Labor Day Weekend Saga: Part One: A Late Arrival

Eagerly awaiting the arrival of D-troit, no doubt!

My arrival at the campsite had been tardy, but moreso than I had originally anticipated.  One would think that having spent 3 entire evenings earlier in the week packing would have meant that departure on Friday after work would have been executed in somewhat of a timely fashion, but one would be mistaken.  A laundry-list of last-minute shit to pack, including 3 coolers full of food & beer, ended up taking far longer to shove into the Envoy than hoped.  After one false-start having nearly forgotten the mega-pot of mostaccioli back at the house, I finally managed to hit the road at quarter after 8 PM – only 15 minutes after the time by which I had truly planned on hitting the road!  

Byrnes: "What took ya so long, guy?"
Me (not pictured): "Don't call me guy, buddy!"
Lauren: "WTF are you guys talking about?"

After a long, frustrating week at work, the long weekend couldn’t have arrived too soon!  Just under an hour journey up the road await the rest of my entourage for my arrival, though when I arrived, it was immediately evident that they hadn’t waited to commence upon the having of plenty of beer and booze & good damn times!  Warmly & with open arms and cold beer I was welcomed to our encampment and encouraged to waste no time in catching up with a round or two and a shot of Jame-o before beginning the process of organizing and unpacking.

Camping in style!

With haste, Byrnes took care of getting the mostaccioli on a roll in the roaster oven I had brought along for just this purpose.  Unlike previous camping excursions on which I’ve been in years past, this particular place had both running water and power for each site.  Though this made life a lot easier by allowing us to plug in small appliances such as this roaster and a mini-fridge, it was not exactly the rustic camping that I actually prefer.  I may just be partial to having more elbow room and less structure than was the situation at this place.   Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed being here, but it was moreso a family-oriented establishment than a place for drunken debauchery, even though we managed to get away with plenty of shenanigans anyway!

Though we ate most of it, we failed to
preserve the leftovers for breakfast! Damn!

The mostaccioli was a hit!  I mixed in plenty of shredded colby-jack cheese when everything was piping hot and let all the ooey-gooey love happen just prior to ringing the dinner bell (figuratively speaking – I still need one of these!).  After we stuffed our faces with pasta, we resumed goofing off drinkin’ brewskis and yukkin’ it up catching bullfrogs in the swamp adjacent to our campsite.  Somehow, Dubay managed to shove a frog in Springer’s mouth when he wasn’t paying attention, after which he spent a half-hour un-eating mostaccioli & the other contents of his gut – partially as a result of having a muddy amphibian shoved in his pie-hole, partially as a result of hangin’ out with Jose Cuervo for most of the night.  Remarkably, Springer came through this little "unpacking" session unscathed right at about the same time that I had finally managed to get my vehicle unpacked and my sleeping arrangements situated.  The night wore on into the wee hours as we relaxed bullshitting and enjoying each other’s company as we sat around the slowly dying fire.  Without a doubt, the morning would bring yet another chapter of this Labor Day weekend saga!

...or just a barf-inducing amphibian!

Jay's about to find out if this frog is Prince Charming...

Stay tuned for Part Two of the saga!