Meat Retreat

This last weekend I had the opportunity to participate in something truly unique: Meat Retreat. This is an event put on by our church where a bunch of high school boys go on a camping trip and eat pretty much nothing but meat all weekend. It was a ton of fun, and also tested my insides. We camped at Tumalo State Park in Bend, OR. Here's what we did:

Highlights

• I started off the trip enjoying a root beer float from A&W.
• Friday night was horrible. By 2am I was so cold I couldn't go back to sleep. My toes were frozen and all I could do was toss and turn while I waited the night out. When I got up, I found I wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep (almost everyone froze).
• Brauts for breakfast.
• Frisbee golf at Sister's High School in the morning (another group went mountain bike riding. It sounded like they had fun too).
• Turkey cold cuts for lunch.
• An epic softball game in the afternoon. Imagine getting up to bat and seeing 18 people sprinkled across the field. Surprisingly, the final score was 18-12 despite the plethora of people. I also managed to slip and fall while trying to stop at second and tore up my left knee.
• Played the weirdest game of Texas Hold em Poker ever. One person's strategy was to keep his chip stacks even. It made for massive bets before any cards were laid out.
• A Bacon Explosion for dinner (more later).
• Went to Safeway to buy ice cream (I got Ben & Jerry's S'mores). Sat in the eating area and watched Chopped. It must have looked weird to see 40 guys glued to a small TV watching a cooking show.
• I put Little Hotties in my socks to keep my feet warm the second and it did the trick.
• On Sunday, more Brauts for breakfast.
• Went on a hike up Smith Rock (more later).
• Had our final meal at Panda Express (their Lemon Chicken is great).

Bacon Explosion
Right before the Meat Retreat, I was shown a site that detailed how to make a Bacon Explosion. It really is over the top, but given that this was a Meat Retreat, I made it. I'll let the pictures and video tell the story of this one.

Smith Rock

On Sunday we went for a hike up Smith Rock. As the picture on the left shows, it has some pretty steep edges. You can't see it, but there are rock climbers all over the place. There's also a trail off to the left that we hiked up. It took about a half hour to get to the top. The day was absolutely beautiful. Below are some more pictures and a short video showing the view from on top. It would be fun to hike up to the top again and have a picnic lunch.