The gods of Lake McConaughy

These photos are deceptive and make it look like we had an awesome time. If you have nothing better to do for the next two hours read the small novel below and you will find out that our July 4th Weekend was more like a horror movie than the romantic comedy I so badly hoped for.

Our new best friend Mann

Never Have I ever... gotten head while playing World Warcraft. (haha)

The red,white and blue suspenders weren't exactly made to cover nipples but we won't judge. (sorry couldn't flip it for some reason)

So enthusiastic about America's birthday.

Right side. Undefeated.

No comment needed.

The 4th

4^th of July Weekend, 3 day weekend, Americas Birthday, Brats, Burgers, Beers, Boobs, Fireworks, Red White and Blue, Camping trips, BBQ’s, women, Horseshoes, Volleyball and Picnics. AMERICAAAAAA F Yeah. How could you not LOVE this festive holiday.

I like many Americans was looking forward to the 4^th of July weekend. Perhaps even more than your average US Citizen Joe. Why? Because I was going camping/boating with some of my best friends. We were going into, where else but America’s heartland - Lake McConaughy. There was no reason to expect that we would have anything but a kick ass time. We had had a similar unforgettable weekend last year. But this year we were going with more awesome dudes, sports contraptions, food, beer and women. We even had two boats. TWO f***ing boats people. How could you possibly have a bad time with TWO boats.

Well it turns out it is possible. You can have a bad time with two boats. Hell, we learned that you can probably have a bad time with three or even four boats.

Instead of talking about the highlights of the weekend I’m just going to outline why this weekend will go down in history as the worst weekend in our friends history. Our grandkids will likely talk about how horrible this weekend was. And when one of us (Chad Huggins) becomes a powerful US politician and abolishes Nebraska from the US. We will all know why.

Good things that happened during the 4^th of July weekend 2010.

1. No one died.

Bad things that happened during the 4^th of July weekend 2010.

1. Perri and I left at 9:00 in the morning. Early enough to get there and set up our camp site before the rest of the shit show rolled in. Matt B. was nice enough to text me directions to the meeting point. But I received the text message as I was passing the exit I was supposed to get off and because Nebraska is Nebraska I had to wait 20 miles (no exaggeration) till I could turn around.
2. When I got back on the right road I took a left too soon and drove 45 minutes out of my way again.
3. We got to Nick’s house at around 1:20 pm. I assumed that by this time we would have everyone already at the campsite partying and taking turns having a kick ass time in the boat. Why did I assume that? Because Chad and Matt had arrived the night before to set up camp for us. What we found instead was everyone standing around not knowing what to do or where to go. It turns out that Chad and Matt hadn’t gotten us a spot. Instead Chad decided to fall in love with some brunette girl (whose name I’m not sure anyone knows –even Chad-) Chad ended up getting felatio from his new young unattractive friend in the back of a jeep with five people riding in the front of the car. But that incident had occured 10 hours ago by the time Perri and I showed up and Chad had already moved on to the brunettes friend. An attractive young artist-to-be blond girl named Caitlin I believe. I’m not positive because Chad introduced her as his fiancé. She smiled laughed and fell in love with Chad just a little bit more. (the clingyness quickly ensued.)
4. Anyway, the huge group finally rolled out of Nicks house to go get a campsite. When we showed up at the other side of the lake. Ross and Grady were rolling in (even though they left 2 and ½ hours after everyone).
5. Lake McConaughy was higher than it had been in the previous nine years. Barely any beach was available. Every inch of the beach was taken with campers/ tents/ pick up trucks. We had two choices. We could literally camp feet from some poor family that was going to try and enjoy their one weekend away from home together or we could ship ALLLLL or shit and people by boat to the island in the middle of the lake. Don’t know who ended up making the final call but that’s what we did. It took just about the rest of the afternoon, and I’m not placing any blame here (I’m probably at fault here a little bit too) but this decision would turn out to be one of the worst the whole weekend.
6. After moving enough to feed and house a small Vietnamese village for a whole year we started to set everything up. We did this with optimistic hearts not knowing the shit storm we were all about to go through
7. We set up the volleyball net for ½ an hour. It turns out it’s actually kind of difficult to make those things stand steadfast in sand. But with the genius of Grady and Matt we did it. But before we could even play one game we released that it was too dark to play and that we should just play the next day.
8. After dinner we were sitting around the fire drinking beers and having a good time. Ross’s little brother was getting shitfaced chugging hard alcohol and calling Ross gay for no apparent reason. We even made s’mores. But as we would soon realize Lake McConaughy was not happy if we were happy. A massive storm came in and pretty much ruined the night for everyone.
9. The wind was so strong that it actually bent and broke the shit out of the tent that Grady had borrowed from his friend Micah.
10. Our friend Kartal had moved his tent to the other side of the island because he said it was “WAY RADDER”. Later that night he went back to his tent to find it completely blown into the lake. Pillow, sleeping bag and all. His wallet had actually fallen out of the tent and was laying under four ft. of water. He found it, but not after a lot of “This Sucks” searching.
11. The night was ruined for everyone accept for Chad and his Aritist-To-Be. They ended up crawling into a two person tent that was already holding Kona, Matt and Cat’s poor little friend (whose name I will not attempt to spell). And to everyone surprise and disgust they consummated their love together in this small tent. (actually Matt was probably just a little disgusted and not at all surprised)
12. And that was just day 1. Two days to go.
13. The next morning we were going to go boating but decided that we should wait cause it was shitty weather and that it would get nicer later on. So Perri Chad, Matt and I and the Artist-To-Be headed back to Nicks house to drop Chad’s fiancé and new lover off and to get Perri’s car.
14. While at Nicks house Perri, Chad Matt and I played numerous games of beer pong the large majority of which Perri and I won. About two hours later we decided to head back and suddenly Chad’s little Artist-to-be decided that she wanted to come too. (seems innocent enough right? Yes, but this is the sign of a stage 1 clinger).
15. Upon arriving by boat at the island what we found was that EVERYTHING had been moved to the other side. When we got to the other side we heard that there had been some bromance drama between Grady, Ross and Cat about their relationship triangle. (maybe that didn’t actually happen that’s just what I heard). Then I myself had some bromance drama with Grady because he thought I had peaced out to play beer pong knowing that I was missing the huge move fest they were having to do. (including moving all my shit- now I will apologize to those who moved my shit. I honestly didn’t know that we were moving otherwise I would have been there to help). But in typical Grady and August fashion we didn’t talk about it the rest of the trip and mended our friendship by simply partying our faces off.
16. Shortly after arriving at the island Chad’s artist-to-be made continuous remarks about how she wanted to take Chad into a tent. (An attractive sober woman trying to physically coerce you into having sexual relations with you is a dead give away for a stage 2 clinger).
17. Now for the first time during our trip I thought we might have some fun. The dudes had spent a significant amount of time moving and setting up the volleyball nets. Then, in typical Lake McConaughy fashion as we were about to start playing, I looked over and saw Armen (spelling?), Matt’s Rottweiler chewing the one and only volleyball to shreds. The worst part was…. I didn’t even see it comin’.
18. Shortly after Armen ate the volleyball I noticed that Chad was sitting with Artist-to-be on his lap while she rubbed his arms with her fingernails. (an extraordinary amount of sober affection is a sure sign of a stage 3 clinger)
19. We then actually started to have a little bit of fun. Some of the guys played that “knock the beer bottle off the top of a plastic stick with a frisbee and see if your drunk hand-eye coordination is still good enough to catch it” game. There was also a group of us that played flip cup. Ross and I’s side did not lose once. (I would be remiss here if I didn’t add that Ross did not lose one athletic competition the entire weekend. Well done good sir). But the Lake McConaughy gods saw that we were actually starting to enjoy ourselves and decided to intervene. The Holy shit these bitches are crazy Las Vegas girls had shown up earlier that afternoon. We knew they were crazy but none of us had any idea what was about to go down. One of the Vegas girls who will remain nameless for the sake of… well I’m not sure why she’ll remain nameless but she will. She had been taking continuous beer bongs out of a beer bong that had a penis on the end. (classy and awesome). By about 4 pm she was well on her way to an early bed time… or so we thought. We forgot that she was from Omaha and had nothing else to do but drink and so her drinking capabilities were astounding. I think her direct quote was, “None of you bitches think that I can finish this 1/4^th bottle of Captain Morgans do you? Well, I’ve got some f***ing Captain in me bitches.” At which point she knee chugged the rest of the bottle. While said nameless Omaha female was destroying her kidneys there was other drama going on in the campsite. I wonder who it involved. If you said somebody whose name starts with Lady you were correct.
20. For several minutes Grady went missing from the afternoon festivities with another Omaha female. Their immergence from the tent caused quite a stir. Apparently they had been painting red whit and blue stars on each others nipples like any true American would. After all it IS the fourth of July and when a chick with pierced nipples asks you to paint them red white and blue, you sack it up and take one for your country and you paint her damn nipples. Grady’s Denver lady friend who he had brought (nice move Grady) camping saw what had happened and just to make the weekend more fun for everyone decided to run off crying for four hours with an also weeping Chad’s Artist-To-Be fiancé. (tears shed over a relationship within the first 24 hours is a sure sign of a stage 4 clinger).
21. We were all quickly distracted from the runaways when we looked over and saw two of the Omaha girls (obviously nameless/blacked out Omaha chick was one of them) screaming at each other. No one is really sure what it was about but it got physical and intense. We all felt like we were on the scene for the new season of Real World. Real World Lake McConaughy. Directly after the fight Nameless Omaha chick started taking down the girls tent. No one could stop her. 20 minutes, a lot of tears and some blood later the Omaha girls were in their boat headed back to shore and the local bar they had taken over the night before. (their dude friend Ryan Mann decided to stay and those of us who talked to him forged a life long friendship with this rare and awesome human being.)
22. With the crazies gone it was time to start having some fun so we sat around the camp fire to enjoy America’s Birthday. (we did enjoy the 45 chicken breasts that Travis got donated from Red Robin- thanks bro that shit was delicious). Meanwhile Chad had to literally ignore/ walk away from his Artist-to-be fiancé for two hours until she got depressed and left the island. (extreme attachment issues is the final and most convincing sign of a stage five clinger)
23. But just as we were sitting around the campfire enjoying ourselves a light sprinkle of rain started. Innocent enough right? This sprinkle quickly turned into a class 4 hurricane within a matter of seconds. There were times during the night where I was sure someone was going to die. I’m not sure how it would happen but I was 60% positive that the Lake McConaughy gods demanded a sacrifice. And because we were on an island we couldn’t run to the safe and warm cars we had parked on the mainland. I spent the night with a soaking wet/ sandy/ shivering Kona. Mitchells tent cover snapped and he had to lay in the tent for over an hour holding it over Ami while rain hit the rain cover and slide down onto him. Ross spent the night with a wet dog and a very very sad girlfriend. Mostly everyone else didn’t/ couldn’t sleep. The next morning on our way out we noticed that there were 20 consecutive telephone poles that had been either snapped in half or blown completely over. I would later find out that we camped through a legitimate Lake McConaughy tornado warning.
24. The next morning the guys immerged from the tent. What they found was really the cherry on top of the great fourth of July weekend. Ross’s boat was hanging out on shore. Nick Reilly’s family boat, which they had left chad in charge of was gone. Everyone was positive that the boat had sunk in the middle of the night during the storm. Chad was majorly F’ed. Turns out the Lake McConaughy gods only meant it as a cruel joke because they had left it stranded on the opposite side of this massive lake. Hahahahaha good one gods.
25. Ross started shuttling people off the island to their cars so they could get the HELL OUT OF NEBRASKA. He dropped off Kyle, Collin and several other football friends at the beach where their car was. Ross quickly left and returned to the island so they could pack up the rest of his shit and get out of dodge. As Kyle and his crew were walking to their car and talking about how glad they were to get away from this place they saw a horrifying sight. During the storm the water had risen over five feet. His car was under 2 and ½ ft. of water. They had to get it towed out. The carpet was completely ruined.
26. After loading up all the rest of their shit Ross, Grady, Ross’s little brother and Cat were driving across the Lake one last time to their car that they could see in the distance. But Lake McConaughy wasn’t done with them yet. Suddenly, their boat died. Ross had forgotten to shut the fuel tank the day before and water had gotten into the gas tank. But Ross’s positive attitude wasn’t done yet. He demanded that it was going to be fine, all he had to do was call one of the guys on shore to get them to have the other boat come tow them in. That’s when they quickly realized that all their phones but Cat’s were dead and Cat didn’t have anyone’s phone number. So they lay stranded in the middle of the lake for over an hour before a ranger came to tow them to shore.

Life Lesson taken from this… F Nebraska