= The Journey Out =

famous had a fantastic idea the previous night that if we assigned people to cars in advance, we wouldn't keep counting and recounting and figuring and refiguring to make sure everybody made it into a car the next morning. We still hit a snag, though, when we assigned six people to our rental, leaving zero room for the food. But that was sorted out simply enough in the morning.

So our car was to have Dave, BG, Leen, and me in it. As it turned out, BG still wasn't feeling well, so she stayed home.

We hit the road around 8:30am and headed northwest, to the town of Estes Park, then beyond it a bit, to Rocky Mountain National Forest. It was an hour's drive, maybe a hair more, to Estes Park, which is a cute little village nestled in the middle of the Rockies. Right in town, we saw nine or ten elk, which were munching away at the shrubbery along main street. At first they seemed like they must have been statues, but, no, they were moving, and chomping away on greenery. We also saw the Stanley Hotel, perched up on a hillside. This is where the filming of Kubrick's "The Shining" took place, a film I may not have found quite so scary if I'd realized there was a McDonald's just down the mountain from it.

A while later, we were in the National Park and solidly headed in the wrong direction. It turned out that the turn we were supposed to look for came quite a bit sooner than we expected, so we drove right by it. I tried calling some of the other drivers on our various cell phones, but none of them got through. But we got some more great views of the mountains, and we arrived at the Sprague Lake picnic area in time to secure a decently sized spot to camp out at.

Actually, that was pretty amusing. The area is just a little short side road from the main drag that ends in a loop and some parking. Inside the loop are facilities and two or three areas with picnic tables. Outside the loop are more picnic areas, with varying amounts of tables and shade.

Well, as we pulled into a parking spot, we discovered we were about five seconds too late. The van next to us had also just pulled in, and a couple people were wandering over to one of the bigger areas, seemingly to claim it.

Well, darn. So Dave stood around at an empty spot (right next to the big one) with just a couple picnic tables in the sun, while I wandered around to see if I could find something better. I did -- inside the loop, there were a couple of picnic tables in the shade. Equally tight space, but perhaps more comfortable. So I stood on one of the tables and waved over at Dave to come over. He did, and we started unloading coolers and cases of soda. Meanwhile, the famous car arrived, carrying Maryam, TalkingDog, and ThePhan.

So I wandered around some more and discovered that the big picnic area across and up the road was free after all. Hey, great. Now we could *all* sit. So I stood on the table and waved across at Dave, and they all started carrying stuff back over to the original spot. Leen, who had already moved the car from that area, moved it back.

= The Grill =

To make things easier -- and just in case we couldn't secure a grill in the park at all -- the plan was that Dave was going to bring his gas grill and a tank of propane. He'd go home Saturday night, stuff that stuff in his car, then drive it to the hotel Sunday morning. Then he'd turn the vehicle over to Stephen, who would actually be the one to drive it up into the park. (Why, is an interesting question with an uninteresting answer, so I'll skip it.)

But when Dave arrived Sunday morning, he said to me, "I screwed up," and opened the back of his car, which did not have a grill in it. "My grill didn't fit in my car." Then he told the story of how he was up at stupid o'clock last night, his grill precariously balanced in his arms, and (BANG!) tried to (BANG!) fit the (BANG!) grill into the (BANG!) car, but it just wouldn't fit, and his neighbors were poking their heads out the windows and looking at him funny.

So he tossed a couple bags of charcoal in the back and headed for the hotel. There *were* grills in the park, after all, so we'd probably be fine, but then I asked if the grills had grates on them. Some places, the grills are just open pits, and you need to provide your own means of keeping the food out of the fire. Worst case, Leen suggested, we could wrap the food up in foil and cook it that way, but that's not the best way to cook volume, so we headed to Target to see if we could find a grate.

We did not, but we found a cheap charcoal grill, assembly required. Dave's plan was, we'd buy the grill, then open it up, see what tools we needed, then stop somewhere else to buy tools. "We could buy tools right here," I said, and Dave thought that was a pretty sweet idea.

So we pried open the grill in the parking lot, and Dave found where the instructions said, "Screwdriver not included. Open-ended wrench not included." Great. Back into the Target. Wonder what size screwdriver to get, and what size wrench. Ah, no matter -- we'll just buy one of each!

So we bought an adjustable wrench and a set of screwdrivers.

Ultimately, we wound up using the grills in the park, so none of this was necessary at all. The plan was that Dave would return the grill and the tools at a later date and get a refund. On Tuesday or Wednesday, though, I asked Dave if he'd *really* ever get around to returning them (Dave is Dave, after all), and he shook his head and scoffed at me. Well, whatever -- Leen and I had extra time on Wednesday, before our flight left, so we could return that stuff instead. But Dave, being Dave, had already lost the receipt to the grill. So we returned the tools for him, and the charcoal grill is all his, along with that cooler he didn't need, either. That's the blessing and curse of living near a RinkUnion: you get all the stuff people buy and can't take back with them.

Anyway, this whole ridiculous story led to an amusing conversation on the phone after we had hit the road.

Dave: "This is Dave."
Stephen: "Hey, uh...wasn't there supposed to be a grill in the back of your car?"
Dave: "No, it's cool."
Stephen: "...Because I don't see a grill back there..."
Dave: "No, it's cool."
Stephen: "...there's just some charcoal..."
Dave: "Yeah, it's cool. We're gonna wing it."

= The Food =

Everybody was starving. We had chips. Chips are good. Chips kept us from dying until the meat could be ready. I fired up the two grills (with grates on them!) with the two bags of charcoal and let them flame away for 20-25 minutes. Then we started throwing meat on the grill, and I gotta say, this was the first time the stupid burgers actually cooperated. Although I love grilling meat at home, for some reason things always go wrong at RinkUnions, where I'm lacking *something* to streamline the job. At RU3, we needed foil, and Beasty saved the day with a greater share of patience than I had. At RU4 and RU5, we had foil but ran afoul of some other kink in the process, and famous had to save the day. I think now we've got it down.

A couple people wanted hamburgers, and Stephen berated them for figuring the cheese was optional, like it was a topping or something.

For future reference: the food came out perfectly. 16 adults and 2 kids (Joseph didn't eat many burgers) ate 17 burgers and 23 hot dogs, leaving 3 burgers and 2 hot dogs left over. (We bought 30 hot dogs, but 5 were consumed Friday night.) Also for future reference: don't buy one thousand slices of cheese, like we do every year. The leftover packages always get waterlogged and nasty in the cooler and have to be thrown out.

For dessert, there was no fudge. Ticia was going to bring some, but it got left in her freezer. Apparently, on the drive over, they passed a store that was advertising fudge, and Ticia said, "Oh, fudge."

= The Day =

So people gradually arrived. The Ticia/Don/Rose/Abby/Joseph/LaZorra/ahmoacah car was next, arriving only a couple minutes after the first two cars. Dave's car, with Stephen, Mia, Enigma, and Randy arrived last, and Ticia totally did not fool me by falsely announcing their arrival beforehand, although I pretended to be fooled to make her happy. Alas, PenaltyShot and Seth were forgotten again, so they didn't come. Ok, I'm joking. They weren't forgotten; they just couldn't come. daniel78 wasn't available to come either.

Ross went up into the woods and was eaten by a bear.

Most of the day was more of that chatting thing that doesn't always translate into a great forum post but sure made for a great time. It was interrupted by periodic sword fights, most notably when Abby started beating away on Dave and me. Dave was sitting on one of the picnic tables, she was standing on the seat next to him, and I was standing nearby, and Abby just took turns pummeling most of us. In one particularly memorable moment, Abby turned toward me, raised the sword way over her head, and swung down toward me. She missed me, but she smacked Dave in the head on the wind-up.

At some point, Enigma played some more of the psaltery, and Don accompanied him on...his hands.

Later, Rose decided she was going to invest all of her energy into being the ever-loving daylights out of Enigma. wintermute taught her how to tie his shoelaces together, but he did it loosely to be nice. Rose ushered him aside and showed him out to do it right: TIGHT. Then, not content to wait, she grabbed hold of his leg and forced him to trip. Enter, the sword. Smack! Giggle. Smack! Giggle. Smack! Giggle. Smack! Giggle. Smack! Giggle. Smack! Giggle. Smack! Giggle.

Ducks were chased around. Leen snapped some pictures of a couple of jays we don't have in our area. There was much quotation of JIGGLE JIGGLE, uh-huh.

We did the group photo thing, as we usually do on Sunday but should have done on Saturday when we had more people.

= The Drive Back =

Mid-afternoon, right towards when we had to leave anyway, everybody just kind of spontaneously figured it was time to go. We packed up and headed out. This time, we had LaZorra and Randy in our car. I'm not entirely sure where everybody else was. ahmoacah went with famous and Ross, and Dave probably drove his own car back.

I don't remember much of the return trip. I remember famous made the mistake of following us out, because, although we didn't really get lost, we did take a wrong turn into one of those side dead-end loop roads, and she followed us around it. I remember seeing another elk in the woods on the way out. I remember commenting that the landscape out there looks like the kind of landscape that the cavalry, or Indians, should be charging over, sweeping out onto the plains. I remember the bright orange layers of rock, visible in the cliff faces.

But mostly we just got home, where I collapsed in the hotel room. Leen and I hadn't slept since flying out -- the air in that hotel room was really stuffy and dry, for some reason, even with the window open -- and a day in the fresh air had really taken it out of me.

= RinkUnion Over =

But there was LaZorra's transportation back to the airport to figure out, which she describes in her own post on the subject. Ok, so, I know the La Quinta isn't the Marriott, but shouldn't the desk clerks in a hotel have at least a fraction of a clue about things like the local public transportation? You know, things that guests at a hotel will commonly want to know? It was odd, seeing the general agreement amongst the hotel employees that the buses don't run at all on Sundays, when, in fact, they run every half hour.

Earlier in the weekend, when we went to pick up Maryam and TalkingDog from the Westminster Park and Ride stop, I asked the desk clerk for directions to it. She gave me suspiciously simple directions, and ahmoacah, overhearing, piped up and said that, no, that was where the Church Ranch Park and Ride was. (Our hotel was on Church Ranch Avenue.) The clerk didn't believe her at first, but she was right.

So LaZorra headed off to a practical lesson in the ways of public transportation, and I headed back to the hotel room to crash into a pile of Sam.

So the RinkUnion was over, and except for a hitch Saturday afternoon, it went well. It was great to hang out with everyone, as usual, and it was particularly nice to catch up with some I hadn't seen since RU3 and others I had never met at all.

= Dinner =

As is often the case, we were just too exhausted to organize a massive dinner outing, so we went separate ways for food. Somehow our room (Leen, me, famous, and wintermute) wound up eating at the Macaroni Grill with Stephen and Mia, Dave and BG, who was looking a lot better after some rest and sleep. We got tucked into a little private nook with a humongous wooden table and were served by the best waitress on the planet. She was right on top of things, bringing out food and bread and replacement drinks like there was no tomorrow. Even better, she engaged in two of my favorite activities: making fun of Stephen, and making fun of wintermute.

Early on, she was warned that Stephen drinks a lot of soda, and so he'd need serious refills happening. But he was away, in the bathroom or something, when the first drink came, and then its immediate replacement, so she gave him a hard time for not drinking fast enough.

wintermute, meanwhile, latched onto the crayons in the center of the table, and the waitress brought him a paper tablecloth to color on. "Up!" she said, raising her arms high in the air. wintermute raised his arms high in the air, and she spread the paper out in front of him.

wintermute proceded to draw a Rocky Mountain and a dirty picture. He said it was Sinbad and his pecs, but that's not what it looked like.

So we ate food, and food is good. The best thing at Macaroni Grill is the Mama's Trio, a sampling of three separate entrees. Because then you don't have to commit yourself to just one food. Leen and I both got that, and we sent the leftovers home with Dave, because he is Dave. He said he'd probably eat it later that night.

Dessert was ordered by some. Mia, I think, was actually killed choking on chocolate powder, but she's ok now. wintermute, from the looks of it, got far more dessert clogged in his facial orifices but inexplicably did NOT die. When some comment was made that he almost finished all of it, the waitress asked, "Do you want a gold star?" We laughed, figuring she was just being cheeky, but she actually produced a gold star and stuck it on his shirt.

= Tired By So Much Early =

When we got back to the hotel, it was 9:30 (or 4:30, if you exaggerate like Stephen), and that's 11:30 Eastern, and four in the morning if you're on NST (No Sleep Time). So our room just went back and crashed. We intended to chat for a while, since we had to part ways in the morning, but that didn't work out. We just collapsed and lost consciousness.

The next day, it was not Sunday anymore.