Chip Nasty has really embraced his new moniker
Last night we had grand night, quite literally, as we celebrated Hedgehog Phil’s birthday. An excellent dinner was served in our designated dungeon wine room, I believe they kept us isolated so as not to disturb the rest of the dining guests. For dessert Phil even got a chocolate lava cake with a couple candles burning in it! The staff at the Common Man Lodge was very accommodating, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
After dinner, most of the crew retired to the horse shoe bar, and many Double Doubles were downed to celebrate the birthday on the trail. Plus we had the extra advantage of not having a “hard” departure time, so we could un-wind a bit more than normal and last call was at 10pm, when they shut down the bar.
After our local ride yesterday on the thinly snow covered trails in New Hampshire, the decision was made to trailer to Rangeley, Maine. We will now be launching from the Saddle Back Inn. We will actually be here for 2 nights, as we will do a local trail ride tomorrow.
This morning we had breakfast with Tom, again. We lingered around, loaded sleds and everybody was on the road by about 10:30 am. We had about 130 miles to drive to Rangeley. Beautiful ride through some mountain ranges, and a very bumpy 30-45 mile ride along a river, hence today’s title Goat Path. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you the trails we rode sleds on yesterday were smoother than the roads we drove today. And it was a paved road. All together we have now driven approximately 1050 miles in truck and 90 miles by sled! Not our best, not our worse.
Just when I thought it was going to be a slow news day, Action Dan came to the rescue. After we unloaded our sleds at the Saddle Back, unpacked our bags, and got ready to head about a mile down the road to Sarge’s Sports Pub and Grub for our late lunch early dinner (the lodge doesn’t offer dining/drinking) we were asked to park our trucks and trailers around back out of the way. 4 out of the five trucks were able to easily back our trailers into the wide open parking lot. Not Action Dan. We drove around back before departing for the restaurant, to see what the hold up was. Action has his truck and trailer off the compacted, snowplowed parking lot, and stuck in the snow filled drainage ravine. Of course we were ready to help him out, but not until after a few pictures, of course. A few more chuckles amongst the growing spectator gallery, and Ole Man Ron backed his GMC up to the “Bumble Bee” Ram and gave him a quick tug, and then proceeded to drag him to the end of the parking lot with Action helpless behind the wheel of Bumble Bee.
Bumble Bee’s do not belong in the snow
Dinner has been had, some pizza’s, some wings, and some French Onion Soups and Clam Chowder soups, and the group is relaxing around a couple tables having a cold one.
That’s about it for today, tune in tomorrow to see how we do.
Bye for now…
Stick
French Onion Soup
Sarge’s Pub & Grub
