(Click on the pictures to see bigger versions.)
As you all know by now, Fred and I were supposed to leave Thursday night at 9:30 but our flight was cancelled. So we rebooked onto the 9 a.m. Friday flight that had a stopover in Cincinnati. Fred's credit card won't let him check in at the kiosk so we have to stand in the long lines and he gets boarding passes for both Detroit and Cincinnati but the kiosk says I have to get my Cincinnati boarding pass in Cincinnati. We see on the board as we are in the security line that our flight is delayed a half hour and of course, we are cutting it close to make the scheduled 9:15 time so we don't hurry through the airport but when we get to the gate, they're boarding.
We get to Cincinnati and stop in the smoking lounge where the Ozilite is handily installed for our lighting needs
and then just barely make the shuttle over to the other terminal where our plane is going out of. I don't have a boarding pass and when I try to get one, they say the flight is overbooked and I'll have to wait and see if somebody cancels. Which fortunately some guy sitting across from us did but he ended up getting on the flight anyway. Fred and I have a beer at a pub and then I see our flight is boarding and Fred says he's going to the bathroom so we are the last ones to board. But at last we are in Columbia and renting a car and zooming off to Buford's house with directions we have from MapQuest.
We get to this house on N. Royal Tower Dr. and Fred rings the doorbell and nobody's home so he calls Buford and says we are at his house and Buford says, No you're not because I'm at my house and alas, we have directions to Buford's OLD house where he has not lived for 2 years but that's the address Gus had given Fred. So we get directions to the new house and drive over there and almost immediately Tony and Joe and Melissa and Buford and Bomeli and Fred and I leave for the S&S bar for a couple beers.
Bomeli had driven down, leaving at 5 a.m. so he got there right about when we did. I have a 2:30 conference call for work so I'm on that while we're driving and when we get there I sit on a bench outside to be on the call, and Melissa brings me out a beer. Here is the bathroom in the bar which has biker handlebars in the can.
Then we go out to the lake house on Lake Murray where Gus and Stubbs and Rod are
and we party on down. View from the deck.
The beautiful steps.
The shack a couple houses down.
and soon, it's time to leave for dinner at 5:30 at the fried place which is actually called the Buffalo Creek Grill. I ride in the back of the Suburban.
I had fried catfish and fried oysters and fried okra and red rice and hushpuppies. Fred had some great crab cakes and something called Thunder Cake for dessert, which he raved about all the way home. Don and Sandy who own Bootleggers where the guys were playing ate with us as did John, the barbecue guy who cooked for us Saturday night.
Fred and I were lucky enough to get to stay at the lake house instead of with Buford, where Tony and Joe were staying. And then it was time to go to the bar to play. We all crowded into the Suburban except Bomeli drove himself. There is drinking and music and frivolity and we closed the bar at 2 a.m.
Saturday, the weather was crappy, 38 degrees and raining, so we hung out at the lake house. I made breakfast for all 6 of us
and then we reclined on the massive furniture and watched TV: tennis and the last half of Psycho and the last half of Death Wish and some golf. Played some poker. Fred and Bomeli had gone out for some lunch in the afternoon and brought us back some dry rub wings for a snack.
Then time to go to the bar again where the John guy had prepared and brought in pulled pork in mustard barbecue sauce and deep fried pork chops and potato salad and cornbread and jalapeno cornbread and yeast bread and pinto beans with tomatoes and banana pudding. Everybody at the bar ate, about 50 people, probably. So there's more drinking and smoking which you can do in the bar there and then some guy called Captain Telegram came in and there were two birthdays celebrated with balloons and a stuffed monkey and singing and two cakes.
That second night, the guys sounded even better. Rod was smokin' on the axe. The crowd was an interesting mix of young people and middle-aged folks, lots of couples. Plenty of shag dancing which is not the lascivious bump and grind the guys had talked about but some sort of modified Texas two-step thing.
The host and hostess. Or Mike and Lulu as they are called down there.
These people used to live in BG and Fred knew them and so did some other people in the band. The woman got up and sang harmony on Mustang Sally and she was fabulous.
So we close the bar again and get to bed about 3. Sunday we tidied up the house and went to the bar to pack the equipment so Fred and I got going about noon for the drive to the airport and the 4:15 flight. I had left my gloves in the restaurant Friday night so we went to buy some new ones and all the stores were not opening until 1:30 so we see a Wal-Mart that's obviously open and go in and I choose some gloves and go to the check-out where they cannot sell me the gloves until 1:30 (it's about 1:10) because of some rule about selling clothing before 1:30 on Sunday. What's up with that?? Finally we get the gloves and drive to the airport and have a beer and watch the football game on some tiny TV, the only one in the airport. So they board the plane and Fred has to go to the can and we are the last ones on. Although it was only 4:05, everybody with a ticket was on the plane so the pilot said we would get off early but alas, after the taxiing around, we get off the ground at 4:34. The pilot says it's an hour and a half flight, but alas, although we landed around 6:10, we took forever to get to the gate and then pull up to the gate and disembark, so it's 6:50 by the time we get off the plane. But the car started right up and we were home by 8:10.
