The mark of a good party...

The mark of a good party...

The mark of a good party is that you wake up the next morning wanting to
change your name and start again life in a different city.

It would seem that the Royal Air Force 4 way team decided to get a head
start on that by going to the far side of the planet to go to the party. The
first time I laid eyes on them yesterday they were dancing in a chorus line
on a picnic table in the bar at Skydive Elsinore. They were well muscled,
heavily tattooed, wearing thong bikini's and tiara's. The Swedish freefly
team was wearing women's summer dresses, and some other country's national
team was wearing pajamas. Women's pajamas of course.

We had stopped in at Elsinore on our way back from the coast on our day off
after spending the day walking the beach and watching Johnny and some
porpoises frolic in the freezing cold water. The drive alone made the whole
trip worthwhile. We circled around Lake Elsinore and climbed into the
mountains on highway 74, a piece of road that rivaled anything I've driven
in the Gatineau or even Tennessee. The straight stretches were measured in
double digits of yards, the road clinging to side of the mountain with
constant corners and elevation changes. I was actually starting to get
motion sickness in the first couple of miles.

When we finally came out the far side and turned onto the Pacific Coast
Highway the view was spectacular. We cruised the highway, found a beach and
chilled out for a while before catching the ferry to Balboa island for
dinner.

It was around 9 o'clock that we pulled into Skydive Elsinore on our way
home. We'd been old when we were at Perris earlier in the day that there
would be a party that night, and that the theme was "blue". What that meant
wasn't explained. We walked into the bar in Elsinore to a scene of
debauchery that equaled anything I've ever seen at the Freefall Convention,
and would have made Hunter Thompson proud. People were dressed as blue
stuffed animals, Smurffs, blue Crayola crayons, blue M&M's, the Blues
Brothers, Umpaloompas and Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Dr. Zuess, a giant penis
with enormous blue balls, and they were the conservative ones. There was
lots of underwear, lingerie, and hooker shoes, usually worn by the opposite
gender than the one you would traditionally see it on, and the DZ owner was
dressed as a young Elvis with a blue boa and an enormous mug in the shape of
a woman's breast. Everybody was dancing, jumping, leaping, singing, yelling,
screaming, and laughing. Boys will be boys, so will a lot of middle aged
men, and they were all wearing blue women's clothing as they danced and
gyrated to loud rock and roll in the bar at Skydive Elsinore.

It was only 9 o'clock! These people were trashed!

I felt right at home.

For $5 we bought wristbands that gave us unlimited refills on draught beer
at the bar and away we went. They were already into the 4th keg when we got
there and there was no sign of them slowing down. The ceiling of the bar was
decorated with old surfboards, highway signs, aircraft wreckage, and
hundreds and hundreds of liquor bottles. Diane wound up talking to the
owners girlfriend who was trying to convince us to bring our whole camp down
to Elsinore to join the party. After she spent some time babbling about the
Queen and skydiving Diane set about convincing her that the Queen was
actually a base jumper and wouldn't come to this kind of event. I think she
bought it. It was just that kind of party.

It's really too bad we were scheduled to jump the next morning, none of us
wanted to leave. Judging by the momentum that party had going it was
probably still going strong the next morning while we were standing out in a
field shivering during our dirt dive. They kicked us loose around 12:30
because of low ceilings and expected showers. We went straight to the
parking lot and started in on the case of beer I had thrown into the back of
the truck. Which inevitably led to...... yup, you guessed it, more drunk
shopping at Winco.

Everybody has been invited to a bar-b-q at a house being rented by a bunch
of the people on the camp. It will probably run late since we don't have to
be at the DZ until 10:00 tomorrow.

This place sucks. I'm never coming back. I'm having no fun at all.