Follies and Foibles on Rainbow Mountain

I should have realized when I met Ed, AKA Evelyn, outside of Cherry House at Rainbow Mountain on Friday night that the weekend was going to be a strange one.  Yes, after last year's, um...adventure, my pals Sean, Sonny and I returned to that Mountain Called Rainbow over in the Poconos, and we even brought a fourth, our friend and fellow bowler Al.  It was Sonny who planned the whole thing, and although I knew little about the particular weekend we were going, I happily agreed to go just happy for a weekend getaway from life.  Little did I know I was in for a couple of days in the Twilight Zone.

rachelfox

I really didn't think anything of it at first.  Ed was smoking a cigarette outside, as was I, and we were just making friendly chit chat.  He...she...was very tall, over six feet, and quite simply looked like a middle-aged man in women's clothes...garish women's clothes to boot,  When he mentioned that his wife didn't want him to come, I became curious and soon found out that he was there for the first time and very nervous.  We soon parted ways as I returned to my room to get ready to go to the club with my buds.

Though I thought of Rainbow as somewhat dated and not really the nicest of places, I did remember that the club housed on the grounds was pretty cool.  It had been packed last time and lots of fun, so I was really looking forward to getting my groove on...that is, until I got there.  On the short walk from Cherry House over to the club we passed two more people like Ed. As we walked past them, Sonny casually mentioned, Oh, it's crossdresser's weekend.  

Really?  Are you kidding? 

No, Really!

It was true.  We walked into the empty, cavernous club and immediately made our way downstairs to the basement for some crossdressing karaoke.  Out of the thirty or so people down there, more than half the patrons were middle-aged crossdressers singing Frank Sinatra, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and plenty of other songs from like forty years ago.  We were definitely in the Twilight Zone!  As my pal Rich said when I told him the story a couple of days later, I'd have gotten drunk, that's exactly what I did.  Great minds think alike!

And so set the stage for a weekend of follies and foibles, missed opportunities and a few laughs in between.  It wasn't the greatest of weekends, but it was good to be doing it all with some good people. Here are some of the highlights and low-lights of the weekend...      

After a morning of outlet shopping, the four of us were hungry and looking for a snack to tide us over before dinner.  Along the road in Stroudsburg, Al noticed the coolest little place, Rootin' Tootin' Hot Dogs.  This place as like the hot dog version of so many of those 50's style hamburger places that are so popular these days.  It was owned by a sweet gay couple who really put their own unique spin on both the vintage decor and the menu.  

Old 45 record sleeves adorned the walls and beautifully crafted wooden shelves lined the perimeter. There were red leather booths and a real jukebox that played three songs for a quarter.  And the menu consisted of hot dogs served in several unique ways, with chili, cheese, pesto mayonnaise and more, as well as some delicious tater tot/hash browny potatoes.  High point!

The Horror Hotel

On Sonny's itinerary for us over the weekend was a visit to a haunted mansion, which is always fun. After realizing that the one he had picked out was 45 minutes away, we found one a little closer called the Horror Hotel, or something to that effect.  This place was three attractions in one, and though three of us (four of Sonny's friends had met us up there on Saturday) ended up bailing after a really long wait for the second one (low point!), the one that we did go through was pretty darned scary...and full of belly laughs, too. You see, Sonny's got this look about her that just seems to attract people everywhere she goes, and virtually every monster at this ride set their sights on our poor friend.  You can imagine the laughs we shared at her expense.

Karaoke, More Belly Laughs, and Bradley

Other than the crossdressing karaoke singers, probably the one thing we're all going to remember the most about this particular weekend is Bradley.  Bradley was this young dude who is a local to the Rainbow Mountain area.  He seemed like, and I hate to say this, but it's true, a meth head, though he didn't really appear to be high or anything...maybe just exhibiting some of the effects of having done the drug for a long, long time. Really, though, Bradley was sweet and harmless, and he provided us with all of the entertainment we'd need for that second night at Rainbow.

We'd all first seen Bradley on Friday night, first at karaoke doing a nice rendition of something by Miranda Lambert.  After that, he spent most of the night alone, shirtless on the dance floor pretending he was a stripper at a club or something.  It was then that his strangeness first made itself known, as every once in awhile he'd run up to the bar, place his hands on it as if he were going to do a some sort of flip as his feet arced upwards behind him, and he'd make this very strange face as he yelled out a great big Ahhhhhhh.  It was a unique sound that really can't be described in words, except perhaps some sort of jungle bird calling out to a potential mate.  We'd hear that sound a lot over the next two nights.

To top things off...you remember how I said earlier that Sonny seems to attract attention wherever she goes?  Well, Bradley first laid his eyes on her Friday night and his admiration only grew by Saturday.  Bradley was in love!  Before Sonny and I even hit the front door on Saturday, the Ahhhhhh's could be heard echoing throughout the chilly night air.  

Hey baby!  Sonny was aghast.

Bradley followed us inside and downstairs to a booth where Sonny's pals were hanging out and we were all just taking it in.  The attention Bradley was paying to poor old Sonny.  It was priceless, both Bradley and Sonny's reactions to him, well at least for a couple of hours.

Eventually, though, Bradley got the hint and made himself scarce.  Everybody, except for me and Al, got up and karaoked the rest of the night away.  Sonny, as always, was fabulous (she even won a contest!), and by the end of the night everyone had become so imbibed that the whole group wanted to get up and do Madonna's True Blue.  As you can imagine, and as the karaoke hostess claimed, it was one hot mess!  But it was a fun ending to a strange weekend on Rainbow Mountain.  Of course the next morning the question came up: Will I ever go again?  All I can say is we shall see...but definitely not on crossdresser's weekend.    

Something to Talk About on a Mountain Called Rainbow

It started out as a canoeing trip.  That's what my friend Sonny said when he first suggested a weekend at Rainbow Mountain in Pennsylvania sometime in October.  He wanted to check out fall foliage from the river...splendid, huh?  Well, it sounded like fun...something different, though it was originally going to happen a little earlier than this, the first weekend of November that brought with it the season's first frigid temperatures.  There would be no canoeing on this go-around, but as is always the case, it was full of...well, adventure and something to talk about for years to come.

I'd never been to the place, but I'd heard of it.  Rainbow Mountain...what a name, huh?  A gay mountain?  Really?  No, not really...it's only a gay resort in the middle of the Poconos, and you know I'm always game for anything, anyway, especially when the possibility of a new kind of fun is in the cards.  I'd be going with not only Sonny, but with my other friend, Sean, too, through whom I met Sonny in the first place.  The two of them had been to the place many times over and they had their things that they liked to do when they go up there, including trips to a local outlet center and visiting what Sonny calls an Ewok Village.  I really had no idea what to expect, and as the trip got closer, Sonny tried to prepare me for my visit...

It's a bit rustic, but it's got it's own special charm..

He wasn't kidding!  The Rainbow Mountain Resort is unlike anyplace I'd ever vacationed in before. The place was sort of like a bed and breakfast, only a little dated.  I'll bet it hasn't changed much in 20, 30, or even 40 years.  In the main house, where we stayed, two bathrooms were shared by all and the plumbing was...well let's just say typical for a place somewhere in the mountains, with little water pressure at every turn.  There was a communal living space in the lobby where guests could watch TV, play games, mingle, or even carve pumpkins on this Halloween Weekend.  It was all very unlike my usual sort of vacation, where interacting with fellow guests is usually minimal.

Like I said earlier, I am always game for new adventures, and this trip couldn't have come at a better time.  With all of the stress I've been feeling the past week, I needed some time to get away from my usual surroundings and forget life, if only for a couple of days.  So none of these 'rustic' conditions and up close and personal interactions with fellow guests dampened my spirits. Not even the circumstances that were to follow, dubbed by Sonny as Brokeneck Mountain, made the trip regrettable.  On the contrary, it'll be an amusing recollection someday for the three of us, something we'll be talking about and for a long time to come, I am sure.

Something to Talk About

That's the three of us, Sean, Sonny and I early on at the local club on the property of Rainbow Mountain Resort.  It was the one really bright spot of the weekend, a two level barn/basement that had been converted to a pretty cool...and packed, nightclub/karaoke bar. Sean and Sonny are both karaoke aficionados, while I'm more of an over-aged club kid, so there was something for all of us to enjoy. They were having a Halloween costume party, which was well attended by a nice looking crowd of vampires, werewolves, sea urchins, scantily clad superheroes and scary clowns, so both the eye candy and the festive atmosphere were spot on and the three of us really enjoyed ourselves, that is, until we returned to the hotel...

Earlier in the evening, a trio of New Jersey-ans, two guys and a girl, had checked in to the resort.  I'd been outside smoking a cigarette when they were dropped off in a white van, one of the guys, a trashy queen, loudly complaining of the rustic conditions at the inn.  I should have known from that spectacle how things were going to be, but... The chick was a cousin to the trashy queen and it was hard to tell what the other guy's deal was, whether he was a lover of the queen or the girl, or just a friend, but they were all clearly trashed on some type of drug.

At first we mingled with them before heading on down to the club.  They had asked me to take their picture, which in turn lead to shots of whiskey and chit chat.  Thankfully, Sean and I eventually made our escape from their attention on the walk down to the club as the woman kept losing her balance and falling on the decline towards the barn, slowing them down as he and I sped up towards the entrance.  We didn't see them again until our return to the hotel after closing time...around 2:30 a.m. And that was when all hell broke loose.

I need to preface this part of the story by saying that it was 2:30 a.m., and it was the night we 'fell back' with clocks, so in reality it was 3:30 and we'd been partying for awhile.  Therefore I don't exactly remember everything, but here's what I do remember...

The two guys were arguing sometime around the moment we walked back into the hotel.  They were upstairs in the hallway in front of the door to their room, which was right at the top of the stairs, and the argument turned to fisticuffs very quickly.  The next thing I knew, several of us were trying to get between them.  The trashy queen seemed to be doing all of the pushing and shoving, while the other dude seemed to not want to fight at all.

All of a sudden trashy queen shoves the other guy down the entire flight of stairs and chases down after him, climbing on top of him at the bottom, only to continue pounding on his face.  There was a lot of blood and a lot of screaming going on and the next thing I knew the queen bolted out the door as Sonny called 911.  I spent the next half-hour or so with the bleeding dude's head in my lap, comforting him as best I could.  I don't really remember this, but Sean and Sonny said he had been unconscious at first, but came to eventually, but I do remember having to hold him down at one point as he tried to get up, in fear that he broke something like maybe his neck.  

The next thing I remember, the dude was gone, taken away by paramedics, and cops were in the lobby asking questions.  I fell asleep in a chair, having been woken by Sean to come upstairs once it was all done.  The next morning I woke up expectedly groggy, and trying to piece together what had happened.  Of course, the incident was the talk of everyone at the inn during breakfast.  Apparently the cops nabbed the trashy queen walking down one of the darkened roads and arrested him, the woman had been picked up and left soon after the incident, and the poor, bleeding dude had been taken to a local hospital where he was treated for only broken ribs.  There was no concussion thankfully.

At breakfast, Sonny noted that he was sort of proud of how Sean and I reacted to the melee.  Really, all of the others who were there pretty much just stood by and did nothing, as the three of us did our part...Sonny included.  He called us heroes, but if that's what we were, he was one as well.

By that morning, the temperatures had dropped so low and a chilling wind sent shivers through bodies with abandon and we abandoned our excursion to the Ewok Village, unfortunately.  It was just as well, though.  The excitement from Saturday evening had been quite enough and my body and mind were weary anyway.  The whole weekend adventure was typical of the sorts of things that happen in my life, and though it wasn't the weekend I envisioned, I can't be upset about it.  I did get to forget home for a couple of days and there was surely a lot of fun in there.  The whole mess at the end of the night only served to give us something to talk about for a long, long time to come...