(I dare you to argue with this guy)
Too many times, when a weekend excursion is being considered, we waste time on the little things such as logistics, schedules and planning. We get bogged down in the details of an event, and thus risk sucking the fun out of it. We remove the opportunity for something great and unexpected to cross our path by meticulously organizing the who's, the what's and the where's. Not in Western Kansas.
Not in Sublette.
Ever heard of it, yeah I thought not. When you ask for directions and the response is, "Go past Dodge City", you know you're headed to no-man's land. But alas, I do know a man who calls Sublette his home. This man went to college with me and owns his own construction company. He loves KU hoops, hates sober dancing, and runs a tight ship. He is Hef. And he lives in the middle of freaking nowhere.
Jaron, Ashley (Hef's sister) and I decided to team up and make an impromptu trip to visit him out there, along with fellow Hefners Jordan and Whitney. Whitney's a schoolteacher in Moscow and Jordan has his own agricultural spraying business in Sublette. All the good citizenry of Sublette know the pair by name, making them the Kennedy's of their own town, just more masculine and less concerned about physical appearance. Which is exactly why it's a blast to visit them.
(You know you've made it when your name is on buildings and dunebuggys)
After a relatively quite night eating at "The Restaurant", we watched some Olympics then shut it in before midnight. We wanted to save energy for what was going to be a busy day, and we needed some rest after a lovely seven hour car ride. This was smart though, as our next opportunity for shut-eye was Sunday at three in the morning.
Coffee and some waxy donuts set the stage for our first country endeavor: Shooting. For the second time in a month, I fired firearms. I'm basically a gunsman. If I was seeking manliness the last time I sprayed some lead (do people actually say this?), then this time, I was solidifying it. See below. I'm doing no less than 7 manly things, all at the same time:
1) Holding a "tactical"
2) Looking like I know how to use it
3) Wearing a trucker's hat
4) Wearing shades
5) Sporting a beard
6) Unkempt hair
7) V-Neck t-shirt (of questionable manliness here, I'll admit)
(Could be a pic out of the classic action flick, The Rock)
We got our gun on at the classic I-live-in-the-country gun range: a field. Hef's buddy has a dirt mount arranged, as well as a variety of wooden and metal targets. All we needed was a table and, like, nine guns.
(The menu)
The girls were decorating Whitney's classroom - the complete opposite of manliness, I must say - so we met up with Hef's buddy Michael and his wife Chelsea at "the range". At our own pace and speed, we loaded clips, then unloaded the shells into the targets...or near the targets. There was always a watchful eye so those less familiar with weaponry (I'm looking at you, Greg) had a safety valve to lean on. Below is an amalgam of awesome shooting pics, a virtual shooting gallery, if you will:
(Is that clip aftermarket, Jaron?)
And of course, my favorite, our Secret Service shot:
And that was our morning...
During lunch, talk shifted towards how we'd occupy ourselves in the afternoon. With no clear winners being talked about, Hef proclaimed, "Why don't we go to the Dunes?". It was a great question. There was no good reason we shouldn't. It wasn't planned, but with the Hefner's trailer full of toys, it'd be a pretty quick process to head on out. So that's what we did.
(Warning: this trailer contains awesomeness)
We headed over to Jordan's place, where we grabbed the four four-wheelers and his dunebuggy, then loaded them into their trailer. The trailer, built up from the inside, has residing in it all of the amenities one would need for a sweet dunes trip: helmets, gloves, boots, gasoline, spare parts, flags, straps and even a garbage can. All labeled, and in their proper resting position. It's a work of art.
Michael and Chelsea met us at the Syracuse Sand Dunes Park, where we unloaded the rides, geared up and set out towards the sand.
With relatively few hiccups, we were out and shredding in a moment's time. I've written about our adventures on the sand here, so there's no need to fully describe how it went. Needless to say, it was as badass as could be expected. With less people - our group comprised of five four-wheelers and on dunebuggy that seated two - we were quicker and more nimble as a group than in times past.
There was one coming-of-age incident, however. In a never-before-seen display of manliness, I rolled my bike. Up a sand dune, I saw the action slowing down and decided to cut it right...moments before I hit a ridge. The four-wheeler rolled over me, burying half my body in the sand, its hind wheel repeatedly whapping my hind quarters as wormed my way out. No broken bones, no dislocated elbows, no strains or sprains...I was just left with a nice scrape on my lower back and an Eye of Sauron-looking bruise along my right thigh. Currently it has more colors than a Bob Ross happy sky. I feel very manly (except when I roll over and agitate the scrape).
We hit it hard for a few hours - another advantage of rolling light - then packed it in. It was a great day to ride, and even though the muscles are always sore afterwards, it's a great feeling to be out there, kicking ass. Monday's go by so much better, when there's recent memories of fresh sand in the brain.
The awesomeness did not stop, though, as we cleaned up and grabbed some delicious mexican food, and drowned in gigantic margaritas. Then, with nothing better to do on a Saturday night in Garden City, we went to Sammy's, which caters to three demographics: 1) people who stay in hotels, 2) people who eat steak and 3) people who like disco. Yes, it's a hotel/steak house/disco all in one. A marketing guy's nightmare.
We did not dance, though the people watching was an Olympic event in itself. Lots of inappropriate grinding and too-tight shirts; quite a few mullets and mustaches; a drunken batch of bridesmaids; and a healthy variety of rap, latin and pop music. It's almost worth the seven hour drive, all in itself.
By this point in the night, Ashley and Witney had rejoined the fracas, and we took turns ordering round after round for each other. We were headed to Michael and Chelsea's to crash, so what did we care? Besides, some of us had major muscle discomfort by this point in the night, and needed a natural numbing agent.
So when the lights came on just before two, we almost headed home before detouring to IHOP. This makes the second time as an adult I've eaten there past 2am. The first time occurred at this very same IHOP the last time I was at Sammy's. Maybe it's something in the drinks. Or the air...it does have a faint odor of manure just about anywhere you go.
And that was our day; not a bad one at all. And not a single bit of it planned. I guess amazing things just tend to fall into place when you're with the right people, in the right place, wherever in the world that may be. So next time you're in the middle of nowhere...look for a Hefner. I'm sure they'll show you a good time.
To view the rest of the photos, click here: Cool Sublette Photo Gallery
