Closing In

Last Tuesday, I ventured over to Ohio. This is what I saw:

Despite the long day out there, I only whetted my appetite for gray and wide-open nothingness.

So, I went out again on Wednesday.

Luckily, there were a couple bright spots. The rest of the week was spent in the comfort of my polychromatic office.

In other news, I did manage to go nuclear on my Christmas budget. 

I found some cool things at Filson for my parents and managed to snag some hatchets from Gransfors Bruk for some other fine folks. You know, because we're outdoorsy. Not to be outdone by Santa, I finally bit on a new camera for myself.

On Saturday, my parents had extended family over to their house for Christmas. Cookies, wine and fun times.

Ohio

Usually, a short conversation is the most entertainment I get at work.

Anticipating the response is nearly unbearable.

Unless, of course, I'm sneaking up on my brother and taking ninja-quick snapshots as he cleans empty muscle milks and protein bar wrappers off his front seat. That's also fun.

I needed a little more excitement for the weekend, so we joined a dozen or so friends and went out to Mohican Friday night to do some riding. We got three cottages and were lucky enough to share one with wonderful friends and couple of the year, Alison and Tim.

Big Cat. Finally tamed?

 
We rode a bunch on Saturday and had amazingly nice weather. The leaves were crunchy and the laughs were many. You could throw some good efforts in there, too. It really was a fun time, so I'll be bringing my bike next time I'm out there for work.

Later, we went to the OMBC awards, where Ferguson claimed his first place sport single speed series win. Congrats buddy!

 
Most of us hadn't eaten since breakfast, so after the awards, we went to the Iron Pony Saloon. There, we found bar food, cell phone service and a hostess capable of escorting our rough looking group downstairs with all the other Loudonville cellar dwellers. We fit right in.

Within fifteen minutes, we were chatting it up with the locals, and my boys team was getting crushed by MJ, Tara and Alison at darts.

Parker. Getting verbally abused after grabbing his darts off the floor.

  
Many hours later, we found ourselves back at the camp, where we learned Birch is a mathematical number savant and everyone else was really tired from the long day. I was actually fine until I was challenged to figure out 17 times 34 in my head within three seconds.

Before turning in, Birch collected all the money for the cottages. We tried to get him to make it rain with the cash, but he declined. Unfortunately.

We drove back this morning, and I got back just in time to meet up with Ian, Malone, Gotch and Jason at Mad Mex for a great wrap up to the weekend.