My arrival and stay in Cincinnati, though short, was sweetened by the knowledge that the oral boards were now behind me (for a year if not forever). Erv kindly met me at the Dayton airport and I was ecstatic to see him, Em and Maddie as well as my mom on arrival to Cincinnati. Maddie was now a movie star...
...a swimmer...
...and a Skyline Chili lover.
We spent the following days around Cincy visiting family. We also managed to squeeze in a Mike Doughty concert at the Southgate House in Newport. Unfortunately, the concert was probably best described as uninspired - not bad, but certainly not the best concert I'd been to, which says quite a lot considering there is essentially no live music scene on Kauai. In any case, we enjoyed the live music as a change of pace.I spent the majority of Thursday picking up odds and ends for the backpacking trip the following day.
Next thing I new, we were meeting at Todd's house and I got to see Eric, Hark, Todd, Bender, and Chris for the first time in several months. These guys were willing to trust me to "guide" them on their first backpacking trip ever, which might explain why what followed was truly a comedy of errors. However, I can proudly say that there were no near death experiences unlike last year. We packed up and got on the road with relative efficiency until we smelled propane in the car and figured we were only minutes away from a backpacking stove canister explosion. Tragedy was averted though we never did determine the source. Shortly thereafter, Chris realized he left his dinner in the freezer at home so we had to make a stop at Meijer in the middle of KY. We proceeded without further incident to the trailhead where we prepared to hike into the wild.
I forgot to change from my shoes into my boots when Bender was dropping the car off at the parking lot so Todd offered to throw my shoes down to him and promptly got a shoe stuck in a tree about 75 feet off the ground. Thankfully it wasn't my boot.
We started hiking and aside from a few pack adjustments, we were making good time and had a couple miles under our belts. Then Chris dropped the bomb. "Todd, did you grab the sausages from the car?" Todd - "No, they were you're sausages". Chris "Yeah, but you were planning on eating them too". What followed consisted mostly of expletives, but was of no consequence. They decided to proceed and just eat everyone's food.
We arrived at our proposed campsite which turned out to be much larger and nicer than we could've expected considering I picked a place on the map at a trail crossing with no knowledge of a campsite actually being present. There was a nice stone firepit, lots of flat tentsites and we were only 50 yards from the Big South Fork river. Paul arrived unscathed an hour later. Best of all, we were in the woods with no distractions.
The tents were pitched, water filtered, firewood gathered and we prepared dinner with our drink of choice in hand as the sun set on the cool spring evening. We enjoyed some tunes on the portable speakers, but mostly just conversation and companionship (I know it sounds cheesy, but some us live for this).
I arose well rested after my Ambien, Patron and antihistamine induced slumber. We cooked breakfast and headed out for an ambitious 8 mile hike crossing multiple creeks and viewing 2 large waterfalls. A few wet feet, multiple scrapes, bruises and male-bonding moments later we headed back to camp.
Todd and me
The Liberal and the Conservative even managed to come to an agreement on racial issues.
We arrived back at camp and tiredly collected some firewood as the evening was cool and we'd need it to stay warm.
We cooked some backpacker meals (snacks), lounged around camp and started drinking the remainder of our liquor. Thankfully, after dinner, Todd got severely intoxicated and provided entertainment throughout the evening next to our roaring fire. We retreated to our tents and morning rolled around soon after (not soon enough for Todd).
After breakfast and some coffee, we packed up and headed out of the wilderness fairly efficiently. On arrival to the car, we found that mother nature had removed my shoe from the tree despite all of our weekend transgressions against her (think of Todd retreating to the woods with a shovel and TP 5 times on Saturday night - if that's not a transgression, I don't know what is).
The trip home was uneventful and and sadly said goodbye to my friends one by one until who knows when - we don't have any trips to Cincy planned.
On arrival to my parents' house I was greeted by Em, Maddie, Mom, Dad, sisters, aunts, uncles, etc. for a belated birthday celebration and they were greeted by the stench of campfire and body odor. After a quick shower, I enjoyed a cold Ruination IPA and later some Kroeger Bros. fresh sausages - excellent.
The morning of our departure arrived too soon and I felt that I'd barely had the chance to see anyone because the trip had been divided among so many activities, but I think the opposite was true. I had seen many friends and really enjoyed our time together especially with the burden of boards off my back. Unfortunately, all I had to look forward to was returning to Kauai and the splendors of paradise...and Yosemite in May...and Molokai in June...maybe New Zealand or Alaska in August. Yep, life really sucks.
