A Weekend in the Woods, Part II

Last weekend I spent an awesome time with a whole new group of friends down in the deep woods of Damascus, Pennsylvania.  I already told you about the place...beautiful...but I wanted to spend a few moments telling you about the people I was with and the time we shared.  Here's a short video of the kind of weekend it was...

Mama Melo

 

That's Ricardo...Mama Melo as he calls himself in the video, twerking his thang with some Bisquick. Unfortunately, I missed the live version of that video because it was taken on Saturday morning before I got there, but Ricardo was one of the reasons the weekend was as fun as it was.  Now I've known Ricky for awhile, but I never really knew him that well until this weekend and I am so glad he was up there with us.

Ricardo was the music man, the breakfast maker, the photographer and all around good guy.  All weekend long Ricky was snapping photos, cracking jokes, playing with props (wigs, lol), and jamming to music.  I distinctly remember all of us working it to a freestyle mix whilst doing the breakfast dishes....classic!  What a fun guy and a talented photographer!

Seriously, though, Ricky is a great photographer.  Take a look at some of his work from the weekend...

Beautiful!

The Happy Couple

Of course, the whole weekend wouldn't have been possible without Peter and Drew. I knew Drew the least of everyone, and he's somewhat quiet and reserved, but he's a heck of a nice guy.  Peter, on the other hand, is not shy and he has his own brand of humor that this weekend took on the spirit of the Halloween season. Throughout the day and a half I was there, he consistently tried to scare one or more of us.  Most of the time it was subtle, like when he'd look behind you with wide eyes as if there was someone, or something, coming up towards you, or when he'd say he saw something in the window of the house while we were all outside. The scares were momentary and harmless, but there was that one scare...

Yikes

The biggest fright for me of the weekend happened late Saturday night.  We were all in the living area watching Hocus Pocus and towards the end of the film, everybody had fallen asleep, including me.  When I stirred, around 1 in the morning, I decided to go to bed and woke Manny to tell him.  Now I slept in a loft overlooking the living space, so I could still hear the television as I laid there. Within moments, everyone else stirred awake and got up to go to bed, too.   

Of course, by then I was wide awake.  For a few minutes, I lay there in complete darkness trying to fall back asleep when I thought I heard a voice.

Get out!  You must leave this place!

My eyes opened and I looked all around me in the darkness.  Ozzie, in the bed next to me, was still.  I figured I was just hearing things,

Get out!  You must leave this place!

Holy shit!  That second one was unmistakable.  I called over to Ozzie to ask if he heard that.  Tiredly, he answered with a "heard what?"  But then it happened again.

Get out!  You must leave this place!

"Oh my God!  What was that?"  Before you knew it, Ozzie went downstairs to check, leaving me all alone up there...in the dark.  Moments later, I heard Ozzie scream like a black lady in church, and then...silence! Just then, Peter came rushing out of his bedroom, which was next too the loft where Oz and I slept. 

"What's going on?," he asked, and before I could even answer, he was down the stairs in a shot and I suddenly I was even more scared.  There was a rustling, like two people fighting, and by then my heart was racing.  I stood at the top of the stairs, in the dark, trying to make out what the heck was going on and not knowing what to do.  I went down.

In about two minutes, I had about two heart attacks and there was plenty of laughter as everyone spooked me from a hallway down by the kitchen.  It turned out that the voice I had heard was Mr. Peter playing a recorded voice from the movie Insidious on an Apple TV down in the basement.  Good one Peter!   

Happy Times

The rest of the weekend was more of the same fun with Manny, Ozzie and David.  I was glad to have reconnected with my old pal Ozzie, who I don't really seen too much anymore.  The weekend was awesome...the seven of us laughed, we drank, we ate, we sat by the fire, we hiked, and spent the entire time enjoying this serene place, and each others' company.  Here are some more pics taken by Mama Melo...

        

 

Fabulous!

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