This past weekend was the annual fund raiser for the Chester Volunteer Fire Dept of Chester, WV. If you haven't heard of it that's ok - I hadn't heard of it until this year when an old Army buddy of mine, Jason Oswald, invited me to join him and some of his work friends for the weekend. Chester is about 4 hours from Huntington and is fairly close to Pittsburgh PA so we got a room in Pittsburgh near the airport.

I took off early on Friday and headed up there so I could get us checked in (the room was in my name). I hit the hotel at around 2:45 and Jason and one of his friends (Cantz) showed up at around 5. From there three three of us headed down the street about half a block to a Longhorn Steakhouse for dinner and then to a bar just down the street to drink, tell stories, and generally act stupid. We hung out there until about 1 in the morning then walked down the street looking for a Denny's - but, once we got to Denny's Jason and Cantz saw an Eat-and-Park so we went there instead so they could eat the breakfast buffet.

We finally got back to the room at around 2am where Oswald and Cantz promptly passed out. I don't sleep well in a hotel as it is and Cantz is a snoring fool so all hope of my sleeping was dashed. That actually worked out pretty well because two other guys showed up at about 3am. They were out in the parking lot calling Oswalds cell. He didn't wake up so I answered it and went down and let them in. I introduced myself, found them spots to sleep, set the alarm clock for 7AM and tried again to go to sleep. One of the two who arrived at 3, Darren, also snored. He couldn't fall asleep with Cantz snoring but, at about 4am Cantz stopped for about ten minutes - before that ten minutes was up Darren was fast asleep snoring as well. The last time I remember seeing the clock was 6:25am. Then, at 6:45 someones cell phone started to ring and thus I was up for the day with 20 minutes of sleep.

We all shuffled through the bathroom, showered, and then hit the road by 8am to go meet up with Darren's brother Joe. Amazingly we found Joe about 5 minutes after getting on the highway and we started following him. He lead us to his brother Danny's house were we picked up Danny, their brother Dennis, and their dad (whom I called Dad - I still don't know his name). From Danny's house we went to a small country diner for breakfast and then headed into West Virginia for the fund raiser.

The fund raiser is kind of amazing. It is $100 per person to get in and they sell 10,000 tickets thus bringing in 1 million. However, they give out $650,000 in prizes with a prize drawing every five minutes after noon. Plus they have 4 $5,000 early bird drawings between 11am and noon. I hadn't bought my ticket early enough to be eligible for the early drawings. The event is held at this big building called The Harv at the Mountaineer Race Track (which is a state owned hotel, race track, and Casino). As soon as we arrived at the bash we found some seats at a table under one of the many outdoor tents, got our selves comfortable, and then began to drink way too much light beer that flowed from an endless tap of free beer. The event lasts from 12:00 - 5:30pm and you basically just sit there, hang out, listen to the drawings, and drink. Eventually I snagged four hotdogs from the food line but that was about all we did at the bash.

Many people who had been there before brought cards or dominos - others even brought pitchers for their beer. Next year, if I go, I think I will bring some kind of game for us to play while we drink and bull shit each other. There are actually other ways the fire dept raises money there - they sell little instant win tickets that you pay $1 each for but you can win up to $5000. I'd honestly bet they sell close to $100,000 of these tickets at the event between straight cash purchases and people getting more tickets when they cash in their smaller winners (1,5,10,25, and $50). "Dad" and some other guy they knew both hit for $500 on those - which was very cool.

We seemed to have a dedicated ticket sales girl who looked, facially, a lot like Kendra Wilkinson from the TV show "Girls Next Door" and our waitress (basically just threw away all of our trash) looked like Fairuza Balk (she was in the movie Water Boy as an adult and was Wednesday Adams in the modern Adams Family movie). It was kind of uncanny how much they both looked like their famous counterparts. I probably should have taken photos but I wasn't sure that would be the smoothest option to go on a guys weekend and then return to my wife with a camera full of photos of other women.

Eventually the bash ended and our group headed into the Casino. Somehow we all got separated and Danny and I headed on a shuttle to the poker room. I've never played Texas Hold 'Em at a casino before; just pick up games, so I didn't realize how everything worked but I was anxious to try it out. I didn't have any loose cash on me at all but I did have a $100 bill I keep tucked into my wallet "emergencies" I was buzzing just enough to figure this was a good place to break out the benny. So I went to the cashier, got $80 worth of fives and $20 worth of ones and headed to the table with Danny. The blinds (forced bets) were $1 and $2 so it was definitely my kind of price range.

I tried to be relaxed and, honestly, to pretend like I was far more intoxicated than I was. It seemed to work (or the people at the table, in general, just sucked) and I was quickly winning money. Now, when I go to a casino and play blackjack I always take my winnings and put them in my pocket at a certain point. So that I am only playing with the money that is on the table and I forget what is in my pocket and thus, when I leave, I'm usually way ahead. I did the same thing as I played poker. After each hand I won I immediately put all of the $4 chips I collected into my pocket so that I always had just about $100 on the table to play with. Eventually I had put all but about $50 in my pocket and then I lost that on one hand that I pretty much knew I was going to lose. So I got up and went to cash in all the stuff in my pocket when, out of the blue, the dealer told me I wasn't allowed to put money in my pocket during the course of the night. She said since I was leaving the table it was OK but in the future I needed to keep my chips all on the table.

Since this wasn't a tourny, and was just a pick-up game, I'm not sure I understand that logic so long as I'm not moving money during a hand I'm involved in. But there you go - those are the rules; don't make my same mistake.

I apologized for my ignorance then headed to the cashier to cash in. $302 was in my pocket! So I put my $100 emergency fund back in my wallet and walked out of the casino with nearly $200 after I stopped off and tipped the dealer. Sweet. Danny finished up shortly after I did and we then had to go find the rest of the guys. By this time my little buzz was gone (though I was still feeling great) and we found out everyone had gone to a bar somewhere between the casino and Danny's house. We caught up with them there and it was about 7:30. The bar was just like any other bar I've been too. Well light, pool tables, dart boards, smokey, and manned by, in this case, two female bartenders. But something wasn't normal - something was very unusual. Both of the female bartenders were completely nude (except for their shoes). It turns out that is the bars gimmick - their bartenders serve in the nude until 9pm at which point, by law, they have to put their clothes on. Odd stuff.

We stayed until 9.

We then headed out to Danny's to let people get their cars back. Oswald and I then tried to find the hotel while the rest of the guy went to Joe's house to party for a bit. Eventually our three roommates showed up at the hotel but Darren then left with his sister in law to go back to Joes. So the four of us headed out to the bar of the previous night where we crashed some schools 10th high school reunion. We hung out till around 2am then walked to eat-n-park for a late meal (I didn't eat). We made it back to the hotel by around 3. I had basically been awake for 40 hours non-stop (less the 30 minute nap of the night before). Cantz, thankfully, slept in a different position and didn't snore so I was able to fall asleep. I woke up a few times but nobody was snoring so I fell back asleep without issue. I was wide awake at 8. WTF?

I headed down for breakfast at the hotel while the others got up and showered. When I got back to the room Darren was back but our showers plumbing had gone crazy and was backing up with some very nasty look and horrid smelling water. Eventually everyone decided they were ready to head out and we loaded up or respective cars, I bid Oswald a good bye, and then drove home to Huntington. It took me closer to 6 hours to drive home because I was so tired that I had to stop a few times to walk around and refresh.

Overall it was a fun trip - though i did drink more than I should have - and it was great to see Jason again. The last time we saw each other was at my wedding in 1999! He lives near Allentown PA now so it isn't really convenient for us to hang out at all. I'm really glad I went and hope his friends thought well enough of me that he feels comfortable inviting me again next year. I've put a few photos of the weekend up.

#MyLife #Travel #Entertainment #Photos