The Sausage Pad Rides Again

Happy 7-11 Day, Internet.

Not that we took advantage of it.

Gold Medal winners, 2nd annual Sausage Pad Keg Race (2003)

A long, long time ago, back in my days at Western Michigan University - long before I had become fully-domesticated into the lame-ass, grown up dad I am now - I belonged to a heroic order known as the Sausage Pad.  We were the sworn enemies of all things lame and not-cool, and defenders of everything that is awesome and totally-sweet.

Despite the weight gain, hair loss/greying, and the relentless multiplication of spouses and offspring in the years since, the Sausage Pad still has its teeth, and is still ready to assemble when adventures calls.

This weekend, as it were, was just such an instance where we decided to reassemble in order to take on the Muskegon River for an afternoon of tubing and haphazard river navigation.

Check it out - a bunch of middle-aged guys and their wives.  In tubes.

Arranging our two-dozen tube convoy for deployment along the Muskegon River.  Due to the projected three-hour trip length, most of us decided against bringing our kids (though Zack and Renee brought one of theirs, and the Seloskes brought both of theirs.)  Most of us were riding in single tubes, and we had three cooler/food tubes for our most-precious cargo.

Smith ties up one of the food coolers with the infamous pink string.

Rita (Smitty's girlfriend) ended up having to return her single adult tube for a kid-sized tube (believe it or not, she's shorter than Kris.)

We launched our tubes individually, and right away it became clear that this was a mistake - within minutes we were scattered up and down the river.

Loftis

Smith, Loftis and I were the first to the beer coolers (not surprisingly) and we quickly set about lashing ourselves and the coolers together with more of Smith's fabulous pink string.

Smitty joins our merry band

We also nabbed the snack tube (you can see the Seloskes, Zack and Loftis' wives/kids, and Rita in the background)

River rations

Kris eventually caught up to us. . . not so much to hang out with us dudes, really. . . but instead to catch up to the snack tube.

Lashing on

After about twenty minutes or so, we had everyone more or less assembled

Sarah Seloske's long legs kicked our convoy free from many a branch-related incident along the sides of the river. . .

It was a Bell's kinda Saturday.

Loftis to the rescue.

Seloske falls to the wayside.

A tight spot

Half way down the Muskegon River

Smitty easily won Best Dressed for the day's outing.

Once reaching our landing point, we opted to hang out and drink more in the tubes, not quite ready to disembark quite yet.

Shortly after this was taken, I stood up to get out of my tube and tripped over Zack's accursed pink string, falling down onto the rocky river bad.   I gashed up my left leg pretty bad, and in the process of doing so, I lost the pipe I had been smoking.  R.I.P. Dr. Grabow Starfire.

One last 'F*** You' from the Muskegon River:  leeches.  Fortunately, the only two people to exit the river with leeches were Loftis and Rita's eight-year-old niece (better them than me.)

Headed for the transport bus back to the launch point.

Loading up what little's left in the beer coolers. . .

En route back to the launch point.

After we had loaded up back into our respective vehicles, we caravanned out somewhere in BFE (I think somewhere north of Lake, but all those back-country, dirt roads look the same after awhile) to the Buckhorn Saloon for some pizza.

In case you forgot.

It took over an hour for us to finally get our pizzas, but when they did show up they were frickin' awesome.

'Til next time, America.

- Brian

The Pool

I gotta tell ya, folks - it may be little more than a glorified kiddie pool, but this family is straight-up hooked on our Intex.

Fo' real.

Now, it is only April, but we're already getting a lot of use out of the damn thing, and the weather hasn't even broken into that soggy 90s crap yet (give it a month). While the rest of the country is facing floods, snowstorms, and gusting winds, down here in the hot, urban sprawls of Central Florida, the Houghs are getting a crap-ton (technical term) of use out of their kiddie pool in the sunny high-80s.


For those of you who haven't read about this previously, we picked up a 12' x 36" Intex Easy Set pool shortly after our mega-garage sale. At Toys 'R Us, this set us back about $90 (thereabouts). Now, since then, we've had to drop $40 for a ladder, $12 for a solar cover, $15 for a floating chlorine tablet dispenser, $10 for a ground cover, and about $30 in pool chemicals. The add-ons is where they get you, for sure... but, despite some of the eyebrow-raising reviews, the pool seems to be well worth the pay-out.


After a twenty-minute swimming session in the pool, both are kids are so worn out that they practically put themselves to bed.


That right there, for me, is well worth $200.


Anyway, like I said before, its a smaller pool - twelve feet in diameter, and about three feet deep. As such, an adult - or tall hobbit - wouldn't really be able to 'swim' in it, per se; sitting flat on my ass, the water reaches up to my nose, so its definitely a lounging pool. That's cool with me, as I'm not a big fan of exerting energy when I don't have to. In this upcoming Hell that is a Florida summer, its going to be brutally humid out, so floating is about all any of us will be wanting to do anyway.

Speaking of floating, that's definitely at the top of the Pool Crap to Buy Soon list - a floating cooler. If its one thing I can't stand, its having to burn calories while consuming them. Does purchasing an inflatable cooler make me white trash? Maybe. But is it practical for this father figure's needs?

Yeah. Yeah it is.

- Brian