MadAtlantric Drunk=ferst and bQB V

“Just because nothing was posted doesn't mean nothing was written.”

“Then what are you waiting for? A special planetary alignment?

A cheesecake bribe?”

“The call of the beverages lured us back to the coolers and we drowned our fears in tequila and beer. Some of us scavenged up about three weeks worth of wood while others lounged about. BigLoad was snoring like a 700-pound black bear long about the middle of February. We tried to stop him from making all that ruckus by suffocating him with wet bath towels but, much to our dismay, he continued breathing. Mrs BigLoad was very apologetic and fed everyone chocolate chip cookies to distract us from our lynching plans.

But that was small potatoes. The real activity was in the center of the main campsite where Smokinghead and Greenmonkey went to work tearing down and rebuilding the fire ring. This task took about three hours for the artists to complete. It was a very impressive sculpture in sedimentary rock, 4 feet tall at the rim and 16 feet across. Each stone was hand-placed and perfectly balanced. Before all was said and done the wood gatherers had collected enough wood for three weeks before they decided to switch up and start collecting rocks for the builders.

Once the ring was complete we planted the tiki torches and lit them for the evening while SmokingHead built the fire. It was huge. The flames leapt up about 40 feet in the air and we all kept our distance. Eagle Beak and Backslacker were sawing up logs like mad, trying to keep the woodpile stocked, but SmokingHead kept feeding the flames until he couldn’t stand the heat anymore. It blasted him right through the special flame-retardant suit that he’d stolen from the fire hall, but he managed to make good on his last ditch effort to set the potatoes on the fire pit rock and start them roasting. While we waited for the wood to burn down SmokingHead fished the keg out of the stream and tapped it. The beer was plenty cold and tasty, and it definitely made a good chaser behind the shots of tequ . . . errr . . . trailgaritas we were drinking. Ramblinrev was sucking down some Southern Comfort off in a corner and there was a bottle of bourbon floating around too.

Before long everyone was whining about being hungry—drinking does build up an appetite after all—so Greenmonkey and LostSoul broke out the grills they had carried in, set them over the fire pit and then we broke out the sack full of bratwurst and some hot dogs and whatever else was floating around. I can’t really remember the details except that I stood over the fire pit for an awful long time, turning sausages and trying to cook them to order. There were gnashing teeth everywhere as ravenous backpackers jostled for position around the grill, some calling dibs on particular sausages while others scooped up whatever began to approach the point of looking like it was starting to warm up. I’ve seen schools of sharks cook their meat longer. There was no stopping the feeding frenzy once it had started. Eagle Beak swooped in six or seven times and ran off with whatever he could carry. His success was due in no small part to wild look in his eyes as he clawed his way through the hungry pack, leaving a trail of blood and loose-hanging flesh in his wake.”

“Lookie, lookie! The next part of our story is posted.

MMmmmmm, thinking back to the sausages is making my mouth water....

Green Monkey and Smokinghead need to start their own business. Everyone should have their own custom-built fire pit.”

“They can start in my backyard!”

“That Eagle Beak is one hungry adolescent. You'd think he hiked that day or something. ;)

I *must* have a firepit in my yard big enough to build a fire visible from the space station.

Now if I can lure Smokeynoggin and GM over with booze/food,,,and just happen to have a big pile of rock in my yard...”

“No reason. I just like the purple banana.

”

“Now if I can lure Smokeynoggin and GM over with booze/food,,,and just happen to have a big pile of rock in my yard...”

If it was big enuf... they'd first have to climb it.”

“So much the better! Keep the artist happy and you get good work.”

“Now if I can lure Smokeynoggin and GM over with booze/food,,,and just happen to have a big pile of rock in my yard...”

Something tells me that wouldn't be very hard to do. A simple e-mail mentioning those 2 sweet little words would probably do it.”

“Nice instalment. But what happened to my pants?”

“Still haven't found them? tee hee

I need to shop for rock.”

“Probly got replaced somewhere by a kilt.... The proper hiking attire.”

“I was lucky enough to escape from the pit of death not only injury-free, but with a hot dog clenched tightly in my hot little hands. I was done cooking and the few remaining scraps of meat that were left on the grill quickly disappeared with the setting sun. I sat down at the table and ate a big heap of Ramblinrev’s pasta salad, a baked potato and my hotdog washed down with another draught from the tap and followed by some cookies (courtesy of Mrs Big_Load), chips and trailgaritas. It was quite a feast overall and my little belly felt a bit stretched so decided it would be a good idea to stagger up hill to the overlook for an evening workout.

It was a grueling 150 ascent that covered about one tenth of a mile and when we got there everyone was wiped: me and MsD and Greenmonkey and RichB and SmokingHead and spindle and Lost Soul. As if the climb hadn’t been exhausting enough, the place was swarming with turkey buzzards when we arrived. These critters are generally not considered to be aggressive by folks outside of Pennsylvania, but the decades of coal pollution, combined with the foul contaminants that float down into our fair state from The Armpit have warped our vultures into the most hideous and unwavering hunters of the air in existence. They were going at a rather large carcass as we approached, which turned out to be a bear. One of them must have swooped down on it, carried it up to a goodly height above the shelf and dropped it onto the rocks. Needless to say they were cheerfully inattentive to us as we stood at the dusky edge of the forest, trying to figure out how to displace our rivals. We quickly came up with a plan and put it into action: After synchronizing our watches I snuck up on the left flank while Greenmonkey and RichB covered the right. At the agreed upon time I leapt out of my hiding space and let out a vicious scream while blinding them with my Petzl Tikka XP. This threw the birds into a tizzy and set them all to chaotic flight. GM and LS reacted quickly, ran out to the carcass and tossed it over the edge. And with one fell swoop the battle was over and the spot was ours . . .

By this time we were pretty beat. The climb had been as much a mental challenge as it was a physical one, pile the whole turkey buzzard thing on top of that and we had no choice but to gulp down trailgarita in attempt to succor our aching bodies and bolster our resolve to sit and stare out across the darkening countryside below. There was a nice moon rising and we sat there, soaking in the night as we watched the headlights crawling along I-78 off in the distance. We stayed there for about an hour, sometimes in silence, sometimes talking and laughing. It was a great spot to welcome the nightfall but it did start to get a bit chilly up on the ridge sitting at an exposed outcropping, so we opted out and ran back down the hill to camp.

The party hadn’t stopped while we were away. As we strolled back in to camp we discovered that Kioeh was a professional coyote wrestler—which was not surprising, him being from the ‘Tucky’ part of Pennsyltucky and coyote wrastlin’ being a cultural staple out that way—and he was about to engage a 200lb coyote that he’d managed to snare while I was away. Richb rang the bell just as we crossed over into the line of the tiki torches. Kioeh and the coyote began to circle each other. The beast was snarling and gnashing its teeth and when it shook its head, hot trash-can-breath and saliva flew everywhere, but the coyote was not intimidated by this display and held his ground. The tension mounted and then, in flash they were on top of each other. Kioeh grabbed onto the coyote’s tail and held it away as the creature struggled to whip around and catch him in its jaws, but he held on tight. Then, when it was least expected, Kioeh flipped the coyote over onto its back and started tickling the fur between its toes, but the coyote broke Kioeh’s hold and they began to dance again . . .”

““No reason. I just like the purple banana.

”
spindlette
1:29:38 PM
8/07/07

”

“Scrape off the Maybelline and I lose all complexity, really.”

“OH Maybelline, why cain't ya be true?”

“Nice chapters 7 and 8. Lots of food and drinks on that table to go around and that pasta salad Rev carried in must have weighed a ton.”

“.....ya done started back doin' them thangs you used to do.”

“We're ready for the next installment please!”

“You'll just have to wait, won't you now.”

“You're a sadist.”

“



”

“




last edited: 8/08/07 12:16:37 PM”

“you forgot this one!

”

“NG says................





NG's fans.....

last edited: 8/08/07 12:21:31 PM”

“Ho, hum, just another trip report.”

“MarkO, where n_g and I live that fingers smilie is using a term of endearment. ;)

I see you like the freesmilies site...

As for that last one,,well...that wouldn't get our next installment posted would it?
last edited: 8/08/07 12:27:12 PM”

“Huh, isn't a whip persuasive?

Not like I've ever used one or anything like that.”

“If he's suspended from the ceiling catching the business end of rawhide, how ever will he reach his keyboard? Hmmmmm?

Enjoy it though he might, it would not help our cause.”

“Maybe electrode hooked up to his............

..........leaving his hands free to type?”

“Now that's just mean. Could YOU think well enough to type under those conditions?

Never mind. Maybe some things are best left unknown... ;)

May we pretty pretty please have another installment?”

“I do like the worshiping one. I stole and posted it over on the other side :)”

“It was at this very moment, while we were all completely distracted by the wrastlin’ match, that a 300 lb raccoon wandered in to camp, apparently intent on stealing whatever he could get his paws on. He snuck in and grabbed the first thing he saw. Unfortunately the first thing the jolly fat ring-eyed bastard saw was LostSoul. The raccoon grabbed LostSoul and dropped him to the ground like a bowling ball sinking in a lake. There was a quick little yelp and we rushed to his defense, but there wasn’t much we could except watch in horror as the Lone Ranger pantsed our boy despite the fact that he was not exactly willing to give them up. LostSoul fought back with everything he had, putting a death grip on the critter’s throat one hand while desperately clutching his trousers in the other, but Rocky pulled an old Indian trick whereby he dropped to his knees and quickly swung back up, catching his opponent squarely in the stones with a massive head butt. LostSoul lost staggered back, releasing his enemy’s neck and the raccoon made break for the other side of camp, dragging LostSoul along behind him right through the middle of the forgotten coyote wrastlin’ match and knocking over both combatants in the ring.

At this point all hell broke loose. The four of them were rolling around in the dirt, often times well outside the ring. It was like an old WWF tag team match gone wrong. I kept waiting for Captain Lou Albano to pop out from behind a tree, yelling and screaming and grabbing his stupid little rubber-banded beard. The chaos had spread to the bystanders as well. SmokingHead and Greenmonkey were left unsupervised so they started gulping bourbon from the bottle and Big_Load lit the matches he had carefully placed between the toes of a very inattentive MsDoolittle. Backslacker and Eagle Beak got caught in a snare trap that spindle and Chocolate Chip has set using some hand-spun wool and a pair of knitting needles. I just sat back and took it all in. I had had the good sense to grab the trailgarita bottle so I just sat there, sipping slowly from the bottle and waiting for the yin and yang to come by and put things back in order. And then the loudest, most blood-curdling scream I’d ever heard ripped through the night, stopping us all dead in our tracks.”

“

This is just too much fun!”

“Glad you're enjoying it. I wonder what will happen next?”

“Insufferable tease!”

“I can't wait to see how it ends!! Will we make it out alive! Will lostsoul get his pants back? Will we ever stop drinking? Tune in, same Mad time, same Mad station!!

Great Job NG, I think this thread has "Classic" potential.
last edited: 8/08/07 8:19:18 PM”

“There was a WHOOSHing and a flapping and the entire group turned to look just in time to see the herd of owls swooping down on our camp. The biggest one landed right in the middle of the picnic table LostSoul was so shocked that he let go of his pants and Kioeh dropped the coyote. It was a good thing too since the owls were really after these two local miscreants. The troublemakers were snatched up and carried off in the blink of an eye and only the big owl on the table stayed behind.

His name was Caedmon (Did I mention that I speak Owlese?) and he was actually very friendly. He apologized profusely for spoiling our wrastlin’ match. Apparently our two ‘friends’ were partners in crime and they’d recently done a number on some owlings in addition to raiding some nests for eggs. The owls had been tracking the troublemaker’s movements for several weeks and they’d struck quickly while their enemies were clearly distracted, having bitten off a wee bit more than they could chew with the YackPack on hand. It was a good plan and they’d executed it splendidly. Caedmon told me all this while we sipped trailgaritas.

After a wile the rest of the owls began to return, perching in the branches just at the edge of the firelight. We could see a thousand eyes glowing all around and we could hear them chewing, bones snapping in their powerful beaks. It was a surprisingly pleasant sound since it brought us an assurance of peace: there would be no more commotion caused by coyotes and raccoons this night. And we shared our abundant liquor supply with them as we celebrated into the night. There was much drinking and dancing and storytelling as I translated for both groups, being the only multilingual present, and the owls had quietly begun to collect chipmunks in the darkness after I related the tale of SmokingHead’s world famous brats. So he whipped up a quick 200lbs of sausages and we fired up the grill again, cooking brats and dogs and tossing some grilled veggie wraps into the mix.

It was a solid drunken feast. You couldn’t ask for much better. But as with all good things this too came to an end. Owls slowly receded into the forest night, taking up their stations and staying very alert. We couldn’t see them anymore but we could certainly feel their presence and we knew we could rest easy the rest of the night. Then the Backpackers began staggering off to their tents, slowly, one-by-one until there were but a handful of us left. And then even those disappeared and at long last it was truly nighttime.”

“GoooOOOOOOOooooo Owls!

So much excitment for one night. I got tired just reading it.”

“What on earth was in those brats?

Whew. That WAS an exhausting night!”

“What on earth was in those brats

Between bear, coyote and raccoon who knows... could have been all three.”

“And chipmunk.”

“word”

“I thought I heard owls after I went into my tent that night. I didn't know they were part of the party.”

“'twas an awesome sight, Rich. Lemme tell ya! You should have seen it. :)”

“I knew I should have stayed up a little later.”

“lmao

I need to go backpacking.. I smell a backpacking trip somewhere in PA next weekend.”

“So many wonderful stories to come home to.

Thank you, NG.”