A Weekend of Labor

Man, what a week it’s been. No wonder I can hardly keep my eyes open to write this…..Labor day weekend is history and now Ri and Adam’s wedding is just days away. There’s hardly time to recap this past week before it’s gonna be time to get packed and head back up to the campsite for the BIG weekend. I’m personally hoping for some beautiful late summer weather for them on their wedding day, along with many years of happiness……rain would be a real mood killer and I don’t think I’d look all that good in a sopping wet Tuxedo either. Right now I’m more than a little appalled by the fact that there are people who AREN’T getting married Saturday who seem to think they have the right to tell these two how to run their own ceremony…..when you’re asked to be part of someone’s special day you should be asking…”what do you need me to do…..” not “you gotta do this, this way or I’m not going to play….” A part of me would like to break out the big stick and lay it upside a couple heads, but I’m trying to follow my own advice and do what’s required of me without any bitching or feet stomping. Hopefully when they look back on their wedding day they’ll remember the good time it was……….I know I’ll do what I can to make that possible.

As for this past week? It started off on Monday with our 24th wedding anniversary, the 28th of August. Due to the wife’s volunteerism disease our celebratory dinner consisted of me running to G & L chili Dogs for take out so we could wolf down a couple of their “specials” before she had to leave for a 7:00pm meeting. I guess this must mean that the honeymoon is over? :-) Me and my 4-legged buddies spent the rest of the evening in the den doing our usual tunes and website deal.

Tuesday evening I agreed to do something that I won’t do again in this lifetime. I went to the wedding shower at the Fetts house at my wife’s request. Maybe she wanted to spend time with me after being AWOL the previous night, but for whatever reason I found myself the only male (other than the groom) at a tradition hen fest. They did have ice cream so it wasn’t a total loss, but I still don’t think I’ll be attending another wedding shower without at least a shotgun as incentive.

Wednesday me and the future son-in-law went in search of plumbing supplies for the Amish Outhouse. We spent a couple hours wandering the aisles of Home Depot and Menards while the daughter, wife and other clan members had another shower. Once the shower was over our search was halted and that was that for the day.

Thursday afternoon at work I got a call from Dick Wendt, the guy I’ve been dealing with at Great Lake Electric to get juice to the campsite. He called to inform me that as of late Wednesday afternoon I had become, or more correctly my campsite, had become electrified! Well, that was worth a big Yeehaawww and a trip up there after work for the evening just to witness the miracle with our own eyes. I got up there with a couple hours of daylight left. I spent awhile finagling with things, trying to get the lights in the camper to come on and I was starting to get irritated just about the time they decided to light up my life. So now, with the lights on I wanted water in the camper. So I walked over, pulled up on the handle that would set the fluids in motion, went to the camper, pushed down the handle expecting water to gush forth and got nothing. What the %&^#? About that time Rick Fett stopped by with one of his buddies and surveyed the situation. Turns out that the wiring from the water pump to the board hadn’t been connected yet so water wasn’t going to be an option until at least the next morning. So, I settled for lights and sound for the evening and finished digging out around the outhouse and got it leveled out and ready for plumbing later on in the week. After hanging out for awhile after dark just to enjoy the fact I had lights……I packed up the truck, locked up the camper and headed back to town.

Friday evening, for the first time since Monday’s chili dogs, me and the little lady got together to dine. A steak dinner at the Stable Inn and some wedding conversation was the bill of fare for the time spent there. The rest of the evening was spent at home hanging out and making plans for the 3 day weekend.

Saturday moring arrived and I put an end to my waffling and made the decision to jump on the bike and ride down to Kendallville Indiana for a Bluegrass music festival. I woke the wife up about 8:00am and we went over to Russ’ for breakfast, served by the future son-in-law who still works there on an occasional basis. After breakfast we said our goodbyes and parted ways for the day.

The ride down was uneventful, which on a bike is a good thing. It was a good 3 hour, 140 mile ride and I arrived at the Noble County Fairgrounds right about noon. The music was in full swing at that point so I paid the man to let me in, parked the bike and headed for the stage. Between noon and 7:30pm, when I headed for home, I heard a bunch of great music and not all of it was on the main stage. Although the main stage bands were all great, there was a bunch of good music happening all over the fair grounds.

After sitting thru a couple bands at the main stage I decided to stroll the grounds and hadn’t gone very far when I witnessed my first jam session. I stood back a ways and shot some pics while I listened to the music. Just a bunch of guys who’d shown up for the weekend to make music with each other. What a concept! After listening to them for awhile I headed off and not far down the road was another gathering of pickers. I shot some more pics, listened to them for awhile and repeated that scenario a half dozen times over the next couple hours. I did take a time out to grab a late lunch and then went back to the bleachers to watch and listen until it was time for the supper break.

During the supper break I wandered around and came upon a guy selling harmonica's and his basic harmonica course on CD for 10 bucks. They guy could really play and it brought back some good memories.....I use to play a harmonica quite a bit back in the days when I played in bands and in what could possibly be termed a "whim" I decided to purchase his course and a harmonica in the key of C. Figured I could practice during those times at the campsite when it's just me and the 4-legged ones. Hopefully they won't howl too loud.

After an hour break the main stage came back to life and I sat there and listened to the next two groups play some great toe tapping music. Both "New Found Road" & "The Boohers" did rousing sets and then my favorite act of the day, ""The Hunger Mountain Boys" took the stage again. They'd been the first act I saw upon arriving and I was knocked out by their old-timey sound. About half way thru their set though I decided it was getting late enough to consider leaving for home so with a 3 hour ride ahead of me and an hour's worth of daylight I took off for home. the ride home was uneventful also, although durng the last 30 / 40 miles it got pretty chilly. I got back home about 10:45 and was able to stay awake long enough to catch up on the email before calling it a day. click HERE for pics

Sunday morning arrived too early thanks to my 4-legged alarm clocks. Today was the day that we were going to hook up the outhouse and make it fully functional so I set about right away getting stuff in the truck that I wanted to take up to the campsite. I drug the picnic table out of the backyard and put it in the truck. It’ll get much more use up at camp then it ever did at home. I grabbed all my rakes, shovels and the chain saw and tossed them in the back too, then I said goodbye to the wife, rounded up Mercury and Bailey and we headed out of town.

An hour or so later we arrived at the campsite and set about getting things ready. Within a half hour Adam, his dad Rick and several other folks who I don’t yet know all that well were there to help with the plumbing of the Amish Outhouse. I won’t go into the assembly details, but it took several hours to cut and piece together all the parts that we needed to reach from the toilet to the sewer. Then, once that was complete Adam put together the toilet and installed it in the outhouse. The first flush was a thing of beauty…..it worked great! After several more flushes all in attendance proclaimed that this project was a resounding success and one by one they wandered off Before they all were gone though one of Rick's friends, Jerry Gardner, went to his place and brought back his small Kabota front end loader and smoothed out the ground around the outhouse, saving me a couple hours of raking. And as if that wasn't enough he also used the Kabota to move two huge boulders from where they were to a place of honor on either side of the driveway, marking the entrance.

Then it was just me and the dogs again. I set about raking, moving firewood and collecting rocks for the rest of the afternoon and it went by quickly. I had been invited to Jerry and Carole's place for dinner so about 5:30 I headed over there and had quite the feast. Steaks on the grill, corn on the cob, baked beans......all the good stuff. We sat around and shot the breeze for awhile, while my dogs and their dog ran around the yard, chasing each other, having a grand time.

The sun was setting when I left the Gardner's and headed back to camp. I got a fire going and cleaned up the inside of the camper for a bit cuz Wanda, Chris, Ri & Adam were coming up after Bingo was over. It was going to be Wanda's first overnighter and with a roaring fire and a outhouse with a flush toilet to greet her I was hoping she'd be a happy camper. :-) They all arrived just a bit before midnight and we sat around for awhile and discussed the wedding before calling it a day

Moday, Labor day, was a day of labor. Me and Wanda both got up early and while she enjoyed her quiet time with a cup of coffee, I went out on what was the first official photo hike around the grounds. As I strolled down meadowview trail to Woods trail and back up by the lodge I made mental notes of where there were good sized rocks to pick up for my fire ring. I went over by the lake and then hiked back up the hill, thru the woods to the campsite. By the time I got back it was time to make breakfast. She made up some big cinnamon rolls with icing. A couple of those and an orange juice and I was ready to continue on with the projects I'd started the day before.

Adam and Ri came by early in the afternoon and I put Adam to work running the chain saw while I stacked. After a couple hours of that we had a decent amount of wood in the rack and ready for the next campfire. Once we were done with that we all jumped in the truck and went rock hunting. I drove with Adam, Ri and Wanda sitting on the tailgate, jumping out to snatch up good size ones for the fire ring when they spotted them. After about an hour of putzing around the campground we had quite a haul and headed back to camp to unload the booty. One more trip like that one and I should have enough to build the fire pit that I envision. I need to look into buying some mortar and a trowel so that one of these weekend days pretty soon I can make my centerpiece a reality. Click HERE for pics.

After emptying the truck we decided it was about time to head back for the city house. Ri and Adam were going to stay up at Whiskey Creek all this week and because they didn't have access to his parents trailer they were going to stay at ours and hold down the fort until we get back on Friday. We said our goodbyes to them and then with me in the truck with 2 dogs and Wanda in her Mustang with 2 dogs and Chris, headed for Grand Haven. We got back to town about 7:00pm, had dinner and a hot shower and pretty much called it a day, a weekend and a summer. Any 80° days from here on out are a bonus, not likely but certainly welcome.

Time for dreamland now, gotta get some sleep now cuz I probably won't get much rest this coming weekend. I hope I live to tell about it.

TC