CAMPING!!!
I went CAMPING!! Friday with Ronnie, Alex, Jenny and Elia, and it was AWESOME! We went to this place about 30 minutes from Austin called Pace Bend, and it was one of those movie moments that rarely appear in your waking life. First, Ronnie hits a rock, it gets stuck on his transmission, and as everyone else lifts the car, I pull out the rock while standing in this muddy road and scratch up my hands. Then, about 40 feet from the incident, we set up camp. Ronnie and Alex, despite their typical in-tune-with-their-femininity persona, transformed into these macho, burly manly men as soon as it was time to pitch the tent. Me, Elia and Jenny just sort of watch them as they stumble in the dark (it was 9:30 when we arrived at our destination) trying to pitch this ridiculously huge, ten-people circus tent. We are warming our hands by the fire (that who else started but our men?), drinking diet cokes and bonding. Occasionally one of us, usually Elia, makes their way over to help the boys. Finally, the tent is up, and here's where things get fuzzy. I think we just took pictures and messed around for a while. Then the boys went out to scout the area, and us women-folk made smores and bonded over girl-talk. So the guys get back, and the drinking begins! Jenny had a little flask of Jose Cuerrvo that some guy left at her apartment, but Elia brought R-U-M. My weakness.... sigh... Well, Ronnie's just chugging away at the oversized bottle, and we pass it around a few times before "Never have I ever" started. Hmmm.. The mother of all camping/drinking games. For those of you unfamiliar with "Never have I ever," everyone holds up five fingers, and someone starts by saying "never have I ever..." and finishes with something they obviously have not done. Those who HAVE done the activity must put down a finger. The person with all five fingers down first loses and must drink, drink, drink!! Apparently, ahem, yours truly has done just about everything loses almost EVERY GODDAMNED GAME!! So by the end of it, I'm pretty fucked up. That was interesting, because Alex knows each little detail of my personal life and wasn't afraid to use any of it, and I had just had girl talk with Jenny earlier that day, and she wasn't afraid to open my skeletal closet either. So they're ganging up on me, until I pull out the big guns and play their game! Muahahahahha! Who knows what was said.. My mind's still too fuzzy with alcohol, but after the game, I spent a lot of time singing songs from "The First Wive's Club" with Elia at top volume while stumbling drunkenly all over the campsite.. From the tent, to the car, to the fire, to the filthy abyss that park has the nerve to call 'public restrooms'. Still making my way from person to person occasionally, however, and then it seems that everyone is ready for bed... SO... Ronnie and I steal his blanket out of the tent and sneak away into the woods. Ronnie drunkenly calls Alex... "Don't come looking for us. We're fine." And... .... ..... the stars sure were pretty that night ;) So from 2:30-ish 'til 5-ish... and then back to the tent, where I curled into the fetal position to keep warm, and Ronnie laid beside me for a while, although I don't remember him there too much. In the morning, I learned that he had woken up early to go puke and then walked around the lake. We went back into the tent, and the five of us groggily talked and laughed and relaxed until sometime around noon or 1-ish, when we finally packed up our things and headed back into the city. The drive home was so lovely. In the dark of the night, we were blinded to the hills and trees, but in the full afternoon sunlight, the area was so green and peaceful. We listened to the "I Am Sam" soundtrack, and the first song to play when the car took off was something along the lines of "I'm heading home..." Before going back to the our respective homes, we had a feast at IHOP. Chocolate milk, pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns and meat stuff! The girls and I basically bathed in the IHOP restroom sink, and they poked a little fun at me for not coming back to the tent for so long that night. Then... home... So that was the trip, for the most part. I'm sure I left out hundreds of funny details, but I don't have the kind of time to record all of the great moments of that trip. If any of you want to see pics, just let me know.. I've got loads of them, and many are quite incriminating. God, I'm so lucky to have these friends...