During our weekend of Swinefest extravaganza, we decided to spend Saturday night in Pine Plains, New York, rather than drive home at 4 in the morning having consumed large quantities of pork and beer. Luckily, the good folks at The Farm were thinking along the same lines, and offered us a spot on their giant green field.

So there were were, pitching a tent at the edge of a cornfield with the soft green mountains of the Catskills all around us. I loved this! (Sorry, I didn’t get enough of this sleeping-on-the-ground business having spent most of my life in Hollywood and Brooklyn).

Last weekend, I went to my first-ever pig roast, dubbed “Swinefest 2009″ in Pine Plains, New York. The affair included four roasted pigs, 40 kegs of beer, and fireworks so close I tasted ash on my beer. It was all miraculous!

Apparently, these huge gatherings centered around a barbecue and hillbilly music — we camped at the edge of a cornfield and woke up to the lyrics, “she was rocking the beer gut” blasting from a pickup truck — are fairly common in the Midwest, and Kelly had been to more than her share of them. Yet, as a newbie and a creature of city-life, I enjoyed it. I even took part in the dance party under a white tent filled with hay to the Jock Jam beats of Sublime and Blink 182.

Nothing says, “we’re no longer in New York City” than standing on top a picturesque hill overlooking the beautiful Catskill mountains and all of Hudson Valley in full greenery with the smell of burnt flesh in the air and a bottomless plastic cup in your hand.

Jake watching fireworks.

Otter Cliffs at Acadia National Park offers some of the best rock climbing anywhere on the east coast. Luckily we had Andrew and Jacob’s expertise to show us the, er, ropes. I didn’t participate this time around, but photographed some of the brave folks who did. Phil set the tone by being the first — his first time! — to rappel down the cliff on the lip of the Atlantic Ocean.

Whiskey on the rocks! Photographs from a rocky beach outside Seawall Campground at Acadia National Park.