dylanjlynch

As luck would have it, I’ve gone camping every single Edmonton Indy weekend for the past four years.  This isn’t by choice, it’s completely crazy luck.  I’ve gone camping twice a year each summer for the past 4, and somehow one of those trips ends up on that specific weekend.  Even more luckily, every single time it has been absolutely PERFECT weather.  We didn’t see a single cloud for the entire weekend, we couldn’t have asked for anything better.  The moral of this story is:  Always go camping on Indy weekend, sorry if you’re a racing fan.

I got to play fifth wheel this trip, as I’m the only single guy left in my group of friends (because Ross and Sterling are irresistable manly men who can’t go five minutes without being approached - and I’m unemployed.)  Ross revelled in this situation as for the past three trips, he’s been the third wheel, so he couldn’t help but bring up how it would be so cool if we were an even number and could do girls vs. boys stuff, and kept insisting that I was ruining the flow of everything.  Ross+Elisabeth and Sterling+Martina were lots of fun as always, helping along a weekend that brought many beers, many sunburns, and a horrific road rash incident that you’ll surely run in to later on in the pics, stay tuned (let’s just say Ross got what he deserved for all the fifth wheel jokes).

The event this year was the Enterprise/Alamo summer picnic/camping party at the Watipi campgrounds near Blackfalds, AB.  Every year they hold a huge BBQ/open bar party at a campground, and it was an awesome event.  Luckily, they didn’t need proof that Sterling was the only one from the fivesome to actually have anything to do with the company hosting.. I figure giant corporations are ok to lend a helping hand to a few enthusiastic campers even if they’re there a little bit unethically, right?

 Our chariot: Sterling’s 1987 Camaro, with a ghetto homemade roof rack to carry the 2-person kayak.  This thing normally gets lots of looks because it’s loud, and is always playing Iron Maiden full blast with the t-tops and windows open.. add a kayak strapped to the roof, and those looks multiply in frequency by about 6x, and in horrified/disgusted faces by about 11x.

To say the least - it’s not very efficient.

 Alberta’s exciting, right?

Never saw a sign of this police dog, he must have been plainclothes/undercover.

So, the map to the campground has a trail leading to a dock on Lake Lacombe.  We searched around where it said it was for about 20 mins, and couldn’t find anything.  We found an employee and asked him about the whereabouts of said dock, and he says “Well.. the old man insists he built one out in the brush, but no one here has ever seen it.  The path’s supposed to be somewhere near the gazebo, I think?”  We weren’t super confident in his knowledge of park landmarks, so we asked another employee who gave us the same “Supposedly there is one, but I’ve never seen it” comments.  Our hopes were slightly damaged, but we trekked on looking for the mystery dock.  After about 1.5 hours of driving and hiking through thick wilderness, we came upon the dock.. I’m sure it hasn’t been used in 20 years, everything was overgrown, and it was covered in slime, but it was a dock nonetheless.  We trekked through the wilderness again, this time carrying the kayak, and we were waterbound soon after.

 After all that hiking and kayaking, Sterling was tired because he’s a girl.

The smoke made pretty colors through the trees/sunset.

 Sterling really spent the rest of the weekend in his underwear, much to the chagrin of the rest of the campers.  There were a few unfortunately placed holes, and I picked up a few unfortunate glances of his business.  Whatever, it’s camping, anything goes.  (barf)

 Elisabeth models keylimes for the newest Corona campaign.

 Martina trying her hardest not to be embarrassed of Sterling.

It must have been really, really hard :(

 Really.

Pre-accident ross enjoys a pre-accident Corona.

 And by hard I mean completely impossible.

 I’m yelling at him not to stretch my sunglasses :(

 And also not to pour beer on them :(

 Luckily, it mostly ended up on his shirt.

 Three amigos :D

 Ross working on getting the fire up.. Everything was covered in dew in the morning (Including my iPod which seems to have survived), so it was pretty hard.

 But determination conquers all.

 PROTIP: It’s probably not a good idea to hop on the back of a Camaro, with only a homemade roof rack as support.

PROTIP(2): If you choose to ride on the back of a Camaro, make sure the driver knows you’re there.

PROTIP(3): When it becomes apparent that the driver does NOT know you’re there, and he starts gunning it down a gravel road, it’s best to hang on for dear life.  Poor Ross :’(

 Elisabeth patiently waits for Ross to return from the hospital.

 I lighten the mood by taking cutesy photos with Elisabeth.

 And I take out my frustrations on some wood.

 Sterling gets back with the fixed up Ross..

 And it’s all good, just some polysporin and he was on his way.

Imagine how bad-freaking-ass he’s going to look with that gnarly scar.

 Until next time: Here’s lookin at you, kids.

Oh and my iPhone broke and the only error report just says:  Debugger Message: Panic.

That’s uplifting, right?  FFfffuuuuu…

Surf’s up, dude.