Cuz my heart WILL be in Ohio..

...as will what's left of my head and body (liver) -- Halloween took it's toll.
I've been meaning to write about OHIO forever and now that we will be visiting them THIS WEEKEND it seems like the time to do it! As always, I am so excited to see our Ohio crew, I'm already having trouble sleeping and concentrating (I keep doing that thing where I walk into a room and completely forget what I went in there for so I have to walk back to where I was just to remember). I was quite sad/freaked out the last couple of times that we've parted ways with Ohio because I knew things would be different from now on, as I lost two of my loyal Ohio Fans (Em & Duck) who were a big part of many of my Ohio memories.

...and boy are things different now, this time, I'm taking two LaX women, Sarah and Jayna, to the crazy, wonderful, drunken, hilarity this is OHIO for their very first times (Ohio Virgins, if you will).

Well this wouldn't be an Ode to Ohio without:

~~~

The Story of How We Met

Scene: Spring Break 2002, our freshman year. Location: Panama City, Florida. Crew: Katie, Jen, Em, Krista & Steph.

Per usual, Krista had set the alarm clock for bright and early so that we wouldn't miss a second of sunshine. I woke up groggy and slowly got my hungover ass ready for the beach. As I left our hotel room I saw some tall, tan guy helping Krista pull chairs together at the ocean's edge, "Oh great." I thought, now we would, most likely, have to talk to some strange boys all day on the beach! At least I had my book, I could stick my nose in that or feign sleep if I had to.

Krista introduced me to tall, tan guy and I reluctantly played along. His name was Tim, and although he had some sort of accent, he had a good handshake and a nice smile.

As I settled into my ocean view spot the Ohio crew descended on us. Burying my head in my book, I thought I was safe. Much to my dismay, I found myself being harassed by a sarcastic young fellow, with fun hair, who called himself Burnsy.

Jamming my bookmark into my boring novel for school, I gave in thinking "Shit. I don't think we're gonna' shake these guys.." (and so far we haven't had much luck!).

We hung out with OHIO a fair amount those first couple of days, but it wasn't until the rainy day that our groups became inseparable. Forced to spend a whole day together, mostly sober no less, we realized that our groups had a lot of chemistry. We barely spent a moment apart the entire rest of the trip.

Even though, the composition of our Ohio-Wisconsin group has shifted around over the years we never fail to have the most fun together. I can't believe that I can say that some of my best college friends are people that live over 8 hours away, AND that we met them on Spring Break!

Looking forward to another unique set of memories Ohio, can't wait to add them to the collection.