Post shuttle, enroute home after a gentle day long float trip.

Thirsty work that, floating effortlessly beneath cloudless skies, slipping in a quiet corrective stroke only as needed.

Thirsty work, and a dry county. But homeward bound, just over the county line, is the reward - a backwoods country honky-tonk, the L&J.

Cold Beer. Crowd-pleasing sized pitchers. As I pull into the gravel parking lot I spy two of my paddling companions, Brian & Anne, parking their boat-laden truck. Great minds think alike.

We push through the door into the dim interior and sidle up to three stools at the bar.

Ahhh, a post-trip beer in a cinder block roadhouse is one of the perks of paddling. Yer dirty. Often disheveled. Frequently dressed outside the norm. Ya fit right in.

So, we order a pitcher, large. Drop a couple of quarters into the nothin'-but-country-hits (of the late '70's and early '80's) jukebox and settle in.

Our pitcher arrives, borne by a bouffant high enough to put the ceiling fan at risk. "Here ya go, hon... and here ya go, we got these here happy hour scratch off cards".

Huh? Scratch off cards? Happy hour? I thought every hour at the L&J was happy hour. Well... actually, if you engage the fella one stool over in conversation, it's more like disgruntled hour...

But scratch off cards? What's next, quiche on the menu? "No Spitting" signs? Working bathrooms? Oh well, what the hell, lets see... OK, scratch off one of the multiple circles at random and your drink is either full price, ten cents off, half price, or ten cents total.

All right, Brian, pick one and scratch it.

Scritchy, scratchy... Ten cents! Hah, a gallon of beer for ten cents!

Thirsty work. We quaff 'em down and order another pitcher. The fan blades seem to have inched even closer to the bouffant barmaid's headdress.

"Here ya go, hon", handing us another bucket of beer and another scratch off card. Brian, you got the touch, so... scritchy, scratchy... and again - ten cents!

We pump a few more quarters into the juke box, searching out a thematic selection of tunes centered around the lyrics "10-4 Good Buddy" and get down to some serious beer swilling.
Wirsty thork... .er, thirsty work. "Whadda ya think, one more?" "Why not, we've only spent twenty cents".

"Eunice" (by now we know the barmaid's name, and the names of the good ole boys on either side of us, and we've been offered membership in the local rod & gun club) "Eunice, one more".

Eunice fetches another pitcher. And another scratch off card. She eyes Brian suspiciously as he scrapes at the card. Scritchy, scratchy... and yet again - ten cents!

Well, we're kinda slowing down on our beer consumption here, and we resort to keeping the glasses of our gun club brethren full too. We finally finish the pitcher and bid adieu to our buddies at the bar.

We pay our thirty-cent bar tab.

We calculate Eunice's tip. 2000% seem fair.

And stumble out to sleep in our trucks for a sobering nap, thinking, "Only on a paddling trip... "

Mike McCrea's bar-finding method is endorsed by Get Lost Magazine and his hairdresser.