Ed O.'s Excursion in Enumclaw

This weekend I had the pleasure of venturing forth from my apartment/cave and into the sunlight... or at least the daylight, since there wasn't a lot of sun. In addition to getting outside, I actually took a bit of a road trip.

Hiking on Mount Rainier? Whale watching in the Puget Sound? Base jumping off of the Space Needle?

No. Even better: heading to Enumclaw, Washington... a rural oasis about an hour southeast of Seattle. Five of us (TravelMate 2000, Flowers, Ice, RaftMate and me) came down to TM2000's parents' place for a day of rural oasising.

Before I get to the main event (my favorite people from the bar we spent Saturday night in Enumclaw at), I wanted to make a few other notes:

• I grew up in the country. I have had it beaten out of me to a certain extent over the past 15 years or so, but I still remember being able to see the stars at night and I still remember being awakened by farm animals (generally by the SOUND of farm animals, of course, rather than anything more direct). This weekend was a big flashback... I heard more "moo's" from cows within a 24 hour period than I have in the past decade combined. I can't decide how much I missed the rural livin'.
• We agreed a bit over a week ago to float down the Green River. That sounded like a GREAT idea when it was nearly 100 degrees outside and nearly 1000 degrees in my apartment. It seemed like a slightly less good idea when it was overcast and on the verge of rain showers and the water was cold and RaftMate (see? She earned that nickname!) was screaming about how we were going to die (in the 14 to 31 inches of water) and instinctively putting her foot up my butt (I just had assumed it was the rocky bottom of the river...). In spite of my unique talent for falling down in the water up to my chin in the aforementioned 14 to 31 inches of water, I managed to not get too cold and not, as far as I can tell, catch a cold. Minimal blood and tears were spilled, and a good time was had.

So... after the river floating and a delicious steak bbq and an inexplicably complicated card game that TM2000 and I were making up rules for as we played (much to the chagrine of everyone else around the table) we went to a bar.

The bar's name is Yella Beak. Here's a pic of the place. It didn't look like this when we arrived (it was dark, and if you substitute a ridiculously large pickup truck for each motorcycle, then you'll get the idea):

It was an ... interesting place. TM2000 had been there a few times before and he had regaled us with tales of "Old School" Sparks (you know, before they wussied out and took out the energy components) and... well, mainly just of the Old School Sparks.

We got there and got cans of Sparks (unfortunately, of the New School Energy-Neutered variety) and walked out to the back of the place, which was outside and had an interesting setup:

The key here, of course, is the "Crossfire Zone" in the lower-right of the diagram... there were four horseshoe pits that could be used by quite inebriated and altogether unskillful individuals who were tossing chunks of metal in our general direction. I didn't get hit, but one or two horseshoes came within rolling distance of my ankles. I can't believe that no one ever gets directly hit. And, as we all know, close DOES count in horseshoes.

I felt more safe when we moved inside. It was about midnight, and there was about 90 minutes before closing. A dance floor dominated inside, and there was a smörgåsbord of interesting people. I'm somewhat used to different kinds of people, but this was a different mix than I was used to. Some highlights, with at least semi-appropriate nicknames:

Married Chick: Shortly after I came inside, I sat down in a prime people-watching location near the dance floor... about a minute after I sat down, an attractive blond woman sat next to me. She was married, so I didn't really push things with her. Oddly enough, the two or three times she tried to talk to me, I literally could not hear her over the music no matter how many times I asked her to repeat herself. The last time, when I had asked her to repeat herself a couple of times and still had no idea what the heck she was talking about, I gave her a big smile and nodded in agreement. She wasn't satisfied with that response and stopped talking to me after that.

Linedancer: The DJ was spinning three main kinds of music: classic rock, rap/dance, and country. Linedancer was, as far as I could tell, on a one-woman warpath to impose a string of linedances irrespective of music genre. Linedancing to some country song? I can see trying it. Linedancing to a second song, after the first effort was a success with the rest of the dancers? Sure... why not.

But linedancing to Def Leppard after four straight songs of linedancing with no more than one other person in the room joining you? Man. That's committment. Delicious, hilarious committment.

Mismatched Pair: Birds of a feather stick together, right? I've learned that most of time this is pretty accurate. USUALLY a hot chick is going to be hanging with other attractive women... I don't know exactly how or why this is, and it might be bad observation on my part (with me remembering >1 hot chick groups more than a group with just one hot chick), but I've found it generally to be true. Last night there was an extremely mismatched pair... one woman who was all dolled up, who was thin, and was wearing nice clothes, and her friend, who ... wasn't any of those things. Part of my drunk reflection was, "It's so great that friendship can bridge such a wide gap!", but the rest of me was more like, "WTF is happening to the natural order of things here in Enumclaw?"

Asian Duo: Say what you want about Enumclaw, but it is a very WHITE community. Not that Seattle is the most multi-cultural and robustly enthnically varied metropolitan area in the country, but we DO have a couple of non-white people in most of our bars. Of course, so does Enumclaw. And I saw them both. A pair of pretty attractive Asian chicks who looked like they were dressed for Amber in Belltown rather than Yella Beak in Enumclaw. They actually were one of the visual highlights of the evening (of course, when Shaun Alexander is one of the prime alternatives, that might be damning with faint praise) on the dance floor until they were interrupted by...

Affliction Guy: I'm on record as to not liking certain styles of clothing and headwear... not a fan of the backwards baseball cap or the monochrome shirts with a massive single assymetrical design on them. I think that I've figured out that it's a skateboarding/extreme sports-influenced sensibility I just do not dig. I've further determined that I am not at all impressed by MMA (mixed martial arts)-inspired clothing. Affliction is one brand that I associate with this fashion style. Not a fan... and I get some delicious schadenfreude when guys dressed in such a manner get shot down. So I loved Affliction Guy even as I was exasperated by his fashion choice. Affliction Guy was wearing a REALLY tight white t-shirt with art of a big angel/demon/whatever all over the front and back of it. He also was on the prowl on the dance floor, approaching several groups of women over the course of the hour or so I watched him off and on. I'm no expert on how to approch girls on the dance floor (/understatement) but this guy made me look like a fucking genious at it. His strategy appeared to be:

1. Approach group of girls.
2. Grind on hottest chick from the group.
3. After hottest chick retreats, grind on second-hottest chick.
4. After that chick retreats, grind on any remaining chicks in the group until they retreat, too.

It would have been funny if it wasn't so sad... girls having fun and doing their thing, driven off the dance floor by Affliction Guy, who was either entirely oblivious or actively misogynistic. Actually, it was pretty sad but it was still funny. He had a sort of unsuccessful dancing distant cousin in the next guy.

Shaun Alexander: No, not the former Seahawks runningback. Instead, a pudgy white guy with a bad haircut, bad glasses, and an ill-fitting #37 alternate home Seahawks jersey. He was there all night and floated from group of girls to group of girls both at the various bars and then on the dance floor. I didn't see how his night ended, but I was shocked at how sweaty his hair was when he left the dance floor. He barely seemed to be moving out there, let alone working that hard. I guess he just made it look easy.

Unrealistic Man: I appreciate that people with supportive parents tell them they can do anything. A kid not being limited by her or his parents gives them a lot of confidence and gives them a chance to be more successful than if they were put down by their family at an early age. I also can appreciate when a guy is willing to approach women that might be a bit out of his league... sometimes it might work, and then it would be worth all of the times he was shot down.

With that being said? Sometimes people need a reality check. Unrealistic Man was heavy and heavily balding and dressed poorly and seemingly exceedingly shortsighted (based on the glasses he was squinting through)... but he seemingly had no sense of reality.

After Married Chick stopped talking to me, I guess Unrealistic Man saw an opening. She was still sitting next to me, but our body language was not good and there was an opening for a guy to approach. A guy who doesn't mind hitting on married women, I guess, and a guy who presumably is at least within shouting distance of being as attractive as she was. Unrealistic Man might have been the former, but definitely was not the latter... but he wasn't about to let that stop him. He sidled up to her stool and talked to her. I had to stifle my natural face-palming instincts as she politely blew him off (or appeared to; I couldn't understand or hear a word she was saying to him)... I had no idea what he was thinking.

I might have chalked it to an outlier in his expectations or behavior, but about 20 minutes later he approached Mismatched Pair... and talked to the hot one. Bad, bad move. She blew him off in about 1.2 seconds and he fled from the dancefloor, not to return that night.

Eventually the alcohol kicked in and I danced a bit to DJ comments like, "We're gonna be partying all night!" and "Keep rocking until the sun come up!" and "The party never stops at the Yella Beak!".

By the time the club turned off the music at 1:30 AM, I wondered if people were prone to hyperbole in Enumclaw or just if the sun came up earlier there.