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This past August 17th-19th or so was Snarlfest. Being in a
mood for a vacation, and since I hadn't gone anywhere within 300 miles
of my house since 1996, I decided "what the heck!".
Banker Bob was also interested in flying out there (oh, you
thought we'd ride out? Bob did that last time. I don't have a bike.
And time was definitely an issue.)
After a few days of checking things out, I finally got my
flights figured out. Turns out that it was cheaper for Bob to drive
on up to Montreal and fly out on the same flights. Geez...sounds
almost like a plan...
Fast forward to August 16th (Thursday), where Banker Bob pulls
into my driveway in appropriate Banker clothing. Local Assholes(tm)
hang out together, massive quantities of PBR are consumed (getting
which is another story altogether, involving two days of research and
a 100 mile road trip for me a week earlier), and shit is shot
appropriately.
August 17th. At 5:00am. Wakey-wakey time. At 5:30am, we're
out the door. Get to the airport at 6:00am for our 8:00am flight
(back when you only had to show up 2 hours early!). Check in is
uneventful, customs is somewhat interesting (mainly because I'm
carrying 7lbs of Montreal smoked meat in my backpack. Yes, the female
customs agent wanted to "see my meat". No, she did not have a sense
of humor. Yes, I showed her my driver's licence picture!).
After putzing around the airport, we take off as scheduled,
only to land in Minneapolis a little early. Great. That means we now
have *more* than 4 hours to kill there! We proceed to have lunch, and
walk around pretty much every inch of the Minneapolis airport.
At the scheduled time, we hop on the plane to Seattle. I like
aisle seats (easier to stretch out, and you don't bug anyone if you
have to go to the washroom. Bob prefers the window. In this
particular instance, I'm in the aisle on one side of the plane, and
he's on the window side on the opposite side (but same row). Lady
Luck being what she is, I end up sitting next to two 50 or so year old
Bible thumping ladies from Kansas. Bob ends up with an empty seat in
the middle, and a SYT about 35 in the isle. Bastard.
Of course, we proceed to shoot the shit with all these people,
and ol' Bob proceeds to charm the pants off the SYT (not litterally,
or I'd have pictures). I'm sure she was ready to come to the party
until she got directions. The directions were "Find the city of [city
near Snarl's]. Find [island where Snarl lives] island. Go into the
first store before the island. Ask for Snarl's". Even though you
could tell she was now *not* showing up, she still maintained her
composure and politely wrote these directions down. We knew we'd
never see her again.
After landing in Seattle, and taking the subway (!) to the
baggage claim section (not that we had any checked baggage, mind you),
we were greeted by Big Red, and later Dennis Peterson himself.
Handshakes and hugs all around, and we started getting moving towards
Snarl's. Bob, Big Red and myself in a truck, and dp following on his
bike.
Of course, we had to do this in the worst traffic possible.
After taking 3 or so hours to do what would normally take an hour and
a half, we finally pulled into the Snarl compound.
Reaching Snarl's is an experience of itself, and truly does
have to be seen to be believed. In my case, it's an eerie feeling
when you pull in. As soon as you get there, you just get the
impression that you're home.
It was an absolute pleasure to meet Snarl himself, along with
Jeannie. I had been looking forward to this for years (along with the
rest of the west coast crew).
The rest of the weekend itself was like most Netscum meets.
If you've been, you know. Beverages were consumed. Food was eaten.
Lies were told. The notable food item being that we ate tons of
steamed clams and oysters. Abso-fucking-lutely delicious.
Amongst the cast of characters (and I *know* I'll forget some,
so please accept my apology in advance), if I omit the local crew of
Snarl's friends, were:
Dp and Red, Jordon and Sara (Debra? Not sure, sorry!), Randy
and Sandra Scurr, Dirty Harry and Brenda, Hoppy (briefly), Dickhaid
and SO, wolfpup and Ms.Mouse (briefly), MaGGie QOTS, Redbeard
Emeritus, Slowhand (grIn), Wildman Craig (Dewart) and companion and
several others whom I didn't get to meet...And of course, Snarl and
Jeannie!
As per the short report, company sucked, food sucked, weather
sucked, band sucked, you know the routine!
And now, this part for Len:
I had already decided to capitalize my bs number (those of you
who know the whole story know that I was already eligible for the
capital letters, but was keeping it lowercase for personal reasons)
by Saturday night, since I was in the Mecca of the Slugs, and since dp
had already written it as uppercase on his site (and, after all, he is
the KotBSL). But two more events on Sunday/Monday basically carved it
in stone...
Sunday morning, we were all shooting the shit at a fairly
early hour. I had told a few people during the weekend that if they
saw a real slug, to show it to me (I had never seen one). At one
point, I was sitting on the tailgate of MaGGie (she of the great
tasting pussy)'s truck's tailgate. I moved over to one side to tell
someone something. Unbeknownst to me, MaGGie had found a slug in the
meantime and put it on the truck tailgate next to where I sat. Of
course, she couldn't tell that I'd scooch right back where I was,
which is precisely where the slug was!
This is the point where MaGGie calmly said: "Uh oh...you sat on
it.". Huh? Took a few seconds to understand it, and I got up to see
the luckily still alive slug (them puppies are tough!). I can now say
I've been litteraly slimed in the PNW, as the stain right on the
asshole (no tm) of my jeans proves!
The next event was on Sunday afternoon. We had made our way
to the outskirts of Seattle in anticipation of our departure late that
night. After a stop at the Alki Tavern (check out my name on a brick
in the proper location. Extra Special Thanks go out to Jordon for the
shirt), we headed to the ol' Coon Ass' place, the one and only Dave
Eady ( http://www.the-biker.org/museum/ ). I've never seen so much
H-D stuff in one location. And meeting the man himself was a pleasure
and an honor. Heck, he even had two East Coast Assholes(tm) (in
addition to Snarl and Jordon) helping in some construction project in
his backyard!
After taking advantage of the fact that a Flathead was there
to complete my kickstarting roster (I've now kickstarted an Evo,
Shovel, Panhead, Knuckle (thanks again, Snarl) and Flathead. Now I
have to work on separate subdivisions, like 74ci, 61ci, 45ci, etc),
Banker Bob and I took out a pair of Whizzers Dave Eady had laying
around.
We proceeded to whizz around Dave's neighborhood (probably at
15mph or so!), swapping bikes, and going around again! There's at
least one picture of us on those bikes, and if Bob emails it to me,
I'll be glad to put it up on some web space. I can now say I got to
ride a bike with a Slug!
Before we knew it, the 4 day trip had to come to an end, and
we had to grab the redeye back to Montreal, where Bob then had to
drive 100 miles back to work!
An awesome weekend. A huge thanks to Snarl and Jeannie for
hosting this party. Another huge one to a lot of people who worked
behind the scenes to make this possible (you know who you are).
Oh, yeah...almost forgot: party sucked, company sucked, food
sucked, band sucked, weather sucked, nothing good happened.
Psssst, MaGGie: I'm playing with your ball.
Phil...the "figure that one out..." Asshole(tm)... |