It all started with e-mail. That darn web-page that proclaims the grandeur and great accomplishments of our beloved Thunderbird Crew. It went something like, "Hi. I don't know how this works, or if it works, or if everyone just believes that the Internet exists and its all a big hoax, but I found your web page, and you guys look kind of cool, I guess. Would you be interested in having a couple of foreign Rovers visiting you sometime?" Right away, we knew that this was an interesting proposition.
By the time the proposed weekend rolled around, the number of visitors had grown from two to four - it appeared that the legend of the Thunderbird had gained quite a following, despite the efforts of the evil 21st Hamilton to lead people to believe that it doesn't exist.
It turned out that our visitors were Megan Taylor who was from the Victoria Rover Crew, in the Wellington Bays District of New Zealand, Hanna Maki-Jouppi who came from the Tasangon Talvikit Area in Seinajoki, Finland, and Erin Lowes and Tiina Kainulainen who aren't Rovers at all, but just some friends who wanted to get away for the weekend. Hopefully we didn't scare them away from Rovering all together.
It seemed as though the girls would not be arriving until around midnight on Friday, 8 August 1997, so it would in fact be very difficult for even Lumberman to be late, but nevertheless, he pulled into Nemo (with the keys to BP) at around 12:25am with Homer, Bert, Hey You, and Boo-boo in tow. As we drove into Camp road, we met Flynno, whose van already contained our visitors, who had just arrived, and were already on their way to Tim Horton's.
After we had arrived at TH, everyone acknowledged each other, and then acknowledged the need (?) for five dozen doughnuts. Formal introductions were eventually made by all, including the visitors, which we may (or may not) refer to by their proper names.
Everyone eventually migrated back to Camp Nemo and all of our troubles were forgotten as we ate corn, graciously supplied by Bert (we let him do that because he has NLS) and not so graciously husked by Lumberman.
Later that night, Homer was loud, Flynno was smart by wearing earplugs, Hey You and Boo-boo were exceedingly loud, Lumberman wished he had earplugs, and Megan, Erin, Tiina and Hannah tried to sleep wondering if this unintelligible ear-piercing whispering was coming from some crazy native Canadian animal.
The next morning, everyone eventually woke up, and decided to look like they were alive. All except Boo-boo and Hey You, that is, who candidly got to appear in a picture taken by Lumberman.
A little later, we were all standing around blankly staring at each other for lack of anything better to do, when all of a sudden, a decision was made to go to the Beach at Port Dover, basically because we couldn't think of a reason not to, except the fact that Port Dover is no where near Camp Nemo. Oh well.
The four foreign girls were taken to Flynno's house to meet Snake while us natives got cleaned up and changed into beach garb. Eventually (around 12:30pm) we all met at the McDonald's at Ryckman's corners, and were actually joined by Z. This of course now presented us with a Rover event including a total of 7 girls and 4 guys - now how often does that happen?
The three vehicles (Z's, Lumberman's, and Flynno's) finally all reached Port Dover, after successfully getting Flynno lost in the bustling metropolis of Caledonia. Then we realized that our destination was in fact a sun-seeker's paradise on the shores of beautiful Lake Erie. (You can decide for yourself if this is sarcasm or not - I'm not sure myself.) At this point, we considered stopping in to see Bert's Grandma in case she had any freshly baked cookies, but we decided to head straight for the beach instead.
The sand was incredibly hot, but what can
you do? We finally found a spot on the beach that was big enough for the
legendary Thunderbirds plus the Erin, Tiina, Megan and Hannah, and proceeded
to set up camp, with towels, frisbees, and other paraphernalia abounding.
Flynno, Dancin' Homer and Bert quickly headed into the water to play with
Homer's frisbee. Soon, almost everyone had joined them.
Suddenly, Flynno got a call from Snake on Snake's cell phone inviting everyone to their house for a bar-b-que dinner. Everyone agreed - that would be a good plan. So when everyone was sufficiently pruned or sunburnt, we headed back to our automobiles for the long journey to Ancaster, and the Flynn residence.
Upon arrival, we found out that the house-bound Flynns (that is, all but Flynno) had conjured up quite a feast to be consumed upon our arrival. It's a good thing that Queak-buoy showed up at this point, or we might still be eating hamburgers and hot dogs.
When enough food had been digested to allow most of us mobility, we decided that the next event on the weekend's agenda would be to visit the Festival of Friends at Gage Park in beautiful downtown Hamilton. Of course, we had to drive around for hours to find a parking spot that didn't cost money, but we finally found some and then managed to meet up with each other once inside the park.
The Festival was full of wild and wonderful sites, including a booth selling trinkets made entirely from empty beer bottles, and another booth selling mugs with crazy faces on them. Of course Homer had to buy a mug, and Queiak Boy felt the need to walk around wearing a rubber elephant trunk that he bought. Fortunately, the concert eventually started. Unfortunately, the performer was Bruce Cockburn. Oh well. After we decided that none of us actually wanted to suffer through listening to Bruce Cockburn, we stumbled around the festival some more, and then decided to bounce. In one of those bouncy party things, that is. Like a big rubber room. Any ways, there is a picture. Bouncing was fun, even though the four visitors decided to abstain. I think this is where we may have freightened them. That's OK, because I don't think that the bouncy party thing could have handled any more Thunderbirds. Yes, our reputation even precedes us when it comes to big rubber, yellow, bouncy things.
Homer, Flynno and Bert took Hannah, Erin, Megan and Tiina back to Camp Nemo, but everyone else went home to sleep in their beds and prepare for another exhilarating day of fun and frolicking.
The plans for Sunday included meeting at Tool's house at 8:30am - a time when not only Lumberman and Ainsley, but in fact many could be late, and they were. To be fair, OFL was as late as he was, because he had to make an unexpected trip to Snake's house, and Rosie and Lungs were in fact the latest of all.
Once everyone got together (by around 9:30,) our convoy started for Vineland, our location of choice for Paintball. All in all, there were 16 of us playing - the largest number we had ever had out to a Rover event, which is even more impressive since we only had 15 members at the time. The only Thunderbirds missing were Wildman (he was avoiding the real world, even though he was actually at home,) Skin (I still don't know where she was,) Eric (who knows where he ever was, and is now, so it doesn't really matter. If you're reading this, Eric, write us an e-mail and tell us how you're doing.)
Well, we won't be going back to play Paintball again, since the Thunderbirds don't actually own an oil well. But it was fun since we had almost free tickets for everyone. It wasn't as messy as we thought it would be, although things did get ugly when Homer decided to make a clean break across enemy territory to get the other team's flag. "They could never hit me if I run fast!" thought Homer. Whatever. Hannah proved that her Finnish military training was worth it by making everyone else look rather foolish at times. I don't know if Tiina had the military training or not - she remained silent for the entire weekend, but also seemed to get the job done at Paintball.
When everyone's wallets were empty or credit cards exhausted thanks to the incredibly high cost of paint balls (10¢ each) we said our goodbyes to Tiina, Megan, Hannah and Erin. They thanked us for all that we did for them, and headed off to Niagara Falls for some tourist type stuff on their way back to Cleveland.
Back in Hamilton, we stopped into Taco Bell for lunch - like we hadn't spent enough money this weekend already. Eventually, everyone made it home - to keel over? No! To meet again, and return to the Festival of Friends. Sunday night's concert was much more appealing - Great Big Sea, who were awesome.
Finally, this crazy weekend was finally over. It was definitely one of the best weekends we have ever had as a Crew. Everyone was dead tired, and some of us had to go to work on Monday morning at 6:30am! OH MY.
