johnvano.com: What Happens on Man Trip...

...doesn't always stay on Man Trip. This is the diary of "Man Trip: The Southern Brothers."

Last weekend, twitter brothers Double3 and Protagonist joined me, johnvano, for a weekend in Rome--on the back acreage of Berry College. Here are some scenes from our story.

During a contentious game of RISK (1959 edition), Double3 raised the stakes by reaching in our cabin's refrigerator for a nasty basket of rock-like blueberry pebbles. Slapping three of them on the board, he announced that the first to be removed from the game, must eat the berries without aid of water. As double3's men were thinned, I called the gentleman on the left to be our sentry, ensuring that Double3 downed the poison when his fighting men were defeated.

In typical Protagonist fashion, P forgot he coached an undefeated soccer team each Saturday morning--this left Double3 and I alone for the first 25 hours. This gave us the opportunity to talk about the deeper issues of life, faith, and family without the zany antics of Protagonist to trip us up. And true to form, Protagonist would later be found skivvy-dipping in the collegiate lake.

The first day I introduced Double3 to the wonders of RedBox--and he became a disciple just like me (we saw the wonderful film, No Country for Old Men). The shot on the right is from the top of a Rome cemetery, where D3 couldn't stop obsessing about the work the caretaker must endure to mow the lawns (we dubbed the lawnmower man "Warren"). When D3 and I arrived back at the cabin on the first night, he discovered he had lost the key. We tried windows and attempted to pick locks, before I found a loose screen and a unlocked window, and I squirted through quickly, falling through the blinds and into the cabin, stretching for the bed as I dropped hard to the floor.

Protagonist arrived just in time to bear witness to my strange, cucumber-boat salmon salad (I didn't know I was ordering off the dieter's menu) and to join us for the best gelato I've ever had (when in Rome...). The deer on the Berry campus are abundant, running in herds, shrinking under fences like lamb, and jaunting 10 feet past the cabin, lowing with the sounds of a school girl. There was no substance to them, not like the deer you hit with your car... I was certain I could take one if they charged me and wrestle it to the ground.

We played SETTLERS OF CATAN, an amazing new game--I was deemed the teacher and reader of the rules because Protagonist didn't want to be taught by Double3 and Double3 wanted someone to read who had focus. But I couldn't make sense of the thing, not until Double3 picked up the instructions and I found the summary on the back cover! The game turned out to be a thrill, with Protagonist winning twice, and me picking up the other win (though under protest from Double3)--I also came in second for games 1 and 3.

The weekend ended with the heavier men of the group nearly dying in the woods. We took a short hike, and with my digital camera, decided with the storytellers and television experience we had, we should make a spontaneous short film. After taping several dull scenes of D3 and P sauntering, I gave up and gave the camera to Protagonist--then I spiced things up by slapping Double3 in the back of the head and running. P taped us chasing each other through the woods. I went near-full speed then climbed a peak and nearly needed a respirator to recover. Protagonist thought it a lovely day to skivvy-dip, so he announced within earshot of a woman and her dog what he was about to do, waited for their departure, and swam. He turned and came back when the temperature of the water nearly took him under.

The term ManTrip is used by permission of VanoCarp Industries. VanoCarp, the founders and purveyors of ManTrip encourage you to take a ManTrip, too.