Slade 11/7 and 11/8

[78Buford]

Chapter # 9: Friday Night

On the way back to the campground, Jamie mentioned a couple times that he needed to stop at a gas station. Pete was then saying over and over, “Hey Roy, Jamie needs to stop at the gas station.” Then Pete repeatedly asked Jamie over the CB if he needed to stop by the gas station. All of us drove approximately 25-30 mph for the multiple mile trek back to the campground. The Ford felt pretty solid, but many had a lot of mud in their tire/wheel assemblies causing serious vibration/death wobble at speeds over 25 mph. We arrived at the gas station, and Pete and I noted that there were a couple goofballs staring at out junk……mine in particular. The one fellow was wearing some sort of Daniel Boone wannabe hat. With the window down, I loudly asked Pete, “I wished I could find a hat like that.” Pete replied even louder, “Yeah, I’ve always wanted one too.” Danny Boone eventually started staring elsewhere. Brad commended about the sexy hat as well.

We arrived back at the campground. Jim left his Bronco parked, and headed back to a hotel with his wife & children in his nice Chevy tow-rig. Cliff and Mike loaded up their rigs and headed back to their hotel as well. Howard and his buddy camped with us. The park ranger stopped by, and Jamie and I approached him. He was a real nice guy, and told us, “Off the record” that while drinking wasn’t allowed at the campground, as long as we were well behaved, and we didn’t leave a bunch of containers in plain sight, he didn’t care. He was a good dude, and he inquired about our club, we discussed the weather for the following day, etc. I eventually walked away when Pete arrived back at camp in his Ranger. (Pete had went on a beer run) and I was picturing Pete jumping out of his truck, screaming, “Dudes, I scored, I got three cases….WAHOOOO!!” Luckily, Pete did no such thing. Jamie continued to BS with the Ranger Guy, and eventually I went and grabbed Brad’s camera and said, “Jamie come over her and look at this picture,” in an attempt to get him away. Burgers and “Meat Dogs” went onto Brad’s cool cooking tripod, and many beers were consumed. We reminisced about the day’s events, and stayed up quite late. Jamie called my house around 10:00 pm, and left a message….something to the effect of, “Hello Mrs. Higgins, we’re all sitting around the campfire getting drunk, Roy is eating raw hamburger, and he made it up Widowmaker. Call us when you get the message.” For those who care, my wife was ill with the flu and sleeping. She received the message around 4:00 am when she awoke and couldn’t get back to sleep. For the record, the hamburger I was eating was over the fire…..just not for very long. We all turned in after well after midnight. I forgot to mention that Friday for breakfast, we enjoyed sausage patties with cheese cooked over the fire on bagels. The sausage I consumed wasn’t fully cooked. Pete’s was better than mine but still not quite done.

Chapter # 10: Saturday Morning, the Shower Incident, Pete’s Problems, and Jamie’s Shovel

Brad, Jamie and I awoke and started the fire. Pete was still asleep in his tent, and we wondered if he was still alive. The campground was equipped with heated restrooms and two heated shower stalls, at the far end of the campground. The previous morning, I had borrowed Jamie’s new “NFL” bar of soap. I had left it wrapped in a shirt back at the campsite. Friday morning, I had been ragging on Jamie about his “NFL cologne” that was included in his travel bag. “What exactly is ‘NFL cologne’ supposed to smell like……a jock strap?” Well Saturday morning, I walked into the bathroom/shower room, and there was a line. Brad was wanting a shower as well, and he and Jamie went into the crapper to kill some time. (They went into separate ones, not the same stall). I was rummaging through my pile of clean clothes, when I head glass breaking. I had dropped my $50 bottle of Polo cologne……and was now standing in the best smelling Sheet-house in Kentucky. I cleaned up my mess. It should be noted that the older dude in the shower was taking FOREVER, and making peculiar grunting sounds. I was getting mildly perturbed at the dude, and simply wanted a shower and to get the hell out of there. Eventually the other shower stall cleared out, and I walked in. “Oh fawk, you don’t have any soap,” I realized. “Hey buddy, you wouldn’t happen to have any extra soap in your stall do you,” I said to the methodical grunting man with no face in the next shower stall. “Ugh, well you can wash this one off and use mine.” I put my hand over the top of the stall, and was handed a used bar of soap in a box. I later found that Brad was mildly appalled by me asking a stranger for used soap, but I didn’t care……better than smelling like stale cigarettes and beer from the night before. Eventually, we cleared the shower house, and I once again noted that it smelled pretty good in there…..it better since it had my nearly new bottle of cologne all over the floor.

Back at camp, Pete was still in his tent. We hollered for him, and finally he came out. “Dude, I don’t know what happened….right after we went to sleep, I had the sheets.” Pete went on to tell that soon after he turned in, he awoke and frantically had to move his bowels. We all began to look around and wonder where Pete had did his business, as he wasn’t talking, and he said that it occurred on multiple occasions throughout the night. About ten minutes later, Jamie yells, “Hey Pete, what the hell is this,” pointing to a place near the campfire that observed to have been scooped out with a shovel. Pete had an ornery look about him as he denied any knowledge of what Jamie was talking about. Seconds later, Jamie was inspecting his shovel that he had at camp, hollering, WTF Pete, there is human feces on my shovel!” Pete Burst out laughing as did the rest of us. Jamie was soon wading into the creek, cleaning his shovel, asking Pete why in the hell he would do his business so close to the campfire and use his shovel for disposal purposes? Pete eventually stopped laughing long enough to inform Jamie, “Dude, that is as far as I could make it…..I barely made it out of my tent.” It should be noted that while all of this was going on, the entire group had arrived at camp, and Jim’s wife and several others were shaking their heads, and laughing, listening to Jamie and Pete argue over Pete’s late night bout with intestinal distress.