Crab Feed: Where people eat (not feed) the crabs

Last official day of training and I'd say it's about two days too late, but since each day of training meant an evening adventure I'm willing to make some sacrifices. Some. SLDCADA training is definitely that boundary between acceptable/not acceptable. (FYI SLDCADA is our timekeeping system that starting today you have to have the official certs to even view their homepage- yeah, I did learn something!)

I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting but sitting watching the instructor click through the menu "training" a bunch of us from various commands using the system wasn't really it. At least in Monterey I had a computer to follow along with and also had a little more coprate knowledge so knew more about what was going on. I had to chuckle though- there always has to be one, two, or in my case today, THREE people who always ask questions. And when I say questions I really mean people starting off as a question but then answering it on their own to show their know how on the system. Grrrrrrrrr. Time wasting!

The lunch break was really nice. We had the changed to head over to Yorktown Pub for some tasty food. It's here I ended my vacation relationship with hamburgers. I almost let it go on for one more day since the crab cakes looked delicious, but I'm glad I didn't because when I showed up at the Smith's house I was told we were eating crab!

Turns out a friend of theirs had lots of fresh crab and needed help eating them. A problem we could totally help with. "Lot's" didn't even begin to describe how many crabs they had- more like a ton since they filled up a small laundry basket. As soon as we pulled up I spotted them and yes, I was playing with them shortly there after.

The Fighter and I met. He wanted out and I wanted to pick him up. You'd think we could have been great partners but no, he wanted to pinch me. A lot. Well Larry AKA Professional Crabber and who we owed this fabulous meal to, showed me the way to pick them up. Win for Katie!

Anther win for Katie was sitting next to Larry at the table. Why?

1. He showed me how to pull apart the crabs which was crucial. Why? Well as Chrystal retold her story of the Crab Feed (you know, where people go eat crabs) in Monterey she told me it's way different in East Coast land. 
2. With every dissection demo, the stack of edible crab grew taller in front of me. This meant less cut up fingers while I barbarically pulled, crushed, pounded, snapped the shell away from the meat. Maybe it only felt that way though since my coach said I caught on real quick. What can I say- I like to take things apart and with all my dissection days this was cake...crab cake! 

We must have been at that table for hours and although we ate until we couldn't there was still huge bowl of cooked crab (and crab dippin' sauce)! It looked like we didn't even put a dent in them...until you looked at our trash collection. It was a fabulous night filled with amazing food and even more amazing company- the perfect way to close out my VA TDY.