Friends on a Buffalo

Guest Writer: Daron Hoft


So I wanted to use Louise's blog to let everyone know about my trip to Illinois a couple weekends ago. He was hesitant at first as he did not want me to drag down the quality on his blog, but after some haggling he finally gave me the green light. You may wonder what the price was for such a lofty honor so let me tell you: 100 ear scratches, 15 tuna flavored treat, 1 can of real tuna, and 25 chest naps. It's a small price to pay I guess.


There are pictures below and I apologize for the quality. I forgot to take the camera so the only pictures I have were taken on my phone, and I don't have one of those smarty phones that are all the rage these days so the quality is pretty poor.


So I decided to take a trip back to my hometown of Decatur, IL to see some of my best buds from when I lived there. Some I haven't had a chance to see since Jess and I got married, so it was a long time coming. I took off Friday morning at 6:00 am hoping to arrive at around 5:00 pm. I ended up arriving at 5:15 pm, so I would say I did pretty well. The trip down was probably the most depressing drive of my life. I think I saw the sun for a total of 15 minutes, if that. It was raining off and on the entire trip and was gloomy and cloudy the entire trip. When I was leaving Kentucky and entering Indiana, the weather was the worst. It was raining so hard I could barely see 10 feet in front of me. I later found out that some tornado's did a lot of damage on my route. I was a couple hours ahead of them, so thankfully I arrived safely. I knew the weather was bad, but I was oblivious as to how bad until I arrived and saw some of the damage on the news.

Lunch on the drive.

After arriving on Friday, we just hung out and had some pizza and got caught up. I stayed at Clint and Robin's house. Some of you may have heard me mention our 'Monday Night Club'. We use to get together at their house every Monday and watch 24 and Prison Break. We had many great times. Some nights we would even dress up for the night (crazy hair and workout night both jump to mind). Paul, Justin, and Catie also came by. It was so nice catching up with them. Sadly, I only got to see Robin on Friday as she flew out of town Saturday morning for a business trip. After catching up some, the boys decided to play some video games in Clint's man room. The game of choice was some classic NFL Blitz. 

Man Room TV

Man Room Theater Seating

Saturday I saw my first 3D movie. Clint, Paul, Justin, and I went to see The Lorax with Clint and Robin's kids. They have a boy who is 4 named Phoenix and a girl named Jeri who is 6. They are good kids who can be quite entertaining at times. After the movie, Clint dropped the kids off at their grandma's house for a sleepover. We then went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner then back to the house to play games and eat junk food. We spent more time in the man room and played Bomberman and NFL Blitz and some NBA Jam. Fun times were had.

Sunday morning Clint made some bacon and eggs and we just chatted it up for a few hours. We pretty much talked about a lot of somewhat serious stuff. Pretty much Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. It was a good chat. We didn't make it to church, but our talk was practically a Bible Study. Later in the afternoon Paul and Catie came over. More chatting and joking was had. Catie then took off and Clint, Paul, and I just lounged a bit. We watched about 30 minutes of what might be the Best/Worst movie ever called RoboGeisha. It was as Bad/Awesome and you might expect.

Monday morning I headed back to South Carolina. The trip home was much better due to the fact that the weather was perfect. I did however have to scrape ice/snow off my windows because it did snow Sunday night. It might be the only snow I see all year.


It was good to get home to my beautiful and amazing wife. I missed her. It was good to sleep in my own bed, even though the couch I slept on at Clint's was pretty darn comfortable. Jess had some balloons and Reese's Eggs waiting for me which you might have seen on one of Louise's other posts. I really miss my Illinois friends. It was so great to see them. It's amazing when you can go close to two years without seeing certain people and you pick up right where you left off. It's like I was never gone. When is someone going to invent a teleportation device so trips like this can be made any weekend we feel like it?




Below are going to be some random observations and whatnot from the trip.


1. Catie has a neighbor that is an old retired guy who likes to tell her the worst jokes on the planet. The biggest joke of all is his name is Jack D. Bone. I kid you not. The 14 year old in all of us thinks that is beyond hilarious. Many jokes were made at poor Jack's expense over the weekend.


2. Below is a picture of Phoenix and Jeri in a pose that is eerily similar to one of Wes and I when we were kids.

3. This video is the first in a 4 part series. I have only seen #1, but it was amazing none-the-less.

In closing, I would like to thank Louise for giving me this forum to talk about my trip. Thinking back on my trip, it probably sounds like an incredibly boring trip but it was really amazing. I love those guys so much and miss them like mad sometimes. It was so good to catch up and just see their faces.