34 Laps Around the Sun

Saturday I completed my 34th lap around the sun. It didn't really take a lot of energy since the earth did most of the work for me. However, I did manage to work pretty hard celebrating the momentous feat. Thursday night kicked of the nonstop party weekend with Ty and I hitting the town and shutting it down. It's kind of bad when you are calling bartender friends to let you in the doors once they have already been locked and it gets even worse when they answer, let you in and pour you one hell of a Makers and sprite. We left our rides and stumbled home from downtown and made it home with out incident. Friday morning came and it was clear that the party on Thursday had continued well beyond the point of just having the average good time. However, I knew at least one brave soul was still planning on making the trip from Nashville and looking for more good times so it was time to harden the fuck up and get ready for some more. Yazoo rider and fellow beer/brown liquor aficionado Greg Lawrence made his way into town and we were off to Bent Creek with Benet for some pump track, skinnies, steep climbs and fast descents. Great session at the pump track with an awesome skinny to gap to more skinnies and a pump track with a new wall ride bonus. Good times and a big thanks to Ben Blitch for his work on this place and all the others who have contributed to the fun afternoon I had on Friday. After sweating out the poison from Thursday it was time for more so it was off to the Yacht Club for beers and burgers then an urban assault to the west side for more beers at the Admiral. (Do all my favorite bars have names that deal with boating) oh well I digress. We left the bar at 1am and the ride back home did more to wake me up than put me down so we kicked off an early birthday celebration with growlers of Yazoo Pale Ale and Markers Mark and sat around telling stories till 4. For some reason I woke up at 9 am thinking we were going to do some sort of epic ride despite back to back nights of being totally inebriated. We had breakfast at five points where I ran into my cousin and packed my stomach full of pancakes and it was back to the crow's nest. Running a little slower than expected we finally made it out in search of kegs for the party on Saturday night and some more good single track. We made it back out to Bent Creek to show Greg the rest of the trails and stay close to home. Two hours of riding did what it needed to do for me and it was off to pick up a few warheads from French Broad Brewing Company. We got back home cleaned up, hit the store and fired up the grill. Greg rocked out the kabobs as Ty and I got the place ready for the festivities. The party was great, the master pastry chef Benet brought a kick ass cake that I will not soon forget. The Golden Rod Pilsner was just the beer to top of a hot day. Tons of great people made the stop by the Crow's Nest and by 3 o'clock the kegs finally ran dry. Stayed up to watch the sunrise and finally crashed around 7 o'clock. Slept in on Sunday and saw Greg off to Nashville. Sunday was the first "throw away" day I have had in a long time but I earned it. Surfed the couch watching horrible movies all day trying to see how little I could move. A day of rest did me right though as I woke up feeling good on Monday and got out for 4 hours in Pisgah with Matt J and Benet. All and all a killer birthday weekend. The Enduro De Ocho will be here before I know it and the party will once again commence at the Crow's Nest.