Let the Countdown Begin

In just 8 short days, I'll be packed and ready for the spring version of Mountain Madness. 

In case some of you are new to this, MM is where my sons and I and about 18 of our closest friends load up tons of camping gear and repair to the North Georgia mountains to welcome the opening of trout season.

Typically, we camp in a Wildlife Management Area and proceed to scare the bejesus out of the local fauna.  Our fishing is always the excuse for going where no cell phone has worked before and sitting around a campfire that can be seen from space, arguing whether the capital of the world is Milwaukee or Lynchburg.

The days leading up to the Opener are filled with trail rides, hikes, food, drunkshoes, paintball target practice, and general fooling around.  Opening day is usually reserved for wandering around with a fish pole looking at idiots taking stocked trout out of a stream you can spit across.  Every now and then, we'll actually fish, too.

Speaking of food, the menu typically consists of a breakfast that will stop your heart (eggs, bacon, sausage, and black coffee), a freestyle lunch, and supper around the campfire.  This is a major undertaking.  One night the younger guys will do barbecue (ribs, pulled pork, etc), the next night the old guys will cut up a beef tenderloin into a slew of steaks, and fry potatoes to go with it.  Sometimes there's camp chili, which has been variable in the past, due mainly to who cooked it and how well he was armed.  The sidearms are necessary to keep the losers of the drunkshoes (horseshoes combined with a keg of beer and drinking penalties for lousy throws) tournament from enhancing the chili while it's cooking.  Sometimes we cook fish, too.

Regardless of the reasons for going, the trip is a good time to catch up on life with old friends, new friends, and children, cousins and second cousins of old friends. 

I'm looking forward to it.