shine on

i officially have a thanksgiving tradition. if you complete something 2 times it's a fun repeat; the third time indicates it's a tradition. 3rd annual also means it's necessary to make t-shirts to mark the occasion. the tradition goes as follows:

night before thanksgiving - i ride the penn station bus to rosslyn, va. per tradition, i also sit next to an odd older man who is not old enough nor odd enough to weird me out. just enough for me to take notice and watch my belongings.

i spend the evening at the home of my friend tracy (now mrs. casey).

we wake up, shower, put on jeans to pretend like we're leaving the house, but just watch football and eat for the remainder of the day. casey is forced to go to boston market to purchase our "turkey for 3"; we leave the couch long enough to make green bean casserole to complement the ready-made meal. after 3 years of boston market, we have yet to figure out why exactly they have a meal for 3, but we don't question the awesomeness of the deal, nor the 3 sides that accompany the turkey and gravy.

after dinner we half-heartedly throw out potential activities that would involve leaving the apartment: shooting pool, darts, etc. a pseudo-lengthy debate ensues until we decide to watch a movie on the couch.

friday morning we head out to the mountains. prior to entering the wilderness, we stop at virginia's version of culver's - aka spelunker's. the color, taste, clientele all scream culvers, right down to the cerulean pleather booths.

we end our last civilian journey by hitting up the gas station restrooms. while i have to say the outhouse accommodations have improved vastly since our first-year's cabin (we wore clothespins on our noses until we had drank enough to not notice the smell)it's no bathroom with an attendant. or really anything beyond a hole in the ground with a toilet seat.

when entering the state park, it's mandatory to play john denver. we have to take the battered road carefully; the treacherous roadway taunts casey's ford focus. one of these years we may have to abandon the car on the road.

friday night it's just the three of us: casey, tracy, and myself. we spend a few hours searching for firewood and setting up the cabin. darkness sets at 5pm - time for dinner and to crack open our first drinks. as any good wisconsinite would, we drink miller lite or mgd with dinner but have a nice cocktail as an appetizer before our meal. since we're "adults" now, the drink of choice is an old fashioned.

we don't have electricity in our humble abode so dinner is cooked over the stove and a tiny gas cooker casey has from camping. this year we managed to make curried chicken and rice. (we're way craftier than we sometimes appear). after dinner it's time for games. it's customary to play at least one game of oregon trail, a drinking game (naturally) that i created a few years back from a deck of cards. sixes are the worst: "oxen died. mystery flask." the first year we went camping, casey brought a flask in which he had no idea the type of alcohol. from that year on, he takes it upon himself to bring the flask with a new poison. no one is allowed to speak of what's in it until everyone has tried it. year one was whiskey, year two was peach schnapps, and this year it was tequila. the kicker was that the flask still smelt of the schnapps. speaking from experience, it's pretty brutal to take a sniff of faux-peaches before gulping down a swig of jose. another staple of friday night is scrabble. there's really nothing funnier than playing scrabble by candlelight and headlamps. bedtime resides somewhere around 10:30 or 11. there's something about hitting total darkness by 5pm that evokes an early bedtime. no wonder the settlers got up at dawn every day.

day 2 begins with the three of us slaving over the stove to make breakfast and coffee. we're not fancy enough to grind our own stuff; we just make the instant java. all of us have worked in the corporate world long enough to be able to down the really crappy brew. the first part of our morning is spent scouring the woods for firewood until the arrival of the rest of the crew. with the exception of myself, all other members of the cabin team are DC friends (and sometimes their significant others) of casey and tracy. i see these folks once a year - and always after i have been in the woods sans shower overnight. at casey and tracy's wedding this fall, i saw a handful of the cabin crew and one of the girls couldn't quite place me in "real-life" clothing:

"hey! i didn't recognize you without your bandana!"

our group of 10 mainly consists of wisconsin transplants. this means that it's necessary for at least 3 members of the group to bring brats, and any salads include blocks of cheese. once everyone gets settled into the cabin, we go on a hike. last year, we tried to do a 2.6 mile hike (each way) to the end of one of the trails. after a good few hours of hiking, we were convinced we had missed a turn. this year we had a GPS watch tracking our distance. turns out we needed to hike another 40 minutes or so to get to the end. after our hike, it's cocktail hour. basically that means we don't play any drinking games while sipping our beverages.

the next few hours mainly consist of multiple rounds of food: chili, pasta salad (with cheese, of course), brats, hot dogs, kabobs, brownies, smores. really there's no particular order to any of it; it's not unusual for anyone to finish up a few smores with a brat. in between rounds of food are rounds of catch phrase and/or card games, all of which necessitate the need to utilize the mystery flask. this year we had the special treat of authentic moonshine (corn whiskey). that stuff is a brutal combination of shitty alcohol and the faint taste of stale popcorn.

per the usual, we're all in bed by midnight (it's easier to stay up later with a big group). we wake up early and start the day with a meal of leftovers and some sort of bacon product. then it's time to head home: everyone else makes their way back to the burbs, i load onto the bus (hopefully after a shower) for my ride back to ny. all in all it's a tradition that can't be beat. we're already starting to brainstorm t-shirt ideas for next year.