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Hello my name is Aimee and this is a real life adventure...

It's hard when a girl becomes good friends with so many exiting seniors her junior year of college. This does however, make that girl extremely excited when they come back for a visit. My dear friend Josh has come to visit for the weekend and I was able to spend my Thursday night in his presence.

In my opinion he is one the most successful of my friends to gradate. Not in the sense that he has a high paying job, but that he loves what he is doing. Josh is an intern for the Student Conservation Association (SCA) and is placed in National Parks throughout America to work as a park ranger and gain experience. Currently Josh is a ranger for Tonto National Forest and despite living in trailers with mice and having to use a 20 degree bag to stay warm, he is living his dream and couldn't be happier.

I hope to be like him when I grow up.

We agreed to meet up at bar called The Horse and Hound to share stories, play shuffle board, and catch up. After a half hour of visiting and filling each other in on jobs, classes, and significant others (and the lack thereof) we found that it happened to be kareoke night at The Horse and Hound. Our group retreated to the shuffle board to avoid the greasy man with the microphone and his ploys to get us to sing. Halfway through our first game I found not only was I rusty at gliding those little pucks across the wood board, but that the bar was reminiscent of my high school cafeteria.

In one corner sat three or four intense looking guys with long hair, piercings, and tattoos. Across from them at another table was a new graduate with her family celebrating her recent victory over academia. Farther away was a group visiting from New York who seemed out of place sporting their Ralph Lauren Polo shirts in the seedy bar. We were all centered around a foursome in the middle of the bar who appeared to be of redneck nature complete with a Jack Daniels paraphernalia, missing front teeth, and a cut off t-shirt. It was indeed a random sampling of individuals, all of whom seemed to be competing for the title of halfway decent voice.

Our group laughed as the songs slowly became more slurred and intense than before. Somewhere between the smoke break after game one and the rendition of Barbie Girl by the seemingly lost Scottsdale girls nearing the end of game two, Josh and I found ourselves dancing along to the off-key music.

It wasn't long before our partners were swaying along with us at the opposite end of the table. As our dance moves became more complex, so did the competition of the high school cliques. It appeared that the New York crew did indeed have talent, whereas the hardcore Metallica kids couldn't hold a tune. Beer shot up my nose as I tried to stifle the laughter when Josh and his buddy Moses began to mimic redneck couple #1 as they sang their first duet.

As fate (and alcohol) would have it we eventually became victims of our own mockery. Josh signed our little group to sing a version of American Pie originally sang by John Denver. The scene is somewhat fuzzy in my head, but halfway through the lyrics I look over to realize one of the girls in our group was dancing on some tables with the Metallica boys in the back, a large American Indian man was wrestling a microphone away from the greasy kareoke regulator, and the New York crew stared in disbelief as Josh and I belted the last stanza as loud as we could to each other despite the large stunned crowd looking upon us.

Quickly after the song ended our group and the other individuals frequenting the bar decided it was time for us to leave. We danced around, paid our tab, and left the Horse and Hound.

On my way home I couldn't help but smile. I guess that's the stuff great nights are made of.