Up Nort’ ‘ey

Last weekend wasn’t even worth writing about. The weekend was Doomed from the start. By Doomed I mean I spent the entire weekend playing my new video game Doom 3. I like to just waste weekends on video games instead of spending every night during the week doing little by little. I did solve it so I can have my life back. The other highlight was I switched my computer back to a tower case from my little cube case. I need more space for storage so I’m back to the full size. Nothing really even worth mentioning last weekend; boring and geeky.

This past Monday was worth mentioning. We had our tasting for the food that we’re going to have at the wedding and my is it good. We’re having too much to list so all I can say is everyone will be pleasantly stuffed when it is over.

That brings us to this weekend. I was finally able to make the trip to the Marti’s cabin up North in the Crivitz area. Chad has invited me to about ten of these trips and I’ve always been busy on the weekend that they go up. I finally got to go along. Chad flew in Friday afternoon and Pyrek picked him up from the airport. After work I went home, packed up my long underwear and went over to Darren’s apartment to meet up with Chad and Ryan. Ryan drove us three and a half hour drive up to the Northwoods. We met Telly (who I haven’t seen in about six years), Chad’s dad and brothers at a bar/restaurant in Crivitz. The bar was your typical up North snowmobilers watering hole. We had a couple drinks there and some pizzas. While we were warming up in the bar the weather was getting colder and colder and dropped to -10 without the wind chill. After we finished eating we drove north the additional twenty minutes to get to Amburg which is the actual town the cabin is in. Amburg has two bars and we split our night between the two. The bars were your typical up North taverns with your typical up North clientele. There was a nice mix of the hick locals and the snowmobilers taking a break from driving eighty miles an hour to the next bar. After the bars we headed to the cabin and staked out where everyone was going to sleep in the cabin. There were ten guys staying there and there was enough room for all of us, barely. So after eating some more pizzas to soak up all the Miller Lite I hit the floor to get some sleep. Friday night was the worst night of sleep I have ever had. I actually didn’t get any sleep, not one wink. Craig has a new dog and the thing stayed up the entire night whimpering and yelping. The thing did not shut up for one second. I was so irate and I thought the thing would shut up eventually but it never stopped. We went to bed around three thirty and the fishing folk were getting up at five so I thought I’d tough it out until then. So I rested my eyes for ninety minutes but no sleep was to be had.

The people that were going to go ice fishing pressed the snooze button a couple times and didn’t get up until around six thirty. I woke up with the fishers and complained about the dog and told them they were nuts for going out in the cold to fish. So once the left with the dog, amen, I claimed one of the beds and got a good hour of sleep. After my cat nap I bundled up to join the guys on the ice. There was a tournament going on on the lake so there were a bunch of people sitting in zero degree weather looking into a hole. It was nice and sunny without one cloud in the sky but flat out cold. I stayed outside a little over an hour. Nobody saw a fish all day. Even the fish knew that it was too cold to be out there. The only fish I saw the whole weekend was breaded. After fishing we headed to the same bar from the night before to get a hamburger. We ate and then headed back to the cabin for a nap. The nap was a necessity for all. After everyone woke up we headed to the Amburg Pub for the ice fishing awards and a raffle. The raffle was a fun. They were selling paint stick paddles for huge hams, huge pork loins, cheap leather jackets, a bread machine and a rotisserie grill. I dropped at least $20 on the paddles but came away meat free. Chad won a turkey and Darren won a Budweiser collector’s beer bottle that was promptly drank by everyone. During the raffle they have prizes for almost everyone. Most everyone in the group ended up with some sort of booze shirt and a shot glass. After all the prizes were gone so were we. We took ourselves back to the same bar where we had lunch and got another burger for dinner. We asked the girl if she could just redo our orders from lunch. We stayed at this bar for a good portion of the night. There was craziness throughout the night and I haven’t laughed so hard in a long long time. Some of the highlights included an atomic wedgie, the burning of the aforementioned atomic wedgie underwear in the wood stove, fun with taxidermied animals, the toilet papering of a mounted moose, and other craziness. Props to the bartender. I really don’t know how she was able to put up with all our crap. Probably because money was flying around like crazy. After we drank the bar out of shorties of Miller Lite, the group drink of choice for the weekend, we went to one last bar called The Northwoods over by the cabin. The bar is in the middle of nowhere. We stormed into there like a tornado. There were a couple locals there that weren’t too happy when we came in and they made it clear to us that they didn’t want us there. They yelled at one of the guys and then the local guy went off on a tirade. He called the bar a “family place”, told us that he knew that we were “fancy” and “we had to be from down south, someplace Sheboygan or South” and finally he insisted that “I’m not inbred, everyone thinks we’re all inbred up here and I’m not inbred.” The last point continued to be reiterated throughout the night even after the confrontation calmed down. We stayed there for a little over an hour and we all decided we had had enough and headed back to the cabin. After some more pizzas at the cabin and more craziness we all managed to find our sleeping space and concluded a very long day.

Sunday we cleaned up the cabin and headed home about noon. We stopped at a bar in Wausaukee and had one last up North burger. The burger I got was really good and consisted of one Italian sausage patty and one hamburger patty. Good stuff. We made it back to Milwaukee around four and I spend the rest of the day on the couch. I had a lot of fun and a thank you goes out to Chad and his family.

My Waist Is Size XX-XL

Not much doing this weekend. Friday low key and Saturday we ran up to Sheboygan to get Jocelyn’s car fixed at my brother’s. We didn’t stay overnight though and after a stop at the Golden Chopsticks buffet and Piggly Wiggly we were back in MKE by seven. Sunday was action packed with my third annual Super Bowl party. Chappy, Katie, Adam, Stacy, Todd and Steph were the party goers at Apt 54’s XL party. I spent Saturday night doing some of the food prep work. Sunday morning I woke up early to get all the food made. This year’s menu included BBQ Pork on Sheboygan hard rolls, chicken wings, potato skins, cole slaw, taco dip, French onion dip, and black bean dip. As is tradition I made way too much food. Everyone rolled in right before kickoff and I immediately started shoving food down their throats. The game was probably the most boring Super Bowl that I have ever seen in my life. The Steelers beat the Seahawks by a final score of something to something. Even though the game stunk we had a lot of fun. Everyone enjoyed the food and it’s always fun to get together with friends for some revelry. Steph made a Steelers football cake that looked very professional. I wouldn’t allow anyone to stop eating after the cake though, I had wings to get rid of. Even after the force feeding of my guests I still had a ton left overs. After the game everyone headed home and we cleaned up. It was another good time to add to the book of good times.

He’s An Island Boy

Another wonderful vacation in a tropical paradise. This Tuesday we left for St. Thomas to spend the week. We flew out of O’Hare at seven in the morning so we woke at four to drive from Milwaukee. We flew from Chicago to Charlotte to St. Thomas. St. Thomas is two hours ahead so we ended up getting in at about four in the afternoon. Jocleyn’s sister Marissa lives on the island so she came to pick us up at the airport. The airport was pretty rickety but they really know how to welcome you. In Hawaii you may get a lei but in St. Thomas you get Cruzan rum punch, what a welcome. We collected our bags and got in the car for my first death defying introduction to the roadways of the islands. They drive on the left side of the road in the VI so that is the first thing that that you need to get used to. The second is that the roads are a lane and half wide without emergency lanes. If you go off the side of the road you’re pretty much going to roll down the mountain. Well, the only way I can put it is all the drivers are nuts and the roads are nuts. The inclines are somewhere in thirty plus degree range with convenient stops on the tops of these hills. Then from the stop you have to navigate the one hundred eighty degree switchbacks and ninety degree turns that are one lane wide with two cars trying to use the turn. An explanation really doesn’t do it justice. It’s something that you really have to experience to fully understand the craziness. After a forty-five minute roller coaster ride we made it to the Ritz where we were staying. One of the reasons that we went to St. Thomas is because we got free lodging at the Ritz thanks to Jocelyn’s mom and her fiancé Craig. Not only did we get a free place to stay but the place was absolutely amazing. Boats and RainbowIt was a three bedroom, four bath condo with an amazing view and great amenities. We really were extremely spoiled and can’t thank Craig and Jenni enough for letting us stay with them. We weren’t the only ones taking advantage of the lodging situation. Jocelyn’s aunt and uncle were also on vacation and staying in the condo as well. It was cloudy when we got into St. Thomas but as soon as we sat on the balcony overlooking the bay the sun came out and two gorgeous rainbows came out. It was a sign that this would be a great vacation. We sat on the balcony, had some rum, and enjoyed the weather. Once dinner rolled around we motivated ourselves to get ready and get some food. We went to Duffy’s Love Shack the first night. When they say shack, they mean shack. This bar and grill was nothing more than a garage in the middle of a parking lot. I had a burger and some local drinks and all was good with the world at that point. After that we went back to the condo and had some more rum drinks and enjoyed the night’s ocean breeze. We went to bed pretty early because we were wiped our from the day of travel.

On Wednesday morning we awoke to a gorgeous sunny day. The plan for the day was to take the ferry over to St. John to see some of the flare of that island. St. John has about 4200 people living on it where St. Thomas has 50k. St. J it more laid back, nicer, and is solely a tourist island. We took the ferry over in the morning and rented a car in Cruz Bay. Jocelyn’s uncle Jeff got suckered into the driving duties. We got into the Jeep Liberty and started off on a tour of the island. We started off by driving to Cinnamon Bay. It was a gorgeous beach that had a huge castle/house overlooking it in the distance. While we were there we got a little sun and did some snorkeling. The snorkeling wasn’t as good as Mexico but its still fun to swim around and see the life under the sea. We were swimming around for about an hour and I started to get tired so I headed back in. At about eleven we got back in the Liberty and drove to Coral Bay on the other side of St. John. We stopped at another shack type place called Skinny Legs. It’s called Skinny Legs because the owners of the place have skinny legs. I was in love with the place. It was a dumpy shack that had a canvas roof and a bar. I had another burger and some Virgin Islands Pale Ales (which is a delicious beer). We sat at Skinny Legs and ate our lunch. I could’ve stayed there all vacation, it was great. The sun worshipers wanted to get back to the beach though so we headed to Jumbie Bay. Jumbie is a word that you hear all the time down in the VI and it means malevolent ghost or zombie. This particular beach had a crazy story behind the name. The beach used to hold bowling matches. Not regular bowling matches though. Slave owners would bury slaves in the sand up to their necks and then roll balls at their heads. The ghosts of these slaves are jumbies and hence the name. So after a couple hours of lying on the beach that was once a bowling alley we headed back to Cruz bay to return the Jeep. We had a couple beers at The Beach Bar before catching the ferry back to St. Thomas. Once back at the condo we sat on the balcony until it was time for dinner. This night we went to Agave terrace. It was a fancier place and it was the typical open air eating type of dinning. Their signature attractions were a fabulous view as well as hermit crabs walking all around their decorative areas. For dinner I had lobster and scallops and loved every morsel. After dinner it was back to the condo for more lounging before we went to bed.

It was a pretty busy day on Wednesday so we hung around the resort on Thursday. I walked around the entire place and snapped some pictures of the iguanas and vegetation. Everyone was lying on the beach but I’m not the beach layer so I skipped some stones, playing some pool on the outdoor pool table and built a sand castle. After doing that I had worked up quite an appetite so J and I went to eat at one of the little restaurants on the resort. I had a jerk chicken sandwich with some fries. That was just he fuel I need for a long day of lounging on a deck chair. I was getting sunburn so after eating I traded the beach lounging for deck lounging. I spent the rest of the day there drinking some Cruzan and coke and staring into the blue distance. For dinner that night we went to pizza place across from Duffy’s called Sop Choppy’s. The pizza was great and I ate way too much. After the pizza it was back to the balcony to breathe in that warm ocean breeze and relax the night away.

What would a vacation in a tropical paradise be without a trip to the local tourist trap bazaar? We went to the St. Thomas market area on Friday which is right by where all the cruise ships dock. There was one ship docked and every time I see those massive ships I am in awe how such a huge structure can float. This market place is strategically placed and caters to the tourists and docked ships. If you’ve ever been to Mexico or any other tropical destination the markets in St. Thomas are identical. Jocelyn and I got bought our wedding bands from a little jeweler called Ballerina II. Talk about some high pressure sales tactics. The shop salesmen started out by offering me a beer while I waited for the ladies to look around. Talk about catering to your clientele. If more jewelry stores gave the men beers I have a feeling men wouldn’t be as reluctant to go browse the local jeweler’s shop. So the shop lackey went in the back and got me a cold can of Budweiser. What started off as a complimentary beer turned into “What are you looking for buddy, something nice for you?” So I started looking and ended up buying my ring and Jocelyn found one for herself. After the jewelry store we went to a couple more shops. For lunch we had a VI Pale Ale at The Happy Buzzard and at some authentic island food at Cuzzin’s. From there we headed back to the resort. The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging until evening. That night we went to a gallery night type of event. There were a bunch of local artists and they were serving champagne and hors’dovres. We looked around and met up with a couple people that Craig and Jenni knew from the island. While we were in the gallery a torrential down pour started outside. We ran through the drenching rain to the car and drove off to the Toad and Tart to have dinner. This place doesn’t even rank as a dive bar on my scale. It was a flat out dump. The food we had was pretty good and a drink is a drink but the atmosphere was somewhere between garbage dump and homeless shelter. The TT is a fantasic place! After dinner we went back to the resort. Once we got back we sat in the car and waited for the rain to let up but it wasn’t so I made a dash for it. Everyone got soaked to the bone but we were safely in for the night. We listened to music, had some rum drinks and talked the night away.

On Saturday I wanted to head to St. John early so I could explore Cruz Bay. J and I packed up our stuff and headed to Marissa’s place to spend the last day because Craig and Jenni had already checked out and were on their way home. Conveniently Marissa lives only a block away so we wheeled our stuff over there. I dropped off my stuff and Chad and I took the ferry over to St. John. Once on St. John we headed to a little bar called The Quiet Mon. It’s a tiny little place up some steps. Kenny Chesney is a hero in St. John and this bar is in one of his songs. We had some beers there and then headed to Woody’s to get some lunch. We got a bunch of appetizers including spicy shark bites which were very good. After lunch we went to another bar and shot some pool and waited for J and Marissa to come over from St. Thomas. Once they arrived we shot a little more pool, went to Joe’s Rum Hut, Cap’s Place and then back to The Quiet Mon. Chad took a little nap on the bar while we had some VI Pales. After Chad rallied we went to the Beach to get some food and see a band that was playing. I was a little bored with the band and went to a place called Lizard’s that is actually owned by a Sheboyganite. The bartenders were cool guys and I talked to them the rest of the night and waited for the band to get done and others to come over to meet me. They finally made it over to Lizard’s and we had a few final drinks before we jumped on the ferry and headed back. Once back on St. Thomas we went back to Duffy’s Love Shack. I was completely fine going to the place but we got a fish bowl drink called the Shark Tank and it killed me. Once we left Duffy’s and got back to Marissa and Chad’s I was feeling a little under the weather. This “sickness” lasted throughout the night and took me into the next day.

My final day was a hurtful one. I couldn’t move. The drinking and lack of hydration had made me quite sick. I managed to power through it and was able to take the forty-five minute roller coaster ride to the airport. We caught our flight at about one and headed back to the states. We flew to Philadelphia and then to Chicago. We got in about nine thirty and made it home about eleven, the end of our vacation.

It was TONS of fun and a great vacation, even with the last day. I would highly suggest St. John. It is gorgeous and a lot of fun. A huge “thank you” to Craig and Jenni for letting us stay at the resort with them as well as Marissa and Chad for their hospitality. Thanks everyone!