Tag Archives: Flying

Nov10

Dillon’s bachelor party – An Adirondacks adventure! (Part 1 – The journey to the woods)

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Weekend from 30-Sept to 04-Oct

It’s been ages since my friends and I’ve had a good old fashioned get together.

COVID, living on the West Coast, tons of little things have delayed or denied getting to get together and catch up. But now, we’ve got a good reason to get together – one of the best reasons of all, in fact! A wedding! And what comes before a wedding? The bachelor party, of course!

Dillon had asked me to be his Best Man for the wedding in November, which of course meant planning and throwing the bachelor party itself – with much help from many people, a plan was crafted and a timeline put in place. A location chosen, a guest list compiled, and a date chosen.

Plane tickets were bought, rentals secured, and reservations called in. Now, all that remained was the best part of the process – sitting back and having an amazing weekend!!!




Thursday and Friday, 30-Sept-2021 & 01-Oct-2021


Thursday, 30-Sept-2021

I flew on a plane again! Heck yeah travelling!

We’d been planning this party out for a while – Dillon was getting married in November, which meant an early-October bachelor party. You know… enough time for bruises and cuts to heal. Maybe even enough time for a broken bone to set, if worst-came-to-worst. Everyone was psyched, we had a plan laid out, and Upstate New York was calling us!


I flew into Boston late on Thursday – I’ve found this flight is… not the easiest, since it gets in at midnight, but definitely the simplest flight to catch. That’s the downside of living in Portland, going East is way harder and way more time consuming. But, you know, that just means that the flight home is super easy, which is always nice.




Anyways I landed at midnight. Daniel picked me up, we hung out for a bit, caught up, and then hit the sleep nice and early in the morning.





Friday, 01-Oct-2021

Friday dawned bright, with Daniel and Erin’s dog Biscuit being unconvinced that I should be allowed in the house – He’s awesome, but definitely a stoic protector of the realm…

Anyways, We got going.

A nice breakfast, relaxed a bit, and then set about tracking down the various equipment and people for the trip!


The overarching plan for the weekend was aimed pretty low-key, but still sharp with some excellent adventures:

  • Pick up the Boston contingent and drive out to New York, meeting Chris at the cabin
  • Have some amazing dinner on Friday night, drink, and catch up with everyone
  • On Saturday, we’d hit up a small hike, then spend some time kayaking before getting ourselves ready for a bit of dinner and a pub crawl.
  • End Saturday night back at the cabin, crushing some awesome boardgames!
  • Have a nice brunch on Sunday, then do some go-karting and laser tag – maybe some games and other shenanigans
  • Grab lunch, then go back to the cabin for more board games / card games
  • Grill up steaks for dinner, and make an equally exceptional dessert
  • Clean up the cabin on Monday, then have one last brunch before driving back



With a good plan in mind and a shopping list in hand, Friday went exactly as well as we’d hoped!

The drive was clean and simple, with tons of time to relax, chat, and catch up. Grocery shopping for the weekend went beautifully – I’ve gotten so used to just shopping for myself that I’d forgotten the simple joy of having one huge shopping list for a camping weekend, and just watching the whole group scatter across the store like an ancient horde, grabbing what we need and vanishing just as quickly. It was awesome, and definitely set an excellent tone of cooperation and comraderie that held through the rest of the weekend.

The cabin itself was absolutely perfect, and since Chris had arrived a bit before the rest of us, it was even opened up and ready when we got there! We arrived a bit later than we’d initially planned, but that just meant that we got some excellent sunset views as we drove into the mountains and along the river. And then, when we did settle into the cabin? It was the perfect time to start up the fire, heat up some dinner, and settle into the weekend!



What did we have for dinner, you ask?

We had pure, unadulterated happiness, I’ll answer. Home-cooked, slow-roasted, beautifully seasoned baby back ribs!

With, of course, the standard accompaniment: beans, cornbread, mac and cheese, and cole slaw – and some excellent whisky and beer, of course. You know, just a few things.

Our hunger satiated, the rest of the evening was spent claiming bunks, enjoying the fire, and just simply catching up – It’d been FAR too long since we’d gotten together, and there were new friends to get to know for everyone. We had a whole weekend ahead of us, and nothing at all holding us back…

Jul13

Montana – A quiet Sunday

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Sunday, 13-June-2021


Any morning that starts out with French Toast is a good morning.

A morning that starts out with sugar-covered French Toast is a great morning.

This? This was an exceptionally excellent morning. Not only did it include sugar-covered French Toast, but it also included some leftover brisket from the BBQ that we’d had the night before, alongside fluffy scrambled eggs, a-la Brian and Clara.



After greatly enjoying our breakfasts, packing.

After packing, cleaning.

After cleaning? Hiking!



One of our original targets for hiking was a rather popular area called Pattee Canyon. It looked good, from a distance and elevation perspective, but it hadn’t had any notes of great views of expansive wildflowers… which put it a bit lower on our list for the weekend. But now that it was later on, and we were all tired… a simple walk where we could chat and talk sounded exactly like what the doctor ordered.

We drove, parked, and started the hike in… into the beautiful woods and roughly 90+ degree Montana summer heat.


I’ll tell you, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Not in a bad way, at all, but… I don’t know, for some reason I was expecting Montana to be a bit more rocky than it is… more jagged mountains. Maybe I’m mistaking it for Colorado? But this was… well, just like the other hikes that we’d done. Rolling hills, tall trees, and a big sky. No wonder they call this “Big Sky Country”.


We walked, we talked, and we appreciated nature. Clara found some excellent flowers, and soon enough we were heading back into town for lunch… and by lunch, I of course mean Ice Cream!

We hit up a place called “Big Dipper”, an ice cream shop that Brian and Clara had been ranting and raving about for pretty much the whole time we were there. We got some rather generous scoops, and I’ll freely agree with them that it was well worth the wait in line.


After making myself far over-stuffed with huckleberry and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream (with a chocolate shell and rainbow sprinkles, of course), we set about to explore town. No major goals, just… you know, poking around and enjoying the small-town vibes. We hit up some novelty shops, an outdoors store, and quite a few other interesting places… There’s a lot of art in a small town like Missoula, and wandering the shop was definitely a nice treat.


The rest was just saying out goodbyes, battling my way through both an airport lobby and the tides of time itself, and finally finding myself back in the 1970s, sitting at a gate, waiting for my flight to wing me back to Portland.