On the Road Again, Making Memories With Our Phriends
With great anticipation to see many old friends and meet some new ones, on March 25, Sandie and I headed north to the Twin Cities for another “This Hotel Room” phlocking at St MinneSomePlace. Also, making the trip from the Isle of Iowa were Doug & Deb Rassler, Randy Havlik Mike, Paula and Sam Sion, Teresa Becker, Lori Sexton and Jim Roman.
The original location of the phlocking was the Ramada Inn, but a storm hit the hotel and the roof was damaged. The St. MinneSomePlace group scrambled and changed the location to the Northland Inn. What a great job they did to pull off this switch within a couple of weeks of the event!
The party started out Friday night with great entertainment from Jambo and Amy (Mustache & Miniskirt), Jim Hoehn, Matt Wahl and Dave Herzog in the local hotel bar. Jerry Gontang from Stars on the Water and our own Doug Rassler joined them on stage. The bar was packed and rock’n all night. The bar however under-estimated the drinking capabilities of Parrotheads! They ran out of LandShark in the first hour, ran out of Captain Morgan and by the end of the night you were drinking whatever beer was available!
Saturday night was a fantastic party! Jerry Gontang and Stars on the Water were outstanding and we danced the night away. They had a bunch of silent auction items and the live auctions were great. One of the items was a beautiful hand-painted Adirondack chair.
We made it around to some old friend’s hotel rooms which have been a tradition of the Phlocking. The first room was Bernie’s. Bernie is known for his famous “Berndog’s Parrot Piss” which is served out of a gas can. Yes it is HIGH OCTANE and tastes like gas! I believe there may be some moonshine in that one! After that you have to try a maraschino cherry. These cherries have been soaked in Everclear for 6 months. Wozza, feeling no pain after a few of them good old cherries!
We finished the night in the hotel room of good friends Mike and Pauline Grogan. They are always serving great drinks (one big ass Margarita blender) and great food. Pauline made a big pot of jumbo that hit the spot after a night of drinking. Earlier in the evening Mike was serving “Slurricanes”. This is a fantastic little blue shot with a hell of a kick! The drink creates some great memories or lack of…thus prompting Jambo to write a song about it. As Jambo says, “It’s as harmless as a live hand grenade”. Check out the song at https://www.jamboacousticmusic.com/presskit.html
The weekend is capped off Sunday morning in Dave Carlton’s hospitality room with our ‘northern phriends’ that we have grown to treasure. Dave always has a fantastic Bloody Mary bar with all the fix’ns! The Bloody Mary time allows us to reflect on the weekend, spend the last few minutes with good friends, sharing fond memories and making plans for the next get together. Hugs and farewells send us back to Iowa.
Thanks again to all our great northern Parrothead friends for another awesome “This Hotel Room Phlocking”. Sandie and I want to encourage our Isle of Iowa Phriends to make the journey next year.
Check out some photos at: https://www.st-minnesomeplace.com/THR__2011.html#Pool (It’s a slide show about have the way down).