So this weekend I headed up to Hunter for Oktoberfest. This was the second weekend in a row they’ve held one, but Saturday was the best day for me to meet some friends there. They were coming in from Boston and I haven’t seen them in a long time. The drive up was about 2 hours give or take with the traffic. Hunter always has big festivals (Irish Fest, Beer and Wine Fest) and they had a lot of vendors (inside and out). The main beer tent was outside and had a few good Oktoberfest selections (Spaten, Dunkel etc.) and then some standards (Bud and Bud Light). It was more of a chill in the air then I expected so we limited our time outside except to hit up the vendors and food stands (sausage and peppers mmm). The inside bar was stocked and the lodge was crowded, but not so bad you couldn’t move around. One of my friends bought a glass boot to drink out of and many others had large mugs/steins. I stuck with a trusty plastic cup 
Lucky for me Hunter also had a Swap and Sell going on downstairs as well as some great sales in their gear stores. I was looking around, not really seeing much and hanging out with friends until I spotted a box. It was a box for Rome Madisons, from last season. I moved swiftly, beer in hand to discover it was empty. Lucky for me I could still read at that point and quickly spotted the bindings mounted on a Rome Lo-Fi hanging from the ceiling. I dragged and employee to the window and said I want them. He then tried to sell me the whole combo, but I already bought one board and the park board is not in my budget yet (and it probably wouldn’t be the Lo-Fi either). I did however get the bindings and a free hat for $105, so I thought I did alright. I’m very new to this negotiating thing.
I kinda got a look from my friends when they found me at the counter buying stuff already. The “we’ve been in the store 5 minutes and you’re already dropping money on snowboard gear you crazy b*tch” look. It wasn’t a completely impulsive buy as those who have been here before know I’ve wanted them for a while. The impulsive thing would have been to buy the Lo-Fi too.
Aside from that, the rest of the day went pretty well considering when I got there friends of friends stuttered their name and almost fell over when being introduced (which is always a good sign). We left Hunter around 5:30p to head on a quick beer run and back to a friends’ cabin and their friends’ cabin. There was all around good times had with beer, food and a night in the hot tub.
The only mishap from the whole weekend is the camera situation. Now I intended on bringing my nice Nikon DSLR, but I of course forgot to head home to grab it. Said other people brought some hand held point and shoots but either forgot the memory cards or the memory card adapters. So they were at least better off than me. My two friends specifically rushed to buy a new camera (after the previous one was stolen) for this weekend and forgot to take the memory card out of the package. All in all, I think we had about 10-15 pictures between us. Maybe I can get my hands on some.