700 Beers in 3 Nights Submitted by: Jim Ford - 10/09/08 4:34 pm

700 Beers in 3 Nights Is it possible to drink 700 beers in 3 nights..... slurring, YES! For the last 5 years, a group of old college buddies from Louisiana Tech and me get together on Lake Ouachita in Arkansas. Our mission? Drink, tell old stories, eat nothing but steak and burgers, swim, play poker, relax, and generally let our worries go for a few days. What do we all share in common? We are all alumni of the the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity, Zeta Chi Chapter. There's a core group of about 8 guys that go every year. The other 4 kind of rotate with newer guys. We started out renting a cabin which turned out to be half a mobile trailer the first year. The last several we've rented a 68 foot 2-story house boat. We travel in from all over the country. Engineers, Nasa launch specialists, programmers, salesmen, you name it. Everyone meets up Friday afternoon and loads the boat up with ice chests FULL of beer (at least a couple 30 packs each, plus some bring liquor), a little food, and random things like clothes, cards, etc. This year DK was our captain and you can see him taking us out. Pawnee and Sean raced us on the jetski and fishing boat. Once we were tied up for our first night location, you see Sean checking out the top deck for good spots to shoot the potato canon. Later on everyone grabs one of the 6 cabins to share. With lots going on, I get hungry and grill a steak, bratwurst, hamburger, or chicken fillet. Pawnee decides to do some spear fishing/snorkling. It's a lot tougher than you think. The hot tub really is nice, even if it does feel like a sausage fest at first. Really relaxing as long as someone is close to grab you beer. At night, there's usually a few guys watching great movies like Super Bad, European Roadtrip, Dazed and Confused, etc. I wish we had a picture of us playing poker cause that goes on all hours of the day and night. Oh well, I learned a lot about Texas Holdem. One of the trip favorites is to tie off a pig/tow line, sit on life jackets, and drink beer in the middle of the lake. There's always plenty of women... I mean...err people, boating by to say hello! And yeah, we drink WAAAY too much which you see me looking half asleep and Duet (you can Do It!) looking like he's modeling for a Jagermeister commercial. A bad commercial. Not the entire weekend is about drunken sloveness. It's also a great chance to enjoy natures many gifts. These pictures were just great. It'd squalled for hours one afternoon and just when the rain started to ease, a rainbow peeked out. We caught this sequence of sunset pictures from the top deck. Just incredible. And the last morning as we were about to shove off back to the marina, we caught this loan bird perched on the mini-peninsula. It's a great trip every year and we start planning and looking forward to the next one by November again! Getting together with your buddies every once in a while to forget about life is something everyone should do. And I have some of the best friends you could ask for. Log in and leave some comments or go to my pictures page to get more details on many of the pics you see here.

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