Across the River and Into the Trees

Blogger ate my previous post on this subject but certain people (MM) have requested that I recount the events of Saturday, September 20, 2006 so they are forever floating around the blogosphere to remind us all why mojitos, sangria and seedy bars are a dubious combination.

So some friends had been threatening to visit the safari for a while and we decided that the weekend during which I was babysitting would be best. At first it was just BH and AG, along with Bailey the dog, that were to visit. This somehow turned into MM, RMA, BS, and two strangers, J and K, also coming by for a campout in my living room on a Saturday afternoon.

The thing with having so much help with the bottle feeding was that I had my hands free and was able to have a beer or two while my friends played with the kids. Here's RMA with Max, the camel:Beer somehow evolved into mojitos, Ernest Hemingway's second favorite drink - a cuban concoction involving rum, mint, lime juice, more rum, and some other stuff. We all decided to grill up some shish kebabs and all was going well until someone decided to do something with the grill. It somehow toppled and all our kebabs either fell on the grass or remained stuck to the grill. This did not deter us as the five second rule applied and, well, we were drunk. Here are MM and K proudly showing off their dirty kebabs:

After the kebab debacle we started a campfire and were just settling in when someone had the brilliant idea of driving into town to partake in the local social scene. I assessed my group, donned my "I Heart Rick Springfield" shirt, seen below, and took them to Tehachapi's most illustrious drinking establishment, The Red Caboose, for some small town tweaker karaoke.That was at about 10 pm.

Upon arrival MM honed in on a lovely lady at the bar with a zebra tattoo. He approached her with the ever-popular pick-up line, "Nice tattoo, I just fed a baby zebra today." He may have asked if she wanted to smell him too, I'm not sure. Anyhow, the line didn't work on this discerning Tehachapi native and he was summarily dismissed.

I don't remember much from the bar but vaguely recall singing karaoke, our group having stolen the dance floor and karaoke playlist, and dancing with a local with a large moustache and striped leotard shirt. I believe I asked if he was one of the Village People. We closed down the bar and headed back up the hill.

For some strange reason RMA and I were wired and got the brilliant idea to drive up to the mountain estate at 3:00 in the morning. He grabbed a bucket of sangria and we hopped in my truck and drove up the dirt road to the trailer. It was cold up there so we returned rather quickly and on our way down the hill RMA asked to drive. Note to self: Do not allow drunk friends to drive unfamiliar, winding dirt roads in truck at 3:30 am. RMA promptly had us in a couple of 360 degree spin outs and one grand spin out that led to our ending up taking out a couple of fenceposts and some barbed wire. During the spinouts all of the possessions in the back of my truck, including a 40 lb bag of dog food and AG's napsack, were ejected from the vehicle. By some miracle, the sangria bucket remained in the vehicle:The next morning we fed the leftover, saturated fruit to Hogitha and the camel and went on a reconnaisance mission to find the ejected items and found only a trail of cheap red wine, soaked fruit chunks, and wavy tire tracks. The dog food and napsack were never recovered but I'm sure I'll hear about it at our next board meeting for property owners up there.

Oh, and since MB couldn't make it up for the safari, I snapped this shot I knew he'd appreciate seeing as how it has both Monolith and animal arse in it: