Drunkshoes: A Primer.

Drunkshoes is a time honored LOD camping tradition. For those of you who are not familiar with the concept it's like Horseshoes and Quarters all rolled into one huge mess.

Teams of two men assemble on the field of battle. Beers in one hand and Horseshoes in the other. They taunt each other and scrape their feet like bulls getting ready to charge.

Once the bravado is at it's highest they fling a shoe at an iron stake sticking out of the ground. The closest shoe gets a point. But if you happen to land outside the box your team has to take a drink.

If for some reason the shoe goes two paces past the box in any direction the team has to chug one beer each. Once the beer is chugged play resumes.

In the event someone rings the stake they get 3 points and the person who threw it gets to make a rule. The rules stay in effect the entire duration of play. That's when the fun really begins.

After an extremely good round or 18 or Drunkshoes a player may feel the urge to cool down. This calls for a Creek Stomp. It is usually preceded by a head first dive into a shallow pool. During the Creek Stomp a player may fall, stumble, and or bust his ass. Turning blue is usually a side effect of the Creek Stomp. The water is around 50 degrees.

Following the Creek Stomp it is customary to eat an extremely good dinner and then chunk a propane cylinder in the nearest campfire for grins.

LOD Spring Freak Out 2009

Well it's time. Time for the annual pilgrimage to the hills. Looks like it is going to be a wet trip. So I think we need to mix things up a bit. Here's a few ideas.

Chug For The Title. This is a timed beer chug each morning. The Winner is referred to as "Lord Faggotor: King of Uranus" all day. The loser, will be referred to as "Beer Bitch" and gets to swim to the keg and refill every one's beer all day.

Chain Saw Juggling. We've all seen it done. But how drunk do you need to be to try it? A brave soul would supply the answer.

Horse Skeet. Think Drunkshoes with a twist. We all know the basic rules for Drunkshoes. Out of the box is a team drink. 2 paces outside the box is a creeker,and therefor, a team chug. I suggest the non throwing team member on each side, try to shoot the horseshoe mid flight with a paint ball gun. The receiving team cannot leave the two pace ring or it will result in a DQ. If you get hit by an errant paintball you may return fire during your throwing turn. Should be lots of fun and could also result in a new combat sport.

Game Warden Dunking*. The object of the game is to lure a Game Warden to the creek and give him a good dunking. Which would lead to the next game.

Escape And Evade*. This game involves running like hell through the woods from an angry, wet, and armed Game Warden. The object of this game is to not go to jail for dunking a Game Warden. Play at your own risk.

Fall On Your Ass. This is a new game we played last fall. It involves doing shots until you fall down laughing your butt off. Lots of fun. I think last time we had a three way tie for first place between Jerry, Pete, and Kevin. You get extra points for destroying your own camping equipment in the process. Points are deducted for trashing a fellow campers equipment, so be careful.

Hide And Go Pass Out. The title says it all. The question is, Will Jerry remain Grand Champion? Or will he pass the title? We'll find out Thursday!


*Extra points for Ranger Dan.

Jobu Tried To Kill Me.

One bright and lovely spring weekend The Legion Of Doom had convened on the hill for our usual merriment. It was a wonderful trip. With one exception. Jobu tried to kill me.

We camped in the bend in the road campsite. It is a nice site. It has a few good things going for it. It's very secluded. You cannot see it from the road. It has a nice fire ring. It's in a nice peaceful little valley with a creek on one side. It's really quite nice. About the only drawback is there is not a flat piece of ground to be found to place your tent on. You just need to make sure you sleep with your head pointing up hill. No biggie.

Being spring I was miserable. If it is a plant, I'm allergic to it. I think spring is a pretty time of year, but I can do without all the pollen nonsense. I've come up with a list of over the counter allergy medication that when ground with a mortar and pestle, and then snorted up each nostril seems to help. I've also discovered that when camping in the spring I should drink large quantities of beer. This helps me forget how utterly miserable I am.

We made it through Friday night and all day Saturday without getting ourselves harmed in any serious manner. The camping trip was shaping up nicely. Saturday night rolled around and we began to drink seriously. (We really hate to bring home lots of beer.) It was a beautiful night the was not a cloud in the sky.

One beer lead to another and pretty soon we decided to chunk one in the fire. This was before we began to make huge fires so the bottle had time to get good and hot before it exploded. It went off with a thunderous BOOM. It was pretty cool so we stoked the fire back up and did it again.

This time the bottle did not explode. Instead the beer inside began to boil. You could see the bubbles rolling through the brown bottle. It then began to hiss. Then it began to shake. The shaking worried us a bit. It really need to be relived of some of its pressure. So...we threw rocks at it.

The problem with throwing rocks when you have been drinking is your aim. Its hard to aim at something that keeps moving back and forth. I decided that I needed to aim somewhere in the middle. I did hit it a few times but with not sufficient force to break it. Now we were begging to panic. The bottle was starting to jump around the fire pit. Something had to be done!

Just when we were getting ready to duck as the possessed beer from hell was beginning to fly about camp, some one yelled "Hit it with a shovel!" Ordinarily this would not be a big problems. Most shovels have a 5 foot long handle. Our shovel was an E-Tool. If you don't know what and E-Tool is its a folding shovel about 2 feet long that our government uses to torture our Armed Forces.

Being the drunkest in the bunch and thereby the most bullet proof I snatched up the E-Tool and began to battle with the flying beer bottle. I began to swat at it with all my might. I wounded it and The demon settled back into the fire pit. I then began to whack it with all I had. From behind me I heard my "Friends" yelling "Hit it like a Man!!" I turned to look at them and all I saw was three heads poking out from behind a large white pine. I thought "What a bunch of cowards!" and smacked it one last time.

I remember admiring the mushroom cloud as I was flying backwards carried by the shock wave. If you have never surfed a shock wave I highly recommend it. I recall looking down on Jerry , Kevin, and Pete as they hid behind the tree. The puzzled looks on their faces was priceless as they tried to figure out where I had gone. Before I lost sight of the campfire I saw what I thought was two eyes and an evil grin forming in the mushroom cloud...It was the face of Jobu. He was laughing.

The next morning I woke up in the creek. The water was rather cold but the crayfish that were picking the glass from my clothes gave me some warmth. I walked the two miles back to camp.

When I got there I noticed a silhouette of my body on the tree that was behind me during the "smacking." It was the only bit that did not have glass embedded in the bark. The ground around the fire ring was stripped bare. It looked as if someone had pressure washed it. And the rocks that made up the fire ring looked to have been sandblasted.

I did recover from my injuries. There is still a piece of glass embedded in my scalp and my right hand still twitches every now and then. And when ever I hear "Hit it like a Man" I flinch and have the sensation of flight but I can live with it. Jobu didn't succeed in killing me this trip or the few dozen that followed it. But he still tries.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Dad! I hope it is a good one.

Jobu, The Moldy.

Jobu...he's a prick. He is who we blame for all the bad stuff that happens when camping. As long as you feed him and give him a little beer or rum he is OK. Ignore him and he gets rowdy. Jobu has may tricks at his disposal. This is a tale of one of them.

We had evidently grown complacent in out treatment of Jobu, so he tried to drown us. We arrived to a beautiful October day. First camping ritual is to drink a beer when you arrive to your site of choice. This usually helps to ease the pain of setup. After a beer or two we set up camp.

When it comes to tent placement, you want to choose where you set your tent carefully. Flat open areas are usually ideal. Close to the fire is also another choice. Me, I like high and flat. Next, is your dining canopy. You want to put that close to the main gathering area which will be your fire pit. We had our camp site set up.

There were six of us on this trip, Jerry, Kevin, Pete, Carl, Doug and myself. We had a great time that Friday night. The details of which seem to escape my memories. But I'm very certain we had a good time by the painful reminder I had Saturday morning.

Saturday dawned cold and gray. We cooked breakfast and washed it down with a healthy portion of Miller Lite. We went down to Apple Valley and hiked down to the big waterfall. A drunken stagger to the waterfall has become a rite of passage in the LOD. It has affectionately become known as a "Death March." Good times as long as you don't bust your ass or more importantly spill your beer. As we made the journey back it started to sprinkle.

We arrived back at camp to a nice light but steady rain. We arranged coolers and all gathered as close to the center of the dining canopy as we possibly could. This was hampered a bit by the huge ancient spool that used to reside at out campsite. We had chosen to use it as a table and had placed it in the center of our old blue Wal-Mart canopy. We would later regret using this as a center support. The rain continued to come down. We heard thunder off in the distance but looking back I think it was Jobu laughing at what was to come.

As the rain came down we drank. Some of us took naps in between beers. I made spitballs from a news paper that someone brought up and fired them from the spud gun. Later as the rain continued to come down we learned that our center pole arrangement for the dining canopy encouraged the formation of pools of water at the dining canopy's corners. I discovered that if you gently nudged the corner pole when someone is walking under it it would dump 2 gallons of cold wather right on their unsuspecting heads. This kept me amused for hours.

The steady rain was taking a toll on our fire. At this point in our camping careers, we had yet to make a really huge fire. In an effort to protect our sacred camping flame we made a cover from an old truck fender. The truck parts had been laying there since Jobu struck the vehicle dead back in the early 20's. We arraigned the parts into a crude fireplace. But the rain was too steady and the wood to wet to light. So we turned a can of Coleman fuel on its side and put the spout through a crack in the fender. What was left of the fire was enough to warm the fuel and create a small gas flame to give us some heat.

The rain kept coming. Day turned to night.

We rallied our spirits. Jobu was not going to beat us. Not us! No Sir! We lit up our lanterns and surrounded ourselves in the warm glow and heat of white gas love. As our hats became soaked we dried them on top of the lanterns. If you should ever try this technique one word of advise. Let your cap cool before you put it on. I have a scar on the top of my head from the hot button in the middle.


Eventually we ran out of beer and staggered off to the tents. I discovered I had a leak in my tent. It had formed a small pool at one end. I carefully positioned my air mattress where it would not be under any drips and settled into my sleeping bag for a fitful nights sleep. I had placed my tent on high ground. It turned out that Jobu really didn't like this and he has reminded me of it on just about every camping trip since.

During the night the rain got harder. We woke to a pond were the fire pit had been. Bottles and cans were floating down a small stream that ran though the middle of our camp.

Kevin's tent had made an attempt to stop a newly formed feeder creek to Walnut Fork. He even built a small earthen dam around it. But the during the night the water breached it and came rushing in.

Pete had dreams of white water rafting. He woke up to find himself floating on his air mattress in 8 inches of water.

Doug and Carl did not sleep well either. Due to the placement of their tent and the force of the water running through it an eddie had formed. They spent the night in a swirling mass of unholy wrath.

As we emerged looking like shipwreck victims from out tents Jobu turned the water up from "Soak" to "Holy Hell! Turn off that f*****g fire hose you asshat!"

No one said a word to each other. We just started the trucks and cars and began shoving things in them. Wet tents went in coolers. 400 pound soaked sleeping bags were shoved in trunks. I wadded up the dining canopy and crammed it in the back of the Beast. Camp was broken down in record time. We all said "Bye," waved our extended middle fingers at the clouds, and began our trek home.


As soon as we were about an hour away from camp...the sky cleared. and right there in front of me was a big puffy white cloud that looked like an extended middle finger. Jobu didn't like us to much it seems.

After this trip I bought an new tent. I also bought a huge tarp it was always over my tent from then on. I also vowed never to have a fire drown from rain. And so far none have. We also began setting up our tents on high ground. Now the only thing that goes near the fire pit is the kitchen set up. And a pile of wood that would heat the average sized home through the worst winter ever.

Thanks for the lesson Jobu. You'll have to try better next time. You're still a prick though.

Learn By Doing

25 Things I've learned from camping.

1. A full beer bottle will explode if heated sufficiently.
2. Propane Cylinder + campfire = Bad idea.
3. Rancid dear meat may not kill you, but it will make you wish it did.
4. Hot Dogs should not be eaten consecutively for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
5. Always remove the trailer hitch from your truck before you go "wheelin."
6. Some Game Wardens do not have a sense of humor.
7. Some Game Warden do have a sense of humor.
8. The "poopie seat" location is visible from the road.
9. Assassin Bugs are really ugly.
10. Poo will burn.
11. Brake rotors will not burn in our campfires...yet.
12. Hippy College Kids are wasting their Mom and Dad's money.
13. Immovable objects like the school bus are in fact...Movable.
14. Too many hands in the pot will ruin the chili.
15. Drunk Shoes is a lot more fun with my Younger Brother playing.
16. My father has great friends.
17. You should never fry canned biscuits in rendered fat.
18. Watching your buddies puke is no longer funny when you join them.
19. When someone says "hit it like a man" look to see if they are hiding behind something first.
20. Eye brows grow back...ears don't.
21. Contrary to popular belief Jose Cuervo is not your friend.
22. Paint-balls hurt.
23. Potato Guns are fun, but a meat gun would be awesome.
24. A 1987 Dodge Ramcharger is an invitation for disaster. It is also a key to adventure.
25. Some of the best people I've ever known I camp with. A man could not ask for more.

Love In A Cardboard Tube.

I’m starting to get a little on the hungry side so I think I’ll talk about food for a bit. As a camper evolves, so does his ability to cook in the mountains.

In the beginning our meals consisted mainly of hotdogs cooked on a stick and prepackaged ready to eat foods. Specifically, Little Debbie Nutty Bars and Doritos.

Eventually we began to warm canned food. Beans for the most part. I can remember a can or two of stew as well.

Later we began to cook breakfast foods. Eggs and bacon. And then we tried biscuits.

Biscuits and camping may not sound like to things that work well together without bringing up an oven. Truthfully you really should have an oven present to cook biscuits. I imagine you could use your handy dandy cast iron Dutch oven. But for me that is inviting cinders to form.

One of our intrepid members found a “solution” to the biscuit dilemma. First you need to cook about 5 pounds of bacon. When you are done cooking the bacon you should have approximately 2.5 inches of bacon fat bubbling away in the bottom of your pan. Do not dispose of this fat. It is crucial to the next step.

Now when you were doing your grocery shopping you should have picked up enough canned biscuits to feed 16 folks of so. Open up your canned dough and plop those doughy little turds into your grease. Fry them until they turn an nice crispy golden brown on one side. Turn those little beasties.

When you are complete you should have a nice thin layer of bacon grease left in the pan. Just enough for a batch of eggs, but not enough to dump in the fire. Cook up your eggs.

Now it’s time to eat. Grab a plate and load up about 10 pieces of bacon, a big scoop of eggs and a biscuit or two.

We all should know what campfire eggs and bacon tastes like. But the biscuits are a completely different story.

When you pick up the biscuit the first thing you notice is that it is heavier than you thought it should be. The second thing you notice is that when you release it what ever you happen to grab next slips our of your grasp almost immediately. You chalk this up to all the beer you drank the night before.

After having found a nice chair to sit in out of the smoke from the early morning fire. You pick up your biscuit. A cool thought usually goes through you head at this point. “I’ve got bacon, eggs and a biscuit! Man we have arrived!”

Your joy is short lived however. You bite into your biscuit. Now you need to wipe your chin. “That’s odd” you think. “I didn’t butter my biscuit.” That’s not butter dripping off your chin. It’s bear cocaine. Bacon fat.

After eating one of these coronary sponges you are over come with the urge to vomit. But being a trooper you stick it out. Maybe pouring some beer on it will help to dissolve the fat. But that does not do the trick.

Your only recourse is to wait it out. The details of which you can only imagine.

The next morning you discover that cooking in the skillet is 20 pounds of pork sausage. Once again the biscuits come out. This time you are wiser. When the cook is not looking you toss your biscuit into the fire. Oily black smoke licks skyward as the biscuit is cremated. You look away and hear a “Whump!” as another biscuit burst into flame.

The next trip you discover that the biscuits have once again returned to the mountain. It’s time for a preemptive strike. Start out telling of the MythBusters episode where they cook off cans of instant biscuits in a hot car. Then suggest that they may explode in a fire.

The first can goes in. You hear a small pop. And the side of the can has popped open. “That one must have been a dud.” you say. “Try another.” Soon all the death sponges are consumed by flame.

And your colon thanks you.

As I typed this I realized that if you wrap a biscuit can in duct tape on the sides and secure the bottom you may be able to launch a few biscuits skyward. I think I may have a diversion when we once again assemble on the hill.