Monday, August 7, 2017

2017 Big Truck across the Midwest, Day 1

This year's trip is a rare combo of a normal camping weekend with friends, followed by a quick jaunt into the midwest (IN, KY, TN) and back home. We'll start day 1 as mostly a travel day, as we didn't leave home until about 1pm.

The big truck had been packed up for a day or two, and I had the Jeep full of all manner of bicycle, scooter, and camping gear ready to roll.



The GPS said roughly a 5.5hr drive, but it does not factor in the AARP speeds at which our rig travels, so we knew we had a bit of a drive ahead of us.  I was already pretty beat, as we had a somewhat late night restaurant install the night before and I had gone in early this morning to drop off Reggie (Thanks Carol & Mike!). The fridge was stocked with Monsters & we were off. I was just hoping to avoid a situation like this.



Our destination was Brown County State Park, and all I really knew about it was that it was supposed to have some badass mountain bike trails. There were going to be 6 adults & 6 kids for the weekend, so we were really hoping the campground would be laid back and kid friendly. But not this kid friendly...



Fast forward a couple of hours, a bunch of construction, rain, and ineffective Monster Energies.  I do not drink coffee, really ever save for a stray Irish Coffee during March Madness. Realizing that I was not going to stay awake without outside intervention, I asked Kimberly to find me a coffee shop and order the most potent thing they are allowed to sell. She settled on some cold brew (uncut, whatever that means) concoction that tasted like the underside of a New York City manhole cover.

What happened next was a combination of the following:



The rain picked up considerably, but now we were only about an hour away.  That hour flew by pretty fast, as I believe I entered the spirit world momentarily.


As we rolled in and started to unhook the Jeep, we heard a roving band of d&bs (pond hockey term of endearment) yelling while riding their bikes through the parking lot. We had made it, and the Gentrys & Reinkes had already set up camp and made the social firepit of the 3 sites, which were both beautiful and enormous.



Next up was a quick setup, many Training Sessions, and an all too entertaining game of wrong-handed (throw and catch) football in which nearly all passes looked like Tebow throws.


or Tannehill...



For those of you expecting a Scott Mitchell clip, you should be ashamed of yourselves. That man has suffered enough just knowing how much of William Clay Ford's money he has stolen ($33 million), the last thing he needs is people realizing that the best thing announcers could say about him is that he throws the big interception at the wrong time (when is the right time to throw a big interception?).  Anyway, I give you the preview of the 1997 matchup of Scott Mitchell vs Gus Frerotte. Fox already knew the Lions were terrible by relegating us to Ron Pitts every week.



Anywho, after playing catch for a while and getting the chitlins to bed, we had a few beverages (more Training Sessions and a few Perceptions) around the campfire and put together a plan for the next day biking on the famed Brown County trail system.  Too many beverages and the ride would start out like this.



Day 2 would be spent on the bike trails followed by a ride into town.  Good times ahead.





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