Combos, Fireworks and Canoes – The Bachelor In Brookville

“What happens in Brookville stays in Brookville.” Headed into the weekend that was our battle cry.  Our mission was simple – to give my little brother one last weekend of bachelorhood.  In the words of Peter Venkman: “We came, we saw, we kicked it’s ass!!!”

Friday afternoon, 2 groups (Devin, Mark & I from Cleveland and Phil & Chris from Chicago) set out to converge on Brookville, Indiana where the festivities were to take place.  The Cleveland group started out the trip with the musical brilliance of Randy “Macho Man” Savage.  Yep… the wrestler.  If you’ve never hear Randy on the mic you really owe it to yourself to check this out.  You won’t be disappointed.  If you don’t have time to watch the clip then these lyrics will give you just a little taste of what’s up:

“People wanna know if Macho’s still in the ring
People wanna know if Randy’s doin’ his thing
Everybody’s talkin’ wanna know this and that
So I’m a tell ya right now Randy Savage is back”

Yeah that’s right… Randy’s doing his thing.  If that’s not enough for you, make sure to check out “Be A Man” where Randy rips into Hulk Hogan.  Classic.  Little did we know that as we were making our way down south the Chicago boys were having issues of their own.  The figured it would be a good idea to pick up a bottle of Knob Creek to get the party started.  Someone neglected to actually take the bottle off the top of the car when they drove away and they were subjected to watching a brand new bottle slide across the sunroof and off the back of the car.  Chris did have the good sense to ask, “Do you think it broke?”  Needless to say, the clerk at the liquor store was intrigued to see them walk back in about 8 minutes after they walked out.

Once we got there it was time to build the fire, set up camp and crack a couple of cold ones.  I think we had originally planned to just take it easy that night but before we knew it about half that bottle was gone and we were having a grand old time.  The campsite that we were staying at had “quiet” time starting at midnight.  Other than us, everyone in the campsite followed this rule.  We, on the other hand decided it would be a good idea to break out the fireworks… at 2:30 AM.  Writers note: It’s amazing what happens when you throw a full party pack of fireworks into a campfire.  It’s also amazing that we didn’t get tossed out of camp for this

Once the fireworks died down it was time to wind down for the evening.  Not sure why but I just wasn’t tired so I decided to take a stroll.  I also (apparently) decided to fire up my Twitter account:

Twitter/Facebook Update
3 and wandering around. Woot.
2:57 AM Jun 27th from TwitterBerry

Dude. Jason Voorhees would be creeped out by this place.
3:00 AM Jun 27th from TwitterBerry

And on that note, I called it a night…

Saturday morning I woke (surprisingly) early and decided to start the fire and the grill. We were in for a long day and had to get properly fueled.

Twitter/Facebook Update
I feel like the old guy on Survivor who’s up before the rest of the young whipersnappers. Gotta get the fire going. Tough immunity today#fb.
8:48 AM Jun 27th from TwitterBerry

After breakfast (sausage, eggs, hash browns) it was off to the river.  Per the guy running things the river was running fast – a 4.8 to be exact.  Though none of us were sure what the hell that means.  Adam took an afternoon off from his fatherly duties and joined us for our trek down the river as well.  We bungied our three canoes together and created the mighty party barge and pushed off.

My bro and I were in a canoe together and before I knew it we were headed straight toward a downed tree in the river.  Not sure exactly how this happened but next thing I know I’m under the water with my wife and kids flashing before my eyes – that’s right folks, we’d managed to capsize.  I still don’t know what a 4.8 for the river is, but I can tell you that I don’t think I could handle a 4.9.  The canoe was pinned up against the downed tree, with me under it.  Not sure where Mark was at this point cause I was doing my best just to get air.  Luckily I came up inside the canoe which had a nice air pocket in it.  Thank goodness the rest of our crew was so helpful… they took this opportunity to go about 25 yards down the river, get out, point and laugh.  Fuckers.  On top of that they referred to me for the rest of the trip as if I had died during that episode (IE: “Too bad Chewie isn’t here, he would have enjoyed this,” a la Ghost).  Again… fuckers.

In any event, we did eventually get the canoe turned back around and we proceeded to shotgun a couple of beers to get the BAL back to where it should be.  The rest of the trip down the river went off without event and by the time we made it down river we were very much looking forward to some time out of the sun.  As luck would have it, at the entrance to our campsite sat a Pizza King.  In retrospect it should have been called Taco King but I do have to say that the air conditioning was second to none.

The plan going into the weekend was to spend Saturday night at “a bar” uptown Brookville.  While this certainly goes against the concept of “camping” it’s perfect from a bachelor party perspective.  After our Pizza King excursion we all went back to camp and had a little siesta (which was just what the doctor ordered).  I don’t know about you but after a long day of drinking and a nap it’s BRUTAL to get up and get going again.  As we were making our way uptown Devin and I decided that the first beer of the night was going to be rough.  I’m proud to say that we went and brought it home like champs.  The bar in question here is called Who Cares.  If you’ve never been there I’d strongly suggest you check it out.  It’s all kinds of awesome.  Devin was THE MAN when it came to the “One Dart Challenge” and Mark reigned supreme when it came to the on site bowling ($0.25 per game by the way).  Our bartendress Regina took very good care of us and really did give us quite a bit of leeway.

After bowling, shots and darts we started in on the pool table and commandeered the juke box.  Looking back at my Twitter updates I see that we went completely old school.  All I remember is we had a damn good time.

Twitter/Facebook Update
Rocking the juke box with Ugly Kid Joe.
11:02 PM Jun 27th from TwitterBerry

Thunderstruck!!!
11:37 PM Jun 27th from TwitterBerry

I had to do it… Freebird!
12:42 AM Jun 28th from TwitterBerry

And those are just the ones that I remembered to tweet about (man I’m a dork).  I’m getting a little long winded here so I’ll just leave you with one last photo and a couple of “keywords” that will forever be linked in my mind with this great weekend.

• Regina: The best bartendress in Brookville
• Who Cares: all kinds of awesomeness
• Combos: drunk food for the ages
• Pizza King: better tacos than pizza
• Marko: hung in there like a champ
• Jim Beam: the shot of champions
• Canoe Fest: where are they all going?
• Donuts: incoming!
• Fire Dance: Devin – watch where you’re going brudda
• The Tree: Phil – it’s definitely more than 3 swings
• Shower: Chris was the only one that took advantage
• Beer: can’t really beat Icehouse, Busch & Natural Light can you?

There were a whole lot of “you had to be there” moments during this trip.  As an older brother I’m damn glad that I was there.  All I can say at this point… I’m REALLY looking forward to the reception