On and On . . .: Camping

Jim and I joined 21 friends and family members last Thursday for our annual camping trip. We all met at the Kaleva farm this year, set up tents, built a campfire, and proceeded to have a great time. I ordered a port-a-potty to be delivered to the property for the weekend because - despite valiant efforts by Richie, Steve, and others - the water pump in the old house would not work. The toilet rental company promised that the unit would be "aesthetically pleasing and enhanced with a mountain breeze fragrance," and they did not disappoint! One thing we noticed, however, was that as the days wore on, the "waste" piled up higher and higher in a hill directly underneath the toilet seat, while fresh, blue water stayed empty on the sides. Cobra and I joked that port-a-potties should come equipped with some sort of shaker, or at the very least a stirrer stick, to more evenly distribute the "waste" in the bowl.

Our group spent Friday at a beach on Lake Michigan soaking up the sun. Some of the more hardy souls actually ventured into the not-so-warm water to swim. During a walk on the "back forty" of the farm in the evening, eleven of us encountered a neighbor's growling dog and I, for one, was quite intimidated. At night, Marilyn's boyfriend, Pat, raced their car at the Northern Michigan Dragway near the farm. Always looking for ways to be thrifty, a bunch of us were able to view the competition for free from a deserted country road at the end of the race track. On Saturday, most of the gang opted to go canoeing, which ended up turning into a (very popular!) kayaking trip instead. Some of us watched a fireworks display in town at 10 p.m., and then we rounded off our busy night by sitting around the campfire until the wee hours.

Jim and I, along with our passengers, Cobra and Charlie, had to leave the farm at 10:30 on Sunday morning so that we could drop Jim off at Flint's airport in time for him to catch a 3:30 p.m. flight back to Houston. While we were tooling down M-115 south of Cadillac, Jim abruptly pulled the CRV over to the side of the road and casually announced, "The roof box just blew open." Cobra immediately burst into a bout of laughter and Charlie worriedly inquired as to whether any of his belongings had been riding in the "Rocket Box." Our huge, green tarp and an old blanket had flown up & away, and were distant blobs in the center of the highway behind us. I hopped out to fetch our stuff, happy that most of the items in the roof box had been heavy enough to stay put. Fortunately, there were only a few other cars whizzing by and I was able to grab the tarp and blanket off the pavement while Jim secured the box shut - this time properly. Luckily, we had built in some extra travel time in case we ran into traffic jams enroute to the airport, and we got Jim to FNT with time to spare. And, just as I predicted to Cobra, when Adam heard about the roof box mishap, he assured me that there was no chance that any of his things would ever be transported up there again.