corndogs and candy apples

well this entry is a little late, but i figured i'd tell you about my weekend. i don't know how often you frequent columbia, sc, but if you make it there at all, it should be during the week in october when the sc state fair is there. now you think a museum has culture? you haven't seen anything until you visit the state fair. the fair has a flair for bringing out the best of south carolina. people come from the woodworks just to make it to the fair. pretty much everything about the fair is great, but here's my list of the top 10 things at the sc state fair(in no particular order):

1. Fiske french fries

2. foot long corndogs

3. ginormous sand castles

4. mullets

5. fake hypnotists

6. 200 pound bunny rabbits

7. teenagers in action

8. carnies

9. strawberry lemonade

10. funnel cakes (duh)

i hope you're inspired to make it to the sc state fair at some point in your life. its NOT real life.

scattergories brings out the best in people

who knew that the board game scattergories could produce such a good time. well, this was something thing that i figured out last night while team tlh was on our team overnight to liz's lake house on keowee. normally i dread these types of team events, but for some reason i knew this one was going to be eventful. needless to say, dinner and the shenanigans before the game were fun, but when scattergories got into full swing, the laughter started to roll in like a tidal wave. answer after answer from certain individuals were some of the most ridiculous things that I have ever heard. let me just give you a few of my favorite answers. for the letter A, liz's answer for color was "orangoutang orange". let's dissect this: one "orangoutang orange" is not even close to a real color, and two, its spelled with a O not an A. sweet sweet liz. she thought we were all laughing at her because it was a ridiculous color. she soon figured out how to spell it. liz struck again with the letter H, saying the "heltics" were a professional sports team. kelly chimed in during the letter P, using "pink ponies" as her answer for things you find in a souvenir shop. she was so embarrassed by her own answer that she couldn't bring herself to say it. i don't think i've ever seen her laugh so hard. so all in all, i think i have a new favorite board game. and a new favorite color of course.

take that art loeb.

so for fall break a couple of friends and i went on a 3 day backpacking trip to the Pisgah National Forest outside of brevard, nc. and what a 3 day trip it was. it started off well on friday afternoon. after leaving clemson we stopped in the burg to eat at the infamous wade's. i'll admit despite my skepticism, it was good, but still no lizard's thicket. we made it to pisgah by about 6:30 but this was just the beginning. the ranger station was closed, so we just took some pictures of the map and went on our merry way. we had to head back to town to get pipe tobacco and stop and dolly's ice cream parlor. bad decision #1. this little detour used up the last of our daylight, meaning that we had to do everything else, like find a campsite, set up camp, make a fire, etc, by artificial light. you'd think every person would bring a flashlight or something, but no. somehow we ended up with my headlamp and dkal's $0.50 clunker of a flashlight. needless to say we were up the river with no paddle and wearing a bookbag of rocks. somehow we found a campsite, made a fire, and got semi-settled. and of course, it decided to rain. i think if our night hadn't already been so stressful, we would have persisted, but we folded, climbed in the car, drove to the nature center down the road, and spent a long and uncomfortable night sleeping in the car. the good thing is that this was our lowest point. we woke up the next morning determined to make this backpacking trip one to remember. we headed to the ranger station, got a map and a game plan, went to walmart to get a compass, and headed to the art loeb trail, a 20 mile round trip out and back hike to the top of cold mountain. yes, the cold mountain. the weather was testy, but the rain held off for the most part, making the trip out there great. the views were unreal and the time with friends was even better. camping on top of cold mountain was awesome. good conversation by flashlight makes any situation awesome. after a good nights sleep, we made the trek back down the mountain in an hour less than it took us to get out there. that would be due to the bojangles that was awaiting us right down the road. too many great things happened to list them all, just take my word, it was the best trip i've been on in a long while. i can't wait for round two...

relaxation.

so i decided to count how many weekends I have been gone away from clemson doing something in a row. yea, that would be 4. I went to athens, then went to the beach, then went and did wrangler training at sharptop, and last weekend I went to kate's wedding in beaufort. phew. i can't tell you how much fun each of these trips were, but man did they leave me tuckered. then add on 4 weeks of stressful school work and co-op interviews. i was mush. complete mush. i was useless. so this past weekend i turned down all my options and decided to stay in clemson and relax. its pretty hard, well really hard actually, to unwind here in clemson, simply because there is always a bustle of activity and things to do. but as it turns out, everyone was gone this weekend. and i mean everyone. i had the apartment to myself, so needless to say, i relaxed. and slept. then ate. and slept some more. i feel like a new man today. it was so great and awesome for my soul. today marks a new week, and i feel more like me than i have for a while. i can already tell that its going to be a good week...