Bad Boys Bachelor Broadly in Boone

    Boone’s a pretty big city by Appalachia standards. We didn’t actually stay in the city of course, I’m not sure who’s visiting the Blue Ridge Mountains to sleep in the valley because I’m not friends with those kinds of people, but we drove through it several times. It was nice, charming as far as any city with 20k permanent residents can be. We stayed on a mountain about 15 minutes outside the city center, still technically Boone but far enough to at least pretend we’d gotten away from it all. If you’ve never been to the Appalachian mountains it might be useful to disillusion you of some preconceptions the word mountain may have brought up. These aren’t the Rockies with their towering, snow capped peaks and severe beauty. From our cabin, ostensibly near the “summit” of our particular prominence, we could see for tens of miles out over rolling hills and valleys that more often than not would fill with lazily rolling fog banks. It is a quieter, more ethereal kind of natural splendor. We were thirteen men out to celebrate a bachelor party, fourteen if you include Bob the handless skeleton, and generally I do. The following is my accounting of the trip to the best of my particularly inconsiderable memory. It is fair to preface this with the caveat that I both slept poorly (more on that later) and drank heavily, so the likelihood that I take artistic liberty in the telling is high. 

Day 1 - Thursday

    Should I start with Wednesday? Maybe. Some of the boys arrived that night and did spend the evening at my house, on my couch or in my bed, which sounds more salacious than it was. Conveniently they arrived at the same airport I dropped my wife off at only hours earlier, managing to arrive in two groups just far enough apart for me to grab the first one, drive home, lose one very embarrassing round of Call of Duty, and drive back. This sounds like complaining. I’m not complaining. At this point the excitement for the weekend was more than sufficient to sustain a few round trips. Long story short we went to bed. Can’t party on no sleep! (he told himself in some kind of opposite premonition. Premonopetion? There is probably a German word for this.)

    Thursday morning we hit the road. It is three hours from Brier Creek to The Speckled Trout, our lunch destination, and honestly that may be the perfect road trip length. Four hours is still pretty doable, but five or more and at least personally I am spending those last couple hours wondering if I wouldn’t just be happier checking out the sites “Exit 279” has to offer. It’s a lovely drive. Just about any drive in North Carolina is. I moved here over five years ago from Illinois and a part of me still feels like I’m on vacation when I see the endless sea of trees lining the highways. It is especially breathtaking when you make it into the mountains. If you’ve never had opportunity to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway I can’t recommend it enough. Narrow, winding roads cut through temperate forests that suddenly give way to pull-offs overlooking the verdant valleys below. We stopped at one of these to stare stoically into the distance for about three minutes before hunger won out over self-actualization on our hierarchy of needs. 

It was real pretty though.

    Lunch was in Blowing Rock. The town is built on the side of its namesake mountain and I would describe it as picturesque, adorable, and probably awesome for white people to live in. This sounds like a dig, it mostly isn’t, lunch was really good and I’d love to come back to the town again. Speaking of food, if you do make your way to The Speckled Trout (and you should absolutely do this), get the reuben. I got the Trout po’ boy, split with my brother (the man of the hour) for half his wagyu burger, and took a single bite of another guy’s reuben. Our food was top tier and that single bite was still the standout. 

Pictured: Budget McConaughey and the “bachelor”

    Thoroughly sated, it was off to stock up on food for the weekend. You know how they say “never shop hungry”? I would like to amend that with “never shop for a party weekend after a couple cocktails”. I should maybe workshop that a bit. At any rate I got a bit of food. 

I took those Zing Zangs home five days later.

    Thursday night went about as you’d expect the first night of a bachelor party to go. Being a group of 30 somethings with a long weekend of fun ahead and a big planned event the next day we responsibly all drank like we were 20 years old at our first frat party. I am an adult. I know better than to mix beer and different liquors. And yet. It is important to note at this point that while large enough to contain both a movie theater room and a full arcade, our cabin for the weekend did Not have enough beds or rooms to sleep 13 men individually. 

    The plan was that the master would go to our “bachelor” (his wedding having happened months prior and cooler heads deciding a pandemic bachelor party might be less fun than you’d expect), this is totally fair and reasonable. I then personally thought to myself “I am the best man, I have organized this whole party, certainly I will have my own bed, my own room!”, which theoretically was also reasonable. Out of a great abundance of magnanimity and in no way due to a severe conflict aversion I ended up briefly sharing a room with one of the other guests. And by briefly I mean I was awake until 5am trying to sleep through the chainsaw fight happening in his nasal cavity before I gave up and moved accommodations. I will not name names, mostly because he knows who he is and so does everyone else who was at the party and that is more than enough schadenfreude for me. To make a long story short I slept in a child’s bed. Which, to be clear, is a bed that was made for children rather than a bed that was in any way occupied by a child. I would sleep there the whole trip. 

It’s the one on the right, the super dope clubhouse was occupied…

Day 2 - Friday

    According to the itinerary that I definitely didn’t spend hours writing only for people to give it the most cursory of glances, Friday morning was the day that I would make a hungover man sized brunch to help us fight the previous night’s mistakes. I was way too hungover for this, so instead people got to fend for themselves. Look, I cooked a lot that weekend, I don’t have to feel guilty here. At any rate, we all scraped ourselves off the floor and made our way to the first planned event of the weekend, floating and drinking our way across a few miles of the New River. 

    As might be expected it was a beautiful drive to the cast off point. Before we got there we did have to make a quick stop for river foods. It is possible that we bought expensive lunch meat then completely forgot to put said lunch meat in the fridge. We also got a couple pairs of the finest dollar store sandals for the trip. Mine were pink!

    The actual float was a great time. If you’ve never done a river float before, basically you show up in the middle of nowhere and some folks with dubious qualifications take your money, give you a tube float for you and your cooler, and tell you they will grab you in a couple hours once you’ve floated far enough downriver. This should be disconcerting but basically you are spending two to three hours drinking on a lazy river, so no one really questions it. There was a SUPER sketch point where we were made to float under a bridge that was essentially crumbling into the river, but otherwise a very fun experience.

This feels safe.

    After a few hours drinking on the river the smart thing would have been to just relax and build the energy back up. Fortunately this was a bachelor party so doing the smart thing was pretty far down the list of priorities. Instead, it was time to gamble! 12 of us set up at a couple tables for some very low stakes but high time investment poker. If you’ve seen the world series of poker you can just kind of assume it was nothing like that. Mostly we got drunk and overly competitive. I am happy to report that I tied for first after using all of my cunning to get my competitor to get bored and ask if I wanted to just split the final pot. 

Moments before everyone put on sunglasses and took this seriously. 

Day 3 - Saturday

    Another night, another weird sleep in a bunk bed made for toddlers. It wasn’t so bad, at this point I had more or less figured out the right way to contort myself to be vaguely comfortable. Saturday I finally built up the resolve to make brunch! I don’t know if you’ve ever cooked for a big group before, but people can really pack away the food. Especially dudes. Especially dudes who have been drinking for three straight days. Luckily I had come prepared (see earlier picture of full cart). It only took two hours to slice, parboil, and double fry 9lbs of skinny fries, bake 4lbs of bacon, and scramble 30 eggs into Denver omelets. Ultimately very worth the effort, we were well sated. 

Oh hey arteries, how YOU doin?

    Post-brunch saw an awful lot of competition in various forms. Also naps. Half the crew set up in a living room to watch F1 racing. The other half set up with Mario Kart Racing. Takes all kinds. Afterwards it was an awful lot of hanging in the arcade, snacking, and drinking before we all went out for dinner. Did I mention this place had an arcade? 

Not kidding. 

    At some point I started talking to Zach, the man of the hour, about travel plans for the steakhouse I had meticulously researched and booked for the evening. This is about the time he let me know he’d probably be getting seafood at the steakhouse and we pulled an audible for Sushi. I don’t think anyone was upset about these plans. We showed up at Moon Thai Sushi in Boone with a group of 13 dudes decked out in Bachelorette sashes. The hostess put on a very brave face and casually mentioned they were understaffed. The place appeared packed. Zach was about ready to pull a double audible (which I am fairly sure is not a legal move) when the manager asked us to wait a minute. Not ten minutes later we were all seated. I don’t know what kind of witchcraft/drugs are being used at Moon Thai, but they had drinks and food out for our party faster than most places I’ve gone to with previous reservations, and the food was fantastic. Another A+ recommendation. 

So Basic. 

    Saturday night was all about that Super Smash Bros. For me at least. I have to be honest I lost track of the bachelor at this point. I think he came down to watch eventually? They might have been playing beer pong upstairs. All I know is when he DID make it downstairs he made us run a tournament where everyone played Steve and I never want to do that again. 

STEVEEEEEEEE.

Day 4 - Sunday

    Someone made eggs Sunday Morning. I think it was Brian. The days grow blurrier in my recollection at this point but I am fairly certain there was food available. I woke up to overcast skies and a valley full of clouds, genuinely pretty breathtaking. My job plan for the day was simple. I needed to take a break from drinking, smoke a bunch of meats, and enjoy the final full day in Boone. So obviously I immediately cracked a hard seltzer. Ain’t no laws Am I Right. 

    First off, I think it is really important to mention that the description for this cabin specifically mentioned having “all the spices and kitchen essentials you would expect”. I have to imagine they left out “if you are a person who does not regularly cook”. Maybe VRBO posts charge per word? To say I was a bit disappointed in the spice cabinet would be to understate a bit. Alas, its a poor chef who blames his tools. A bit of Dijon mustard, brisket seasoning, msg, and pepper flake later and we were in some semblance of business. After realizing the 9lb pork butts would likely never actually finish, cutting them in half, and saying a few Hail Mary’s it was on to the smoker. Couple of false starts getting it to temp but eventually we were in business. 

But seriously, look at them.

    After a few more unplanned drinks it began to rain. This felt like the right time to get in the hot tub, and boy were we right. If you ever get the chance to sit in a hot tub overlooking a rainy mountain valley I really can’t overstate how enjoyable it is. The only drawback being the deck above us (yes, two decks, this place rocked) concentrating the rainfall in to little Chinese water torture streams. Certain spots in the hot tub were a bit nicer than others, at least until someone got the idea to move all the patio furniture into a makeshift canopy on the upper deck. 

Our hero returns triumphant. 

    The afternoon passed in a blur of games, “one more cocktails”, constant checking of the grill temp, and somehow not getting on each other's nerves after several full days in close proximity. All in all an incredibly enjoyable day. Dinner was smoked pork butt sandwiches with home made “bbq sauce” (I didn’t have a lot of stuff to work with, more of a frankensauce than anything else), smoked asparagus, and truffle mac. When I say truffle mac it sounds pretty fancy, and it both was and wasn’t in almost equal measure. The boys, in all of their wisdom, went to the store and bought both fancy cheeses and five boxes of Kraft. I was able to convince them to ditch the cheese powder, make a roux, and add a bit of interesting spice like truffle powder. The base was 100% premium Kraft noodle though. Honestly it was super good, I’m just a fancy bitch. 

Not Pictured: A disappointing meal. 

    The drinking tapered off pretty hard after dinner, Monday the magic had to end and we would all be driving back home. A few final tournaments were run on the Smash fields, we somehow had the presence of mind to pre-clean the house and not save it for the morning, and I would go on to have some of the worst food poisoning I’ve had since I ate Chinese at the tail end of having Covid. I think I finally drifted off into a delirious semi-sleep around 7:30 the next morning. I got a real good couple of hours and when I woke up the house was, mostly, empty. You know that scene in 28 Days Later when Cillian Murphy wakes up in the hospital bed dehydrated to find a completely empty city around him? It was a lot like that. It was just me and the people in my car left (and Kyle, because he’s a real good dude), the rest of my stalwart companions having immediately abandoned me to my fate. I’m not bitter. I did rally enough to make the three hour drive home without killing us.

    Over-dramatics aside, it was a trip I will likely never forget, inauspicious ending and all. For the vast majority, it was an absolute blast. It’s hard not to reflect on how lucky I am to share such a good group of friends with my brother, people I plan to eventually play Smash with at the retirement community. Zach deserved a good weekend, I think he had a good time, and I genuinely hope no one ever asks me to be their best man again. That was a lot of work.