Mardi Gras in Burlington

This past weekend I headed up to Vermont for an event put on by the Burlington H3 along with Jess (the GF), Wang Chunks and SATRAC (other hashers). We left Boston at 330pm on Friday and landed in Burlington at 1030pm. Stupid snow. I don't even ski/snowboard/snowmobile/make snowmen, so what use is it to me? The only thing I do with snow is dive into banks of it on the way home from the bar after a few pints.

Anyway, we joined up with a pub crawl as soon as we arrived and headed out to Church St in downtown Burlington. The ultimate destination was Ri-Ra, an imitation Irish pub by day and cheesy bar/dance club by night. Seriously, the DJ was probably 50 years old and was clicking the right songs on his laptop, but there was no soul or vibe to the night. All the college students were wearing their tight shirts and tanktops despite the wintry temperature. These days I tend to head to dance clubs ironically and laugh at all the people taking themselves too seriously on the dancefloor.

Saturday was the Mardi Gras parade, which was another comedy of college student errors and alcohol. Thank god for the hash. It began promptly at 430pm (meant to start at 400) and we were off to run and drink to our heart's (feet's?) content. Towards the end, I took a wrong turn with a few other hashers and we managed to find a stunning view of Lake Champlain as the sun was gently setting to the West. Finally, we met up with the pack, had some food, more beer and headed to a Burlington hasher's residence to invade the hot tub.

All in all, a successful but tiring trip that included an IV drip of beer. Mmm. Luckily the ride home to Boston was uneventful and only 3.5 hours long.

Finally, here's a picture of a "down-down" at the hash...