A little Back History of how we all met Armadillo.

 

It was a cold November night of playing COD4 just after Endless Shadow was born when I, DrunkPenguin was playing in our new Nuclear Fallout Public Server. I was shooting it up having a good time when a person entered the server named “Armadillo”. I was in a clan long ago called CpW. Crosshair, Pumpz and WildCard and there was an Armadillo there so I thought it was him. I enthusiastically asked if it was him, I was very excited to possibly be with one of my old critter buddies. When I asked him if it was him he said “No, but if you would like we can try this conversation again ?” He said this because he felt as if he let me down when he said “No”. So we did it all over again and he responded “Yea buddy! How you been?” Every since that day, he came in vent, recruited for the clan and the rest of the story …..is yet to come

 

After Dillo and I bonded we decided to take our relationship to the next level. Yea that’s right….we needed to meet in person. He being from Ohio (we wont get into that much right now and just don’t even ask him about Blue and Maze colors <--more on that later) and me being a Texas boy did make things a little difficult. The distance between us seemed like worlds apart but we were determined to spend quality critter time. (<--it was a stretch but we thought we could overcome our vast differences seeing as how we were both critters and all.) So he grabbed a plane ticket and I prepared for his arrival.

 

Now picture this (<-- Your getting a picture soon don’t worry ) , I wanted to create a lasting impression. So I thought I would “dress up” for the occasion. Mind you I started growing a beard that November Es was born. And I never shaved until after I picked him up, which was the following March. I thought the colorful sign would say in my own way “Im a Gay Redeck here to take you home” and proud to display this in public!

 

 

^Yep that’s me so I don’t want to hear any more crap of “We don’t have pictures of you DP!” Shut it….theres a closeup!

 

So now we were off to the store to buy all the things a camper/fisherman needs. You see Armadillo has not really been camping before……or fishing……. so whilst he was picking up sunflower seeds and T-shirts, Gasping over a 5 GALLON size bucket of David’s Sunflower seeds (yes that really exists in Texas Im not sure what happened to his picture of it) I was getting us our bait, food supplies , hooks, lures and fishing line >.< (BTW there WOULD be more pictures …..but…..Armadillo didn’t bring a memory card with his camera….yea wow , so we could only take what the camera itself could hold. That’s like having peanut butter and no JELLY!, bringing a camera with NO FILM! yell at him for me plz ;)

 

Once we got home with our Bait-Saver 9000 Bucket Bait system (designed by DP Himself:-p) we were testing different air rocks and here are the results.

 

 

Needless to say we liked the second one more. We wanted to create a spa like atmosphere for the fishies so they would be in a better mood to swim around more as to catch more fish!!! And when the poor little buggers started looking defeated in their new spa–like home we added a little brew ale to the bucket :D Give em a little liquid courage I tell ya!

 

So we checked all the car’s fluids and made final adjustments and set off to the open road. Now keep in mind a Texan and a Ohio-State-BucketHeads *agheem* I mean…..Buckeye fan were going to have to survive a 7 hr long car trip!!! This was a daunting task of its own. We decided quickly to just agree to disagree. However I believe whole heartedly that I won the debate on “What is the dumbest mascot/symbols” I argue that the useless nut of a Buckeye had to be in the top 3 and the Longhorn was a pretty damn cool mascot. How about a picture of our beautiful mascot eh?

 

 

Here is a nice picture of our Texas Longhorn, this one here is an actual picture of our mascot named “Bevo” I thought you might want to see a picture so as to see how cool our mascot is. Buckeyes…..phffft

 

So we get to the Island, ahhh yes sunshine , beaches and the fresh ocean air. I have no way to describe how Armadillo reacted. He was like a kid in a candy store tripping out on all the small town Texas shops and stores. He also loved the beach more than I can say. I had to tie his door shut so he wouldn’t jump OUT of the car while it was in motion (<-- this was for his own good)

 

*Not actual picture of Port Aransas

 

We get to our camping spot…yes on the beach. It was beautiful!! We had very little time before sun fall and we got the tent all setup in record time. Just before the sun went down….and the STORMS ROLLED IN!!!

 

For some reason our good Lord decided it was time for a wind storm of epic proportions followed by other assorted storm-like fun times, rain, waves expanding ocean waters ect. The winds were so bad that it was taking our tent apart! Like destroying it! So Armadillo and his manly like physique held the tent up while I quickly tried to evacuate all the stuff inside the tent! We had all our mattresses all setup , coolers ect ect so it was a very close call getting everything in time. At one point Armadillo said “You’ve got about 5 more minutes buddy, im losing it!” I got everything in the car and right as he let go….. the tent became a KITE!! Yea that’s right it fucking flew away! The storm was really coming in and we…..were on our way off this death trap the locals call an island of paradise!

 

So we make our way back across the ferry to the mainland to search the stores for another tent. The first place we go is of course the semi-local Wallmart. Figured it was the perfect place to get a tent right? Well apparently they were sold out , except for the kiddie tents that could barley fit me in it!!! Much less any room for Armadillo and the beer. (I suggested we keep the beer inside safe with me and he sleep on the beach but he wasn’t going for it :-( So the other stores in the area were sold out as well… it was getting late, we had but up all day packing, shopping , driving , setting up the tent, evacuating the tent and driving all over town…things were looking grim. We even caught ourselves just roaming around a store not really doing anything. At one point we searched the whole store over for a football we could play with in the ocean. We checked sporting goods, the seasonal section , even toys! When we finally looked over the whole damn store we asked someone who worked there. They replied “Didja check over yonder in sporting goouds?” Armadillo almost slapped him silly. Now we were back to the important task at hand. Armadillo with his wisdom said we either need to get a tent right now, or get a room for the night at a motel so we can get some rest and be able to think straight. We were becoming delirious. So we decided to ask the cashier where we might find a close inexpensive place for the night. When we asked her…..she responded….now this is an exact quote! Promise. When we asked…..she replied “I don’t know hun, I just live here”. Think about that one for a minute Folks ROFL ^Yup Shes a Ree Ree

“I don’t know hun, I just live here”

“Didja Check Sporting goods?”

 

We asked someone else and they told us to drive to Rockport…that’s like 45 min away!! So after getting lost, almost falling asleep we get to another Wallmart and purchase a new tent. Now at this point its like 5AM and we are very very very very very tired. We go to a great camping spot OFF of the island right so we can drive to it when we want to go. Its far away from the terrible storm but close enough to still be on the beach and have a great SAFE time…..so we thought.

 

!!*Now this part of the story I have no way of telling the horror that insued through words….but im going to try.*!!

 

Imagine 2 men whos dreams of fishing and camping on the beach were ripped away by a terrible storm, then they were misguided by the locals and then viciously attacked …oh yea youll see.

 

We were looking for a nice open spot near the water when we stopped dead in our tracks….we heard that familiar sound of dog tags clinking together, followed by the distant galloping of a dogs feet upon the sand. It was pitch black about 5:45am. We paused…looked at each other, like the veteran gamers that we were. We stood silently listening to try and figure out where the sounds were coming from. Armadillo went to change his settings to Environmental Audio 4, when he realized we were in RL! One thing was certain….there was more than one! 0.0 Fear began to overcome us as the sound came closer and closer. The most frightening thing was, they were very quiet and were approaching at a alarming rate letting us know we were pray, not just some chase.….but to viciously attack us!

 

Armadillo yelled at me and started running for the car, when he turned and started running he must have forgotten I was right behind him as he plowed over me, jumped ontop of my car and yelled DRIVE DP DRIVE!!! I ran into the car fumbled my car keys and drove away with Armadillo on the roof of my car!!! When we started to run towards the car they began to bark and snarl, as we drove away we could hear the panting of the animals in pursuit. These nasty creatures chased us off of the beach all the way back to the road at which point I could really lay on the gas with a frantic Armadillo clinging for dear life.

 

Well, now we were tired, exhausted, scared and hungry. We decided to take a nap in the car with the windows rolled up and wait until morning when we could at least see any other oncoming threats.

 

The next morning we decided to see if there was anything left of or our old tent. Here is a picture of DP distraught over the loss of our tent and the beginning of our fishing trip dreams.

 

 

THE MORNING AFTER

 

I would like everyone to take a look in the back of the picture by the orange like dumpster….right between me and that dumpster about mid-way a little to the right is where our tent was. Yes out in the middle of the water!! You can see where the wind and the waves totally took anything out that was on the beach the night before. Not one tent was left standing. Here is a different angle of our exact tent site!

 

The storm decimated everything! We were lucky to even have the time for Armadillo to hold our tent up while I retrieved everything from it and make it out without having to swim back to shore!

 

And here is DP completely demolished from the trip thus far. As he unpacked the tent form the box Armadillo said “Hey DP you get started and I’m gonna hit the bathroom for a sec” . When he came back DP was a little passed-the-fuck-OUT! He let me sleep a little :-) Had he been on his toes this would have been a great time to stomp his feet and bark loudly ROFL, I'm glad he didn’t.

After a nice nap and a scan of the beach. We put up our tent. Oh what a grand Taj Mahal it was! Armadillo really outdid himself here.

 

So things were looking Good….kind of.

 

We played around the next day fishing and throwing the football at each other into the ocean.

 

 

^This one ROFL is Aramdillo Frolicing in the water HAHA^

 

DP was the quarter back <-- knows whats in the ocean that can kill you! 0.o Smart penguin ;) Stayed on the Beach

 

Dp Relaxing while Armadillo chases all the balls :D

As Armadillo steps out onto the playing field to catch his first TouchDown Pass.

 

 

*True Story, Armadillo underwater!

 

Here in this last there was an angry *Crab that wanted the pigskin too! He was not about to let Armadillo take it from him either! The little Fucker clamped on to his big toe and attempted to take Armadillo down! Armadillo was hollering something fierce. They fought for approx 10 secs water flew everywhere HAHA! He did a bit of damage too! Oh Pants!

 

Now I’ll show you some pictures of the great palace we had for a tent. Here are a few pictures of it for you. It had enough room for 2 Queen size mattresses and extra room for stuff. It had a closet also! Where you could hang clothes and on the other side a built in shelving system (see last picture)

 

 

And yes its dinner time. DrunkPenguin was the chef on this trip making Armadillo some great mesquite grilled steaks and pork chops for him to chow down on! I even made him my own Semi-Famous Recipe , my 4 pepper tacos. (not for wussies) and he survived to tell about it! The next morning he was screaming at me from the portapotty though ROFL :-p

 

The next day was much better as we fished for crabs and had a great time.

Here is a picture of our crab we named Fred, but he ended up being a Marge.

Here are some pics

 

 

 

Heres a great little place where we got ice daily. It’s a twice the ice little shack that’s a stand alone place where you put in $1.25 and get like $5 worth of ice!! For some unknown reason I was drawn toward this place, was it the great prices? The convenience? You decide :)

 

Now that things are looking up and going well. Me and Armadillo decide its time to hunt for fire wood! We found some great dead small trees we chopped up and low and behold….there was an old pallet near by. We strapped the wood to the pallet and drug the pallet through the sand back to camp with our car haha! Now that’s critter ingenuity

 

 

 

Ever been fishing minding your own business and a boat comes by and kind of ruins your fun? Well here….that’s kind of what happened :-S

Even if I had a bite, the fish would have taken off after this damn things rolls by. Dillo couldn’t even the whole damn thing in the picture! 0.0

 

There were times when we were fishing in small, I mean small channels and some of the largest ships, not boats, would roll through and we would have to step back from the sore cause the waters fixin’ to come up on you!

 

*Actual trip photo

 

After a hard day fishing and fighting crabs , here we are relaxing on the beach with cold ones in our hands! That’s right, it was amazing. The only thing missing was Nikey :-p To …uhhh hang out yea…..

 

 

We stopped by a local restaurant to grab some grub and at this one place, there was this little brat screaming and crying, being a real turd-burgler.

 

Crazy Kid!!!

 

 

Just when we thought all was safe…remember that wood we gathered? Well not to mention all the searching around and checking stuff out we did around the camp site, we found uhhh some friends. Apparently there were a family of Rattle Snakes in the area on our part of the peninsula where we were camping 0.0

*Armadillo on Left Crazy Fucker on Right

 

 

This is what we call here in Texas a Crazy Ass Fucking Redneck. This guy aptly named Bubba was wondering around camp and said. “You guys need to come out of yer tent here for a second, I have sumtin’ to shows ya”. “You fellers be careful now. I found this guy right by yer tent!” He also said the mother was near by and he was looking for her so he could play with her. He reported her as follows “Shes a biggun….I recon shes well over 6 feet. 6 FEET!!! WHAT!!@#$!# Lets get something straight here, Penguins and Armadillos don’t like SNAKES!

 

The trip continued with many other crazy things I probably cant remember nor want to! We saw stingrays, jellyfish, Redfish, HUGE blackdrum. Armadillo even caught a flounder I think. We had a rootin tootin good time in between the wild rabid dawgs, snakes and crab attacks. We had some great drunken talks by the fire on how to make Endless Shadow a better place to be. Armadillo even told me some great stories about being a bouncer.

 

One thing I have to put in this story. You all know Armadillo as a great, funny kick ass guy whom every clan member loves. I got to meet the real guy and let me tell you there is more to him than we all know. Hes been though more in his life than most of us will ever have to deal with (late night drunken beer stories). This I found out is partly why he’s so cool and understanding. He’s got a heart the size of Texas and a wise head on his shoulders. This guy is one of the most real, down to earth people you will ever meet if your lucky enough to get the chance. This is one person I am proud to call my RL friend.

 

-DP

 

Special Thanks to:

 

SharpShooter - for editing and Photographic Production.

 

Armadillo – For actually being crazy enough to fly to Texas.

 

Walmart Lady – For her wonderful customer service.

 

Unknown Ginger Kid :-p

 

Shotgun - Webproduction