We have returned safe and sound from yet another annual Easter Float Trip.  At least I would say we are no less sound than when we left.  We headed out Wednesday night and made the five-hour journey to Dora, MO, where Zim graciously housed us in his camper for the evening so we wouldn’t have to struggle with our tent in the dark.

Thursday we awoke to find possibly the best weather of the weekend;  Sunny and 40-ish.  We took advantage of this balmy climate and made the relatively short float from camp down to Dawt Mill.  I think this is becoming everyone’s favorite float anyway;  It is shorter than the other options, has some of the best scenery, (including the world famous monkey-deck,) and is generally devoid of river hazards…  With the exception of one rogue boulder that nearly de-canoed me.  I imagine we made for a rather interesting picture floating down the river in coats, pants and boots, but you gotta do what you gotta do.  It was no fashion show.  It’s a good thing we didn’t dump, we surely would have either frozen or sunk from all the clothes we were wearing.  Luckily it was a nice dry float though, and we returned to camp five hours later to a delicious dinner of fried chicken, mashed ‘taters and slaw.

Friday morning, after much spirited debate, the general consensus was “no float.”  It took roughly 2.7 seconds to talk me out of it, but there were a few die-hards who at least professed to wanting some river time.  When all was said and done though, only Zim and Chad actually loaded up a canoe and launched.  The rest of the group stayed back at camp and huddled around the fire, passing the time with several thousand rounds of cornhole.  I might take just a moment here to interject that at the end of the day I was the UNDEFEATED CORNHOLE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD!!!  Or of Dora at least.  Actually there is an asterisk by my title though, as I did not win the championship round against Eisenbarger by two points.  I’d given my all at that point and simply didn’t have another throw left in me;  I was mentally and physically exhausted.  Beside that, it’s probably the only thing I’ve ever won in my life, save the speed-typing contest in Angel Fire;  Let me have my moment of glory.

Friday night proved to be the coldest of the trip.  While I haven’t been able to research it fully, most in the group generally agreed it was, overall, the coldest trip ever.  Granted, you’re taking something of a chance with the weather when you go camping every Easter, but we’ve had glorious weather for the last several years running so we’re a bit spoiled.  This year, however, the official low in Dora (the closest town) was 21 degrees.  I’d say it qualified as “bitter cold,” and I heard several other descriptive adjectives attached throughout the evening too.  There was an extremely short-lived conversation about sticking it out until Sunday, but that idea didn’t get a lot of support.  We were low on supplies, frozen, bored, and the firewood was gone.  BAIL!!!  We pulled into KC later in the afternoon and had a short victory celebration at the Brooksider.  (Outside on the deck in the freezing wind, naturally.)  When all was said and done though, still a good trip.  Hey, at least we didn’t have to make many trips for ice.  Always the optimist.

Sunday, after a refreshing 14 hours of sleep, (seriously,) we had Easter dinner at our house.  Somehow or another we managed to squeeze a dozen people in the dining room, and had a nice little feast of brisket and ham along with several sides and desserts.  Good stuff!!  After dinner Todd came over and watched the Sopranos, and that was a weekend.  Only 345 days until the next Float Trip, start counting them down.

That was certainly a lame weekend.  Just never really got out of the gate.  The big canoe trip is next weekend though, so I probably needed the rest anyway.  I see a cold front is moving in just in time to make the trip “challenging.”

I just really didn’t so anything.  Donette was with Mom in Nebraska visiting my sister and family, so I just kind of sat around.  Watched a plethora of horror movies, ate junk food, that kind of stuff.  Excited yet?  Maybe I’ll add some content later after my weekday motivation kicks in.

Oh, I guess I could mention that I smoked my inaugural ’07 brisket yesterday.  I didn’t try any of it though so who knows how it came out.  I had intended to eschew the foil technique entirely, but ended up panicking and wrapping it up for a few hours.  And, as usual, regretted it.  Oh well, the season is early.

OK enough with the rain already…  I assume I brought this scourge on the city by deciding to ride a scooter to work.  At the current rate of precipitation I’ll get to ride to work like 4 days this year.

Whew that made two busy weekends in a row, save Friday. All we did Friday was stop by the Brooksider to say a quick “happy weekend” to everybody and then went home and shut down.  I went oncall so I had to spend an evening hunkered down in the dark sulking; it helps me get adjusted to the odd hours.

Saturday we got up relatively early and took the dogs on a nice long walk.  They like the exercise and I doubt it hurts us any either.  After that I took my bicycle up to a shop in Waldo to get it worked on, in preparation for my good intentions of riding again this summer.  This marked the first time, literally, that the bike has been off the garage wall since the ill-fated Katy Trail ride of ’05.  It still has like 2 lbs. of gravel dust caked on it as evidence of this, which might have something to do with why it doesn’t quite shift right.  I’m supposed to pick it back up today, hopefully they got it all working again.  For afternoon entertainment, we put our helmets on and went for a little ride.  We were a little nervous about the weather, but after keeping an eye on things for a while we decided it was going to stay dry so we rode all the way out to Mom’s house, by way of Y highway.  We visited a while and had a tasty lunch, and then rode back a slightly different route.  I’m for the weekend rides; it was a good time.  Relaxing even.  Kind of looking forward to the end of the 20 mph wind season though.  Donette went home after that, and I rode over to Brice’s house and had a few of the ribs they were smoking up.  BBQ season is officially OPEN!   We didn’t do much that night, sat around at home and watched the Jayhawks get thrashed.  I was a bit sad to see them lose, but that was easily compensated for by the knowledge that their “fans” or whatever they call themselves will be blissfully absent from the area until next year.

Sunday we started out the same way, with a good long dog walk.  According to Caesar Milan this is the surefire route to happy, healthy dogs, so we need a lot of walking.  Then we put the kids down for a nap and took the scooter up to the recently relocated Jake Edwards BBQ.  It earned a “mediocre” rating I would say.  Not too bad but I doubt we go back any time soon.  We had the burnt ends and sausage;  The burnt ends were decent but not smoky enough for me, and neither of us liked the sausage at all.  The sauce was good, the beans livable, and the fries passable.  However, when you factor in that everything was a buck or two overpriced, it knocked the rating down even further.  After that we took our full bellies home and went on a bit of an outdoor spring cleaning binge.  I got the blower fired up and blew all the crap off the back patio, we drug out the chairs and associated patio furniture, and washed the motorcycle and scooter as a bonus.  Then, inspired by the ribs at Brice’s house the day before, I fired up the smoker.  Todd and the Martin’s came over and we threw some chicken breasts and wings on, since that was all we really had time to cook.  We drug the TV out on the patio and watched North Carolina get beat while the chicken cooked.  The wings came out pretty darn good;  Martin may have given new life to the quest for the perfect smoked chicken wings.  The breasts were just OK…  I wonder if the sauce I slathered them in blocked the smoke or something.  Oh well, we were just enjoying the weather more than anything, I don’t think anybody was even hungry.

As a side note, I realize that the “weekly poll” excludes like 50% of the site’s dozen or so readers.  It was a request though, what can I do.

Wow I don’t feel too whippy.  I think I might be getting the crud that has been going around the office.  Perhaps I better stay home and sleep until Float Trip.

Well that was a relatively quiet weekend, at least compared to last week.  We started off Friday at the Brooksider on the deck, watching a little basketball.  None of the games were particularly exciting though, so we left early and went to dinner at Minskys with John & Susan.  I can’t recall that I’ve ever been to Minsky’s;  Maybe as a kid or something.  It wasn’t bad though…  Maybe we’ll even go back some day.  Anyway, we turned in early.  Nothing like a big plate of pasta to finish a day.

Saturday we sort of hid in the house.  I worked on my webserver most of the morning;  I’m sure everyone will breathe a big sigh of relief to know I am back on my usual server, complete with the latest greatest updates and patches.  I was supposed to go on a group scooter ride at noon, but didn’t make it.  There were several reasons I didn’t go, not the least of which was that the scooter was in the shop.  I could’ve gone and picked it up in time to go, but the weather wasn’t really all that nice, and I didn’t think it a very solid idea to go riding on St. Patrick’s day in the first place.  Probably get splattered by a drunk leprechaun or something.  We watched basketball at home the rest of the afternoon, and then the Martins came over for dinner.  I boiled up a pot of corned beef and cabbage, which I am quite fond of.  Now before you go griping on corned beef not being an authentic Irish meal, let me quickly point out that I don’t really care.  I like corned beef, it’s on sale for St. Patrick’s, hence that’s what I have for dinner on said holiday.  After dinner we traded in the usual card game for a round of dominoes.  I thought the game quite stupid, and I hope we never ever play it again.  Cards are much more entertaining.  Obviously I lost by like 200 points.

Sunday was similarly quiet.  It was a little nicer out, so I took a short motorcycle ride around town, and then we took the dogs on a nice long walk around the neighborhood.  After that I went down to the Brooksider to watch the KU game, and that was pretty much it for the weekend.  Donette fixed a tasty pot of red beans and rice for dinner, and we sat around and watched TV the rest of the evening.

In closing, I must say I was a bit disappointed in the results of last week’s poll.  The vast majority of those responding did not go to any parade at all last weekend?  Geez, what kind of fun-haters are reading this thing anyway?  I suppose I know the answer to that.

I’m too spent to put a lot of effort into this, but I’m trying.  That was a long weekend, and busy too.  Way too many activities for my liking.  We kicked the weekend off on Thursday night, since I had Friday off.  We motored over to the downtown Peanut to see if our friend Ann was working, which she was.  When she’s in the kitchen it usually leads to a mammoth feed-a-thon, and this trip was no exception.  We started things off with a pile of potato chips, beautifully paired with a cup of blue cheese and hot sauce for dipping.  This was followed by a dozen of the best hot wings in the city slathered with more blue cheese, and then topped off things off with a triple BLT served with piping hot cheese fries.  Perhaps not the healthiest meal I’ve ever eaten, but certainly one of the best.

Friday’s events centered around John & Susan’s wedding reception down on the Plaza.  We decided to make a day of it, so we took the dogs to the kennel, made the arduous journey down to the Plaza and got a room at the hotel.  The day kind of got away from us and we didn’t do a whole lot, but we did have lunch at the recently opened Jack Stack.  I had the burnt ends, and Donette ordered the always-solid Poor Russ sandwich.  The burnt ends were typical; Big hunks of brisket.  I don’t think any place around here puts a whole lot of effort into their burnt ends.  Maybe LC’s, but they’re hit and miss there too.  I’m still looking.  Don’t get me wrong, they were good, just not what I was looking for.  Can’t complain;  It’s definitely an upgrade on the KC Masterpiece that was there before.  After lunch we went back to the hotel and took a little nappy, then Donette had to go take pictures with the wedding party.  After that, well, the reception.  It was a little on the hoity-toity side, but fun all the same.  It was pretty funny seeing the Brooksider crowd all dressed up;  Pretty much everybody had a suit on.  (Except me of course… what a slob.)

Saturday we woke up and got ready for the trip back home.  We got the car all packed and gassed up, filled our coffee mugs, and headed out.  When we finally pulled into our neighborhood, we were so exhausted we had to go straight to Sharp’s for some breakfast.  I just can’t stand traveling in my old age.  Mapquest put the trip at just under 3 miles but it seemed a lot further.  Maybe that’s if you take Ward Parkway;  We went down Wornall.  Anyway, a solid plate of biscuits and gravy fixed me up.  For our afternoon entertainment we headed down to the Brooksider and watched the KU – Kansas game, which was relatively entertaining.  Most of the crowd was pro-Kansas I’d say, or at least anti-KU.  Even more specifically, anti-KU-fan.  There was a small group of KU’ers but they left shortly, leaving behind their usual pile of cigarette butts and 25-cent tips.  Unfortunately the game conflicted with the Brookside parade going on outside, so we missed all that action for the ump-teenth year in a row.  Oh well, gotta pick your events.  We saw most of it through the front window I guess.

Sunday we slept in a bit, then headed downtown for lunch at Willies.  If you haven’t checked it out yet, it’s not a bad place to hang out.  Lots of TV’s, standard menu, pretty solid location.  My stomach was still a bit out of sorts from Thursday’s dinner, so I stuck to a grilled chicken sandwich with cottage cheese on the side.  Not bad;  Kind of hard to mess up a chicken sandwich.  After lunch, it was off to the big auto show.  Donette has decided she may need a new vehicle for whatever reason.  Yeah, ours is 10 years old, but it still has a lot of life in it.  We’ll see what comes of that; we picked out a few “favorites.”  I should say, SHE picked out a few favorites.  I pretty much hated everything she showed me, and she literally wouldn’t even look at the ones I liked.  What can you do.  Apparently I have been shut out of the decision making process on the new vehicle.  I didn’t catch the associated reasoning but I heard something about “blah blah blah motorcycle blah blah mumble mumble scooter blah blah blah.”  Something like that.  We walked around down there for like 2 hours, which pretty much wore us out.  I took a ride around the city on the motorcycle for a little practice, and that’s about it.  For evening entertainment I watched “The Visitation,” which was absolutely awful.  I was highly amused by the cast though, which included Kelly Lynch (a.k.a. “the hot chick from Roadhouse”) and Randy Travis.  Man, hard to believe the movie wasn’t a bigger hit with a star-studded lineup like that.