I traveled again this past weekend, throwing me all out of sorts for the upcoming week.  Had to be done though.  This time my wandering ways took me to the vast unexplored wilderness known as the “Northlands,” to visit the Martin family.  I took Friday off work in preparation for the drive.  After lunch with the wife in the River Market area, I took a quick nap, packed my bags and then headed the Honda up the highway.  The Interstate was pretty clear, and I was able to complete the arduous journey in just under 30 minutes.  Exhausted from the drive, I spent the rest of the evening on Martin’s back deck, watching the late Royal’s game and winding down.

Martin & I got up at the unholy hour of 4:00 on Saturday to start a large BBQ undertaking.  One of us had the brilliant idea to cook the meat for a party of 300 people next weekend, so we figured we’d pre-cook it all to (hopefully) make things a little easier.  We got off to a rather rough start, despite doing quite a bit of prep-work the night before.  It was cold & windy so the smoker gave us a little grief, and perhaps we just weren’t quite on top of our game in the pre-dawn hours.  We were up and running by 6:00 though, and after that things smoothed out a little.  When the sun came up and things warmed up a bit, it actually turned out to be a nice day.  We spent the entire day feeding the fire, tending the meat, all the things that make ‘queing somewhat relaxing and almost enjoyable.  Several people stopped by to check the progress;  At one point it was darn near a party.  Luckily Brice showed up to help with the actual psuedo-work portion of the day, so by sometime in the early evening we were able to get everything done and sit back for another Royal’s game on the deck.

I stayed Saturday night at the Chateau de Martin again, then got up early Sunday for the drive back home.  Once again the traffic was relatively light (as it usually is at 5:00 in the morning) and I managed the journey without incident.  I was able to complete the trip with barely enough time to spare for our 10:15 reservations at Grand Street Cafe.  We went there with John & Susan for a little Mother’s Day celebration.  No, Donette is not my mother to be technical about it, but the buffet was good at any rate.  I think I may have eaten my weight in smoked salmon.  The downside was that much food at that time of morning kind of ended my whole day.  I went back home, hit the couch, and never moved again.  At one point I tried to get motivated to mow the yard, but when I glanced outside it looked like it was either raining or getting ready to rain, so I stayed where I was.