See You In September...

The days are definitely getting shorter. It’s dark in the mornings now and I need to stick my head outside to see if it’s a nice enough day to ride the bike to work. Pretty soon I won’t have to check, it’ll be too chilly in the morning to even consider taking anything but an enclosed vehicle. Evenings are getting shorter too of course…..there’s less useable daylight at the end of the day for getting those projects done that I’ve put off doing until now. It’s only going to get worse now until spring too…..as a S.A.D. sufferer (Seasonal Affective Disorder), I dread the lack of daylight that the coming months will bring and the ensuing lack of energy from the dearth of Human Photosynthesis brought on by the shorter days / longer nights. Trees go dormant during the winter months, resting up so that in the spring they can burst forth with renewed energy to produce another batch of beautiful green leaves with which to catch the suns life giving rays…….I tend to think of myself the same way, using the wintertime as a time to “cocoon” and make plans for the next warm season. Someday I need to get the hell out of this 4 season climate and go somewhere where it’s sunny and 70° + year round……….

This past week was another fairly quiet one. The wife’s volunteer disease was in full tilt mode with the start of high school football and soccer programs so I was left alone most of the week to fend for myself. Friday night though she had nowhere else to go so I put her on the back of the bike and we took a ride over by White Cloud so I could check into the little deer blind / out house’s that the John’s Garden Supply had for sale. I’d never stopped there before and was amazed at the amount of stuff they had inside. We spent awhile just strolling up and down the aisles, making mental notes of what was there so I could come back at a later date and grab things I need. After finding out what I needed to know and making a plan to come back Saturday afternoon to pick a little house up, we headed back towards home, stopping first at El Camino’s for a late dinner.

Saturday morning came and I’d planned on going into work for awhile instead of attending the metro-cruise event on Grand Rapids, which I’d like to have done….just can’t be everywhere at once and I needed to get things done up at the campsite so……When the alarm went off I hit it once and before I knew it, it was 8:30am and I’d semi-consciously made the decision not to go in to work. So I got up and started getting things around to head up North for the rest of the weekend. I was moving slow so by the time I did some truck maintenance, ran a couple errands and got things loaded up it was already noon. So, I said goodbye to the wife, grabbed Bailey and Mercury and we headed out of town and in the direction of John’s Garden Supply.

When we arrived there I told ‘em what I wanted and before long I had an older woman on a lift truck and two younger kids helping me wrestle the outhouse into the back of the pickup. I wanted to lay it down, but after a half hour of fighting with the damn thing to get it in the truck, we finally got it in, standing up, right up by the cab. I figured it’d be fine that way with the weight of the thing holding it down, so after paying for my purchases (also got a 36” diameter fire ring), I got in the truck and cautiously headed off down the road.

Now sometimes it takes awhile, days, weeks, months, maybe years to realize you’ve made a mistake and other times the realization is almost instantaneous……While we’d been finishing up loading the outhouse a sheriff had zipped by headed South with his lights on, after a speeder no doubt so, once I was on the road, heading North, I looked in my mirror and what should I see but the sheriff car coming up behind me. At this point things started happening quickly. Here I am, not a mile down the road from my point of purchase, thinking harassment is imminent because of the marked car in my mirror and then all of a sudden a gust of wind (it was a breezy day) slaps the truck and I look in my mirrors and realize, with a fair amount of horror, that the outhouse is tipping backwards in an attempt to lay itself down. At that point a vision flashed thru my head of $200.00 worth of outhouse, rendered instantly into kindling, scattered all over the highway and a Southern style sheriff writing me out a nice fat ticket for littering……..

Instincts took over at that point and I lifted my foot off the gas, which caused the outhouse to rethink it’s trajectory and slam into the cab of the truck. At that point I decided that the best course of action was to get the hell off the roadway and park the truck. By the time I got the trucked parked safely off the road the sheriff was parked in the left wing position, with his lights on. We both got out of our vehicles at the same time and met at the tailgate. His first comment relieved a ton of anxiety when he asked…”do you need some help with this thing?” to which I replied “looks like I could”. He then pointed out that a couple of the slats I had taken off the side of the outhouse, were scattered a ways back down the roadway, so I headed off at a brisk walk to retrieve them while he held down the fort.

When I got back to the truck he had his gloves on and was ready to help me wrestle the outhouse from it’s precarious upright position to a horizontal one that would be more conducive to traveling. Between the two of us we were able to lay it down so that only the roof of it was hanging off the tailgate. Once that task was complete he then helped me reload the toilet, fire ring and other stuff back into the truck. We then took the rope I’d thought to bring and ran that thru the windows of the outhouse and then thru the windows of the truck cab and tied the two ends together so that if at some point it started to walk off the back of the truck I’d be able to tell before it got too far away. At that point I was busy being thankful that I’d gotten out of my self-imposed jam with only minimal scarring when he came up to the window with his clipboard and asked for my name and birth date. I immediately thought “aww crap, here comes the ticket” but he just took down the info I gave him, told me to be careful the rest of the way and went back to his car. I once again counted my blessings, fired up the truck and slowly took off down the road.

The rest of the ride up to Whiskey Creek was uneventful. I got off M37 at Woodland Park and took the backroads the rest of the way. I finally pulled into the lot about 5ish and backed the truck up to where I planned to deposit the outhouse. I then grabbed the shovel and went about preparing the spot where the new fire ring would be in ceremonial fashion. The campfire is the center piece of any campsite and when I’m done with this one it’ll be a work of art.

Once I had the fire ring ready to assume it’s duties I put the dogs on their leashes and we headed up to the lodge to see about getting something to eat. All afternoon the wind had been blowing in clouds and it was getting darker as time went on. About the time we got to the lodge the sky decided it was time to release it’s load so the three of us headed for the great indoors. I had a hamburger for supper, shared with my 4 legged companions and then we started the hike back to the campsite. Just as we were getting there Adam’s dad, Rick pulled up in the truck with one of his buddies. They’d come over to help me get the outhouse off the back of the truck. After a bit of discussion on how to do it we finally had it standing up, albeit at a percarious angle on the hill. After they took off I decided to make a trip into Ludington for some stuff I needed..asthma spray, batteries and a new lantern. I also made a stop at the DQ :-)

By the time I got back to the campsite it was starting to get dark. I got a fire going in the new fire ring, put the batteries in the radio and put the new lantern together. Before long I had a good fire going, along with light from the new lantern and music from the radio. For the next several hours I sat comfortably in my campfire chair, soaking up the heat from the fire, listening to Danny O'keefe sing his songs that sooth the soul. It was quite relaxing and before I knew it, it was about 1:00am. The fire was mostly coals by then so I picked myself up and headed into the camper for some sleep.

Sunday morning arrived and it was 8:30 before I'd managed to open both eyes. the first order of business was to head up to the lodge for some breakfast. After a plate full of scrambled eggs, toast and sausage I drove back to camp and started in with my projects for the day. Between digging out a flat area to put the outhouse in, gathering rocks for the fire ring, raking up dead ferns and grass and dragging brush and firewood around I was busy until 4:00pm when I closed up camp and headed back for home. I got back in town about 5:30, took a quick shower and then rolled out the "56 and headed down to Jeannies for the cruise-in and a meal.

I had pics to deliver and fortunately the guy was there to deliver them to so I ended up again coming home with more cash than I had left home with...........that dont happen often enough to be sure. By the time I got home from Jeannies I'd put a full day in so I came down to the den and put on some music to say goodbye to the weekend with.........

This coming weekend is the last blast weekend, Labor day weekend and I'd love to go up to the straits and walk the bridge this year but it ain't gonna happen with the wedding only a week and a couple days away. If I can get in a decent length bike ride sometime during the weekend I think I'll count my blessings and call it good.

Time to call it a day for today. More later on.

TC