on hold for the time being.

Stepping outside, I call my wife and she gathers the necessary documentation for me to obtain a new license and heads off to the DMV. She gets in the “stand-in-this-line-and-get-a-ticket-so-you-can-stand-in-the-other-line” and is just up to the window as I arrive. We spend the rest of the afternoon at DMV. Did I mention that all this occurred on the last day of the month?

With my new license, I can now go see the nice lady at the base precinct (who told me she knew the Lieutenant was going to give me a bad time and that he really needs to work on his personal skills…) stays late to take care of me and all is well with the world. (Unless, that is, you happen to be the young Lieutenant, in which case, your life is hanging by a very thin thread, but that’s another story all together…)

It’s now after 4PM and if you live around here, you can understand that there is no way I’m going to get across the river any time soon. What to do?

Taking stock of the day, I realize that I really owe my wife big time. She dropped everything at a moment’s notice and hung out at DMV for the better part of the day, all without saying boo.

Being stuck “south of the James” isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and the best Sushi place in the entire state happens to be nearby. We don’t get to This Old House (the sushi place) very often (something to do with the fact that it’s 45 miles from home…) so taking my wife there is a special treat. As soon as I offer it up, she jumps on the suggestion.

Our friends, Karen and Larry, come up in conversation (on the way to the restaurant) and we decide to ring them up to see if they’ve made dinner plans. We don’t get to see them nearly as frequently as we’d like and they enjoy This Old House as much as we do. They are discussing dinner options as we call. The choice is obvoius and we all meet at the restaraunt.

Mr. Lee outdid himself (again) and the dinner was exceptional. We catch up on what we’ve all missed over the last month or so. Good sushi and great company make the frustrations of the day pale. The bar next to the restaurant has Guinness at happy hour prices and we retire next door while the tunnel traffic thins out. (OK, at least that’s our official excuse… Fact is that we don’t get to spend the time we’d like with Karen and Larry and nobody ever wants to say good-bye when we do get together…)

Driving home, I realize that if it wasn’t for that asshole Lieutenant, I’d have had a “routine” day followed by a “routine” evening. As it was, I spent the afternoon with my wife, we didn’t get into an argument, and we had a wonderful evening in the company of 2 people who are very dear to us. For a day that started out poorly, it wound up as one of my most pleasant of the month.

I’m still going to make life miserable for Lt. Shit-for-Brains.

TriF*kta weekend, or I'd rather another vasectomy

I had a million things to do, and going to TriF*ckta wasn’t one of them, but somehow I found myself on my way. The rest of the list could wait. I suppose…

So, there we were, in a hot car driving towards the middle of nowhere. (For the uninitiated, Eden, NC is just outside the middle of nowhere…) Problem was that I really needed one night to catch up on a week’s worth of missed sleep. I didn’t get it Thursday night and started Friday a touch on the “cranky” side.

The computer generated directions didn’t work and we circled nowhere for about 45 minutes until we finally got through to one of the G-Spot hashers. No problem then, now we have directions from a local and we should be there any minute. Problem was that our “Local” wasn’t a cartography major, or maybe she was and just worked for MapQuest. In any case we found ourselves driving the wrong direction further adding to my declining mood.

90 minutes later than originally planned, we arrive at the campground. Everyone has to get out of the car and sign a release, even if we weren’t going on the float trip. (We later figured out this was how the campground operator was going to squeeze every last nickel out of Buck, but it wasn’t apparent at the time…) Directions are to drive down here and park, unload your car and then move back to the parking lot. Sounds reasonable until you realize that the unloading area is nowhere near the campsite and we have to haul all of our crap the rest of the way in. (Glad I didn’t bring the big tent) My mood darkens.

Eventually the tents are up, the canopy connects the two, the chairs are in the shade and the stifling heat and humidity has us all looking like we just came out of the pool. “Where’s the piss?” comes to mind and we’re informed that we have another hike to get to the beer. No problem, we KNOW there is a light at the end of this tunnel… My mood takes an upswing.

The beer is foamy, but at least it’s warm.
(Apparently the distributor brought the kegs in the bed of a pickup truck.)

I notice my cooker and also notice that the delivery service (Hedgy) failed to follow the simplest of instructions and brought the broken regulator. I send him to get the tools I need from the truck. Apparently the heat had caused some malfunction in my brain and while I was sure I spoke the Queen’s English, I must have told him in Swahili as he just stared at me. Eventually I managed to repair said regulator and feed my anger at the same time.

Dinner sucked. The beer foamed and would continue until the kegs cooled below 45F. Probably tomorrow morning…

The skies opened up.

I said F*ck this and went to bed, assured that after a good night’s sleep I’d feel better.

Every drunk walked passed our tent and stopped outside the door to chat, fight with their girlfriend/boyfriend, cry about said girlfriend/ boyfriend or pee on my chair. This continued well into the wee hours.

Somewhere in the night, the air mattress springs a leak and the rest of the night I try to find a comfortable position to sleep (with a rock in the middle of my back.)

As the sun began to lighten the morning sky, the chatting drunks found their way to bed.

The dawn brought chirping birds and that all too familiar “If I’m up, Everybody’s up!”

One day, I’m going to actually get up and find the prick(s) who so delight in that chant, figure out where they sleep, and when they finally go to sleep (around noon, typically) I’m going to light their (occupied) tents on fire. Assholes!

Cold bagels for breakfast. Ooooohhh! Aaaaahhhh! And the chance to stand in line in hopes of getting your coffee cup filled before the pot runs dry… Jackpot! I hit the coffee lottery and manage a half a cup by tilting the pot and straining the burnt chunks from the bottom of the percolator. Did I mention that the drunks decided to use the area behind the beer trailer (where breakfast was being served) as an outhouse the night before? So the food sucks, the coffee sucks (and there’s not enough of it) and not only do I have to smell fresh dookie, just to erase any questions, there are enough soiled napkins on the ground to dispel any misconceptions about the source of the stench.

After “Breakfast” is was off to Wal-Mart. ‘Nuff said. So much for starting over, refreshed and in a good mood.

Back at the campsite, new air mattress, and a collection of useless sh*t that my shopping companions apparently couldn’t get by without.

The cook can’t seem to figure out my cooker. Can’t get the temperature up to where he needs it to serve dinner on time. My initial reaction is f*ck this. Every other meal so far has sucked, no reason to break the string, and besides loaning the cooker does not obligate me to supervise the operation of same machine.

Arriving at the cooker, I am greeted by a kindly older gentleman who is very concerned about getting the meal out on time and making it palatable. He really is a nice guy, imagine Forrest Gump in his 60’s. I took an immediate liking to him. (The fact that he marveled at my cooker didn’t hurt either…) It takes me less than 10 minutes to get him the temperature he wants. The beer is cold and flowing, things improve.

The meat coming off the cooker was tender, tasty, and plentiful. This was a good night to be a carnivore (or at least an omnivore) because the sides while of adequate quality ran out in about 3 minutes. Still, there was plenty of pork to pick on. (it never did run out as there were still 2 pans sitting out the following morning.)

Micro Bone started playing music. Now let me tell you, it is impossible to be in a foul mood when The Bone is spinning the platters. There’s more to being a DJ than just buying a lot of music and a CD player. Bone always seems to hit the mood of his audience and every time he sets up, there are throngs of hashers dancing and drinking. Smiles abound and this is where I want to be (finally.)

Saturday night brings out the same loud drunks, but at least the (new) air mattress holds up. Sunday morning the stench by the breakfast table is overpowering. I almost gagged trying to get a cup of coffee. (Trying mind you, my efforts were not met with success.)

We cleared datum early. The drive home was uneventful.

I don’t think I’ll go back to TriF*ckta any more.

The weekend wasn’t a complete wash. After my mood broke Saturday evening, I did dance with my wife for several hours. You should see her on the dance floor, beautiful and full of life. I am reminded of what attracted me 25 years ago.

I also got to hang out with a dear friend of mine. I don’t see Pam enough and really do cherish the infrequent moments we share. Too bad I spent the weekend with a dark cloud over my head. I should probably call and apologize.

I should apologize to both of them. I’m sure I wasn’t the person with whom they had planned on spending the weekend. While I don’t believe I spoiled the weekend for them, I didn’t make it any better. (You have to understand, these girls can find a way to have fun at an embalming…)

I think I’ll call Pam now and get Terri flowers and a card on my way home. Probably ought to pick up a bottle of wine and something for dinner also.

I’m still not going back to TriF*ckta.