Campout 2006: More Campers, No Crayfish

(For those of you who couldn't give a hoot about all the motorcycle news, don't worry, this is the last major MC thing for the year so I'll be back to semi-normal after this post.)

This past weekend was the 3rd annual campout at our house for my dad's group of motorcycle guys, the Deadhorse Motorcycle Group. The story goes that, trying to organize this group is like beating a deadhorse... hence the name. As soon as we bought our house with the big areas of foresty nothingness and the peaceful river, my dad said "you HAVE to have a campout here". And we did. Three times now.

They're a fun group of wacky guys and girls with names like Guzzi Guy (and his lady, Guzzi Floozie), Batman (aka Inbred Fred), Rage, Too-Tall, Sparkplug Joanie, Doc Toe, and Joe. That's my dad. I swear he must have a nickname but he won't admit to it. It's just Joe. We earned a nickname only because it's too had to say Luke and Lisa too many times. We're Leak and Lusa now. I'm still not sure which end of that I'd prefer.

Friday evening was the kickoff of the campout and it was HOT. Joan showed up early as usual to set up her gear. Lauren from Long Island, a newcomer to our campout, was the next to roll in, shortly followed by one whopper of a thunderstorm. Lauren, Luke and I made it under Joan's awning before the rain started to come down too hard and we sat and waited for it all to end. Another camper, Brian, showed up after the rain and my dad showed up, too, and we all hung around the fire my dad set and ate chili. A good start to the weekend.

Saturday morning, another hot day. We all rode together to Track 9, a great breakfast place in Willington where they never seem to bat an eye when we show up with a big group of hungry bikers. Big breakfasts and many cups of coffee later, we were full and heading back home to get ready for the annual crayfish hunting expedition. The best part of the whole "crawfish jambalaya" thing. Fish nets in hand, river shoes on our feet, we set off. Unfortunately, all that rain we got on Friday brought the water level up so high, and the runoff combined with the current made it all impossible for us to hunt crayfish. We were exhausted from walking against the current and bruised form falling the rocks and we had about eight crayfish. Luke and Paula managed to snag a few more back near our campsite and we probably had about a dozen in total - until The Incident. The cause of The Incident is still not known, all I know is that I saw the bucket we used to hold the crayfish floating in the river shortly after Someone jumped into the river near it. I don't know if the crayfish all ganged up and tipped the bucket on their own, or of a wave or a foot knocked it when that person jumped into the river. All I know is that all of our crayfish escaped. After touting "Lisa's Famous Crawfish Jambalaya" - there were no crayfish. It was just jambalaya. How sad.
But more campers showed up and some visitors came for the day. I finally got to meet Melissa's James and see that Melissa was still, in fact, alive, since I hadn't seen her for so long and was seriously beginning to doubt it. I made a vat of jambalaya and it was all gone in record time - amazing! We cleaned up and then all settled in for a little guitar music by the campfire.
Our neighbor, Roland, and one of the campers, Voyle, played and sang and our friend Chris was supposed to be there, too, but had a scheduling conflict and couldn't come. Chris is an amazing musician and has a great singing voice and sings this fantastic song about firefighters called "Cold Missouri Water". Well wouldn't you know it, Voyle broke into song and I started humming along and realized - HEY THAT'S CHRIS'S SONG!! That was unbelievable. An obscure folk song about firefighters and two men who have never met, but should have met that night with guitars in hand, singing the same song. I took two little videos with my camera to capture the audio. I can only take 30 seconds at a time of video so here are two clips. It was late and pitch black and we were around the fire so there's nothing to see in the video but, if you know the song (CHRIS!) you'll recognize the tune. Here's one and here's the other.

Sunday morning we woke up to another sunny, hot day and everyone was packing to leave. Sioux, one of the campers from New York, offered to let me take her Suzuki SV out for a little test ride, how nice of her. It was fun and cute and so light and quiet compared to the Buell! Everyone packed up their gear and headed out. We cleaned up what was left and spent the rest of the afternoon soaking in the river. Another successful campout. Thanks to everyone who came out to visit!