Road Warriors

Road Warriors Six, D1: The World’s Longest Day

July 25, 2015

Monday eve. 7/21

2 mile hike to the falls at Woodbine Campground

We got off I-94 in Columbus. Hit a McDonald’s for the annual Egg McMuffin and headed toward Nye, Montana to check out Woodbine Campground – which ended up being really nice. We grabbed site 38 (easily the best view with privacy) and set up.

I’m pretty excited about my camper mods this year. After installing the bigger axel and wheels a couple years ago we had to put a taller tongue jack on and the back stabilizer legs didn’t touch the ground anymore, so I compensated by putting big blocks of wood under them. The whole shebang was pretty rickety – as in: if anyone merely turned over in bed, the whole camper squeaked and swayed. This year, I swapped the back legs with taller legs that touched the ground and moved the shorter ones to the front (where previously there were none).

See how much longer the legs in back are? Success!

It’s awesome. You are welcome, Menke family.

We lounged around camp for a while, made some sandwiches and relaxed. I’m pretty sure I could do some version of this for the whole trip, but Dave ruined my fantasy by saying, “I think we should go for a hike.”

Dammit.

So we did. Because, despite what all my friends and family think, Dave is pretty much the boss.

Shortly after getting back from our 2 mile hike, it began to rain. We stashed all the chairs and ran for the camper. The sound of rain on the roof and the rolling thunder was beautiful and hypnotic. We all promptly fell asleep. I never nap, so this was a pretty big deal. I woke up very proud of myself. And very lost. How do people do this on a regular basis? I assumed it was about 4:30. I lay there (laid there? Layed there? Someone please weigh in and tell me what is right!) and read for about an hour while everyone else slept on. I figured I should probably get up and start thinking about dinner. Just as I was thinking that, Dave started to stir and I asked him what time it was. He informed me that it was 2 pm — which means that I was asleep for approximately 5 minutes.

This was starting to feel like the world’s longest, eternal day. 2pm? Seriously?

Back to lounging. No complaints from me. Morgan brought her hippy hammock and Charlie enjoyed it immensely.

Charlie channeling the Spider Scene from The Hobbit. (That is not his beer.)

We prepped the rib eyes and potatoes and snapped some broad beans from the garden. Morgan made a caprese and Dave left to make his third trip to find cell service. He was trying to book a fly-fishing trip which was proving pretty difficult. Camping in July is a whole different operation than camping in August when things are quieter. He said he’d be back in “15 minutes tops.”

An hour later we were still waiting for him. Rain clouds were again building to the west.

A Dilemma.

Charlie and Jennie taking decisive action

I sprang into action, raked the coals into a pile, put the grate on and slapped the steaks and beans on.

5 minutes later, Dave (now the steak boss) showed up. All full of reproach and recrimination.

It’s true that he was right. And that we did sort of end of up with steamed steaks instead of steaks with a nice sear. But we did finish literally seconds before it started raining again. So can we please call this one a draw?

It stopped raining and we rallied for roasted marshmallows and lame, lame Keebler fudge grahams. I thought that I could kill two birds with one stone by buying the chocolate and the graham in one package. Charlie ate the first one and said:

“Eh. It’s ok. Kind of sawdusty.”

“Sawdusty? You think if they taste like sawdust that’s ‘OK’”?

Morgan said, “They are quite small.” And, “It’s all about the chocolate for me, so…”

…so I added Graham Crackers and Hershey’s Chocolate to the list.

We had only just settled in when we spotted the first one flying vertically through the air — these gigantic black beetles with the really long antennae.* Only: we’d never seen them fly before. Within minutes there were so many flying up above us and around us that we couldn’t count them. One got stuck in Morgan’s hair.

These babies fly sort of vertical and seem to want to get tangled in hair or get trapped between skin and clothing. Idk — These babies fly sort of vertical and seem to want to get tangled in hair or get trapped between skin and clothing. Ick

It was like something out of a horror movie. It was a good excuse to go to bed.

So we did.

*Later identified as Pine Sawyer Beetle

Road Warriors Six!

July 23, 2015

It's like old times in the back seat. — It’s like old times in the back seat. Only this time, Charlie has a gaming controller in his hand. God help us.

It is with bittersweet feelings that I am taking the step of abandoning my beloved hand-written journal for this: the cold world of electronic documentation. A tear rolls down my face as I type directly into my computer.

I know this is pure sacrilege. Don't judge me. — I know this is pure sacrilege. Don’t judge me.

I cannot stress enough how much I love looking at, and touching, and feeling my journals. I used to feel the same way about my calendar. But, sadly, I did move to an online calendar several years ago in order to save my sanity with Dave and two busy kids. We all share the online calendar and – in theory – it works great. There is apparently a very long learning curve though, because both Dave and Charlie still seem to have problems with it. As in: they don’t add events to the calendar, they never look at it, and continually ask me whether they are available to do A, B or C –and then can’t seem to figure out why things break down.

But I miss looking back on my paper calendars. I loved to page through them, reliving how busy I was, or reading little notes I jotted down. I even still have my weekly planners from college — they are like mini journals …basically reminding me what a total screw up I was.

Anyway. This is just a really sad process for me. This is progress, people. And we must adapt.

So I am abandoning the handwriting. I figure, since I plan to post it online, I’m really just doubling my work. Looking at it that way, my sadness is actually your fault.

Plus: handwriting is so damn slow. I usually only write when we are in the car and I just hate giving up my precious passenger-riding time to anything other than total self-absorption.

I know what my brother is thinking right now: what is more self-absorbing than a Road Warriors journal?

Touché Bennett.

Anyway, here I sit on my macbook air in the Woodbine Campground, drinking my first vodka tonic after pulling an all-nighter drive with Dave. I. Love. Camping!!

HERE WE GO!

We are in Montana this year. Dave said, “We’ve never really camped around the Billings/Bozeman/Red Cloud area.” As long as we get up into some elevation, I don’t really care where we go. I told him, “Just make sure I can wear sweatpants and a fleece at night and I’m good.”

But as we neared our destination, he’s like “We stayed there, remember that? …Oh, we’ve been there; we didn’t like it. …No, that was the campground that had all the burn-down; I don’t want to go there.”

???

But I am getting ahead of myself.

The real story starts about 3 weeks ago. When I decided to refurbish our old mountain bikes from – and this took me quite a while to determine – 1986. Though, I actually think we bought them in 1988. We got them during the tent sale at the old Hoigaard’s Roseville store. A Marin Palisades and a Marin Muirwoods. We’ve had them ever since – haven’t rode them or done a thing to them since the kids were super little.

I cleaned them up. Accidently found myself in a situation requiring re-packing the wheel bearings (hello internet). Ordered new wheels and viola!

Which got us talking about bringing four bikes on our camping trip. And how would we do that.

Hundreds of hours of online research later, we settled on a dual hitch receiver because the pros far outweighed the cons:

The Pros of a Dual Hitch Receiver for using a bike rack with a pop-up camper:

It’s cheap
Bikes can be easily transported to trailhead from campsite (vs if bikes were mounted on camper)
Bikes will not be sheared off by driving underneath a fast food awning (vs if bikes were mounted on car roof.)

The Cons of a Dual Hitch Receiver for using a bike rack with a pop-up camper*:

Bikes wiggled a bit much.

Solution: use a hitch tightener or anti-rattle hitch pin.

Several hundred hours of online research and several Amazon Prime and eTrailer returns later, I found a combo that worked. We tested the borrowed bike rack (that would hold all four bikes) and it fit! We were good to go.

We planned to leave at 5pm on Sunday and spent the normal frantic 10 hours of prepping and packing to leave. At about 4:30pm Dave started hitching up the camper and loading the bikes while I shut everything up in the house.

Two hours later we left.

Without the bikes.

It was very sad. It was very frustrating.

Basically, what we forgot when we tested it and determined that it would work was that, as opposed to driving in a perfectly straight line for 1500 miles, we needed to occasionally turn the car. Which pinched the bikes against the camper. We probably could have hauled ass to WalMart and found a hitch extender to push the camper back, but we weren’t sure we’d find one. Or that it would work. We cut bait and left the bikes behind.

This is what it should have looked like. I neglected to take a picture during the tense and stressful time. I guess I’m out of practice of documenting our family at its worst — always the best material for Road Warriors posts…

The victory was in the fact that we never yelled at each other. Or the kids. I didn’t cry. This is real camping progress, people.

So we left at 6:30. And arrived in Custer National Forest about 9am.

And the only thing that died was the poor bunny I mowed down as my eyes crossed at about 4am near Miles City.

I hate Miles City. Did I ever tell you that story?

*Updated Cons List:

Bikes wiggled a lot
It doesn’t work

Back to the drawing board…. Someday.

Road Warriors 5. Conclusion!

June 30, 2014

August 19th 2013

So, yeah. Apparently my journal ended yesterday.

What can I say. I’m getting old. I don’t give a rat’s ass anymore. But still. It’s always just a little shocking for me to realize just how little I actually remember. I always think, “Oh, I’ll remember that.” But aside from some snippets, I remember very little. Maybe it’s a good thing. I used to argue endlessly, with anyone, about anything, because I KNEW I was right. 100% locked. I was right. They were wrong. How long do you want to argue? I can argue longer.

(And no, Mom, you don’t need to leave a comment and tell the whole world how accurate that statement is. Let’s just keep them guessing: maybe she’s exaggerating again?)

Nope. Not exaggerating. Ask Dave, Morgan, Charlie, My mom, dad, brother, former teachers, coaches, friends, ex-boyfriends. The only people who might not have an opinion would be strangers.

So anyway, this new insight into my lack of memory is actually serving me quite well. I never knew relationships and conversations could be so smooth. Why? Because I realize I might actually be wrong. So this is how the other half lives… interesting.

I am digressing because my journal is empty. I have no fun stories written down to share. So I’m using my pictures to clear the cobwebs. This is how I remember it. But should any witnesses want to flesh out the details. I won’t argue. 🙂

To conclude our trip, we drove to the “MUST SEE” falls near Thunder Bay: Kakabeka Falls. It was right near our campground, so we went early and did a quick in-and-out.

They were big, alright.

But let’s just say not quite what I expected.

Well, Dave not smiling and looking 7 day-beard-scary; that I expected. It was just the Mississippi brown color I hadn’t bargained for.

We crossed the border into the US and immediately the car fell into silence as the phones turned on and began searching for signals. And then the repeating soundtrack of Charlie: “AT&T sucks. Dad? Do you have any bars? Mom, does Dad have any bars? Do you have any bars? This sucks.”

And so on and so forth for about 75 miles.

We stopped to eat/shop in Grand Marais. Now THAT town understands traveling tourists, ay?

After hot weather, it was suddenly windy and cold!

That's Jan Koo underneath the hair and blanket — That’s Jan Koo underneath the hair and blanket

Next stop Duluth.

Koo’s got a hotel and Menke’s drove through Duluth to Jay Cooke State Park to secure a campsite. It was pretty quiet and we got a nice spot all to ourselves. We made our last batch of delicious pico quac — fresh tomatoes, avocado, cilantro and devoured it. We all took showers, too… ahhhhhhh.

On our way back to Duluth, we stopped to see the ravages from the flash flood last year, which took the old bridge out. Pretty amazing to think that lazy little brook could have been so violent.

We went back to Duluth and met up with Jan and Wes for a drink on an outside deck while the kids walked around. It’s always fun to re-enter civilization, but was especially so this year after being in Canada for so long. We just didn’t expect our trip around Superior to be so… desolate and remote feeling. We thought we’d be in the midst of cafes and restaurants the whole time. So not the case.

We ate at an amazing swank restaurant, the name of which I cannot remember and do not feel like trying to figure out. I do know it was attached to something like a sausage/dried meat place. Very gourmet. Kids were in HEAVEN.

And so was I

Every meal was a winner. But no one could be quite so happy as this one.

It was a great night and a great end to the trip.

We headed back to our little camper with plans to leave in the morning.

We got up early and stopped at Toby’s for a throw-back breakfast. Really average. How did that place get to be so famous? It had to be based entirely on the cinnamon rolls.

when it's over, it's over. — when it’s over, it’s over.

So that’s a wrap, everyone. We hope to cobble something together for this August, but with Charlie working and in soccer, Morgan living in Madison and also working, it’s going to be tough.

It could be the end of an era.

Is that a tear I see rolling down your cheek?

Road Warriors 5, day 6

June 13, 2014

Don't touch my pastie — Don’t touch my pastie

August 18th, 2013

[sadly, I have no photos from this day, so I’m just throwing some random ones in from the day before.]

Slept like a rock!

Got up and sat on the beach again, drinking coffee. The kids came out and we talked and talked. It was beautiful.

Jan made the most delicious blueberry pancakes. Yum. And also spicy potatoes with sausage. Yum Yum.

We packed up and hit the road at 11 am, stopping for a short hike to see the Agawa pictoglyphs, which involved a dicier-than-anyone-expected traverse across slick rock holding on to chains drilled in to the rock walls while cold waves crashed at our feet. This would not be legal in the U.S.

Stopped for lunch in White River Park — a long drive in to a fairly ugly campground. We ate the last of our RIDICULOUSLY DELICIOUS grilled/smoked spare ribs that I made in lieu of fried chicken to eat in the car, grab from the cooler, etc. The ribs were a huge hit — they became a bit like the rice krispy bars (long gone, may they rest in peace). We thought by going in to the park we’d find a pretty picnic area, but instead we found a gross and uninspiring playground and boat launch where we ate things from the cooler that no one was real interested in (except aforementioned ribs). Ick.

It’s ironic our lunch spot was so dismal, because the scenery from the car over the past two hours has been jaw dropping. Just so, so beautiful. Easily the best of the trip.

Also jaw dropping is Canada’s lack of charm regarding anything — and I mean anything — man made. The towns. The houses. And most notably, the hotels and motels. They are all cold-war era Russia in appearance. It is really, really weird. Are there NO entrepreneurs in Canada? No ambitious restauranteurs who dream of living up north and catering to travelers? It’s twilight-zone material. Like a nuclear bomb killed everyone in 1961 and we are the first people passing through since.

OK, OK, I’ll stop. But really. Anyone got any insight into this? The beauty of this area in fall must be amazing…

We arrived in Thunder Bay at 7:30 pm. Did I mention the cities are ugly? Oh my gosh…

–But I was looking very forward to arriving in Thunder Bay, regardless of it’s lack of curb appeal, for one reason and one reason alone: WALMART AND THE MOONCHAIR. The thought of writing the whole saga of the quest for this chair is a bit overwhelming, but I shall try:

Background: I bought two $15 Moon Chairs on impulse several years ago while at the WalMart in Buffalo. They became the most coveted chairs of all time and the cousins often bickered over them — not to mention me, trying to muscle the kids out so that I could curl up in their cozy goodness.

Our beloved moon chairs, in better days... — Our beloved moon chairs, in better days…

Well, the chairs were not really made for hard-core camping and they finally broke last season. First, I tried relentlessly to fix them. And failed. So, for the past 10 months, I have been obsessivelysearching for them online. One day, I hit the jackpot: apparently Walmart in CANADA continued to carry them. I called the Walmart in Thunder Bay, and they had ONE LEFT. The sales associate said they were not allowed to hold them — nor could I purchase and pick up later — but that I could just look it up online and see if the chair had been sold. This, I was not happy about, but even after long debate the sales associate remained firm.

All throughout this road trip, I have been looking it up whenever Dave’s phone had service. As we got closer, and the Moon Chair continued to be available, I got more and more excited. What a coup this would be!! Dave finally dropped me off and I all but RAN to the sporting goods dept. to pick up my chair.

But of course, it was not there.

Ever wander around a Walmart looking for help? Suffice it to say, I was in Walmart far longer than the “I’ll be right back,” that I lobbed at Dave as I hopped out of the car five minutes earlier. Dave was SO mad at me. —But at least *I* couldn’t have fallen over a waterfall, ay (as they say in Canada)? Maybe he was picturing the plot from “The Vanishing” when Sandra Bullock disappeared without a trace from a gas station while vacationing with Kiefer Sutherland….

ANYWAY.

No one could find the chair. I was obsessed, I was MORE obsessed than Kiefer Sutherland in The Vanishing. Workers confirmed the chair to be in the store. But no one could tell me where. What would YOU do? I looked for it. Eventually, I gave up. I bought some chicken thighs and left. My plan was to come back the next day when the “A” squad was back at work and presumably the woman I talked to on the phone.

After eventually finding Dave, who had disappeared deep in the bowels of Walmart to save me from Jeff Bridges, we left to find our campsite. We drove 20 minutes to the campground to set up. The plan was to eat out in Thunder Bay, but let me tell you: this was not a single inviting prospect. –Even coming from 8 people who hadn’t eaten out in over a week.

We/I decided to pull green curry together for tonight (ha! I KNEW we would end up using it!) and eat out tomorrow — perhaps in Duluth, part of the good old U.S.A). Wes had begun dropping hints that they wanted to bail on our last night of camping in favor of staying at a hotel in Duluth, so dinner there just might work out.

We had a fabbie meal, had copious amounts of marshmallows (Jan & Lydie) and listened to our very loud and drunk neighbors through the woods. They partied nearly all night. Losers.

Oh well, it just makes leaving that much sweeter.

Road Warriors 5, Day 5: The Fight

May 24, 2014

August 17, 2013

We got up and made leftover potatoes and some eggs for breakfast. Then we went to the beach and hung out for a while. Took a walk to the rocks.

[And here is where, as I sit and write this, I realize my trip journaling skillz — ever been to Zorbaz? never mind — are leaving just a bit to be desired, as I have not ranted and raved about this actual campground anywhere. So I shall need to depart from my lame spiral notebook for the first time, though surely not the last]

This campground is like… paradise. True, the sites themselves are not super private, nor are they anything to write home about. But it’s far from the ghetto, despite Jan and Wes’s continued complaints (we got the better of the two sites) But right across the road — and right out your campsite if you are lucky enough to score a site on the west side of the campground road — is this BEACH. With this VIEW. That beckons to you to sit. And do nothing.

Which is exactly what we did. All morning. And last night. Picture roll…

[back to journal]

After several hours on the beach, just hanging out, Dave planned a hike for us. The girls had no interest whatsoever. They had their bikinis on, snacks out and a grand plan to cook in the sun. We talked Charlie into coming with us. We set off at about 1:30 for Orphan Lake and Katherine Cove, taking two cars so that we could do the Coastal hike and not have to do a loop or an out-and-back hike.

It was a pretty trail. Kind of rugged, not too many people. Early on, we got in to a huge area of blueberries and picked enough for pancakes in the morning. We literally had to drag Wes away. He can be a wee bit compulsive. I mean seriously. This behavior swings sharply in my favor in May and June during Morel Mushroom season (my birthday present when I’m lucky), but I have not ever had to stand and wait while he picked just “few more” morels. Actually that would be pretty cool. But we had enough blueberries, already. COME. ON WES!

The trail spit us out on a rocky beach — think large, smooth, round Lake Superior stones, a foot deep. Your feet literally sink in to the rocks. We apparently had to walk 1 km along it to reach the next part of the trail, where we would scramble up the cliffs and climb a tall peak and continue on the trail along the lake. It was harder than you can imagine. Way, way more difficult than walking in sand. Ugh. One kilometer felt like three miles.

At the end, Dave ran into and talked briefly with, a guy who said that the Coastal Trail to Katherine Cove was “really far” and would take a “really long time.”

So, *bam* we are no longer hiking the planned route. Just like that.

Now, why Dave — who was so positive and literally so sure and confident prior to this conversation that our planned route would be a very doable 8 km that could be completed in about 3 hours — would so quickly and suddenly take this guy’s word for it and suggest we turn around, is anyone’s guess. My theory is that his confidence was false confidence. This is known in other families as lying. But let’s be generous and call it false bravado. The outcome is the same: he should not be believed. Pretty much ever.

As a side note, Jan, who was with Dave during the conversation, describes this guy who was with his older son as “scary.” She said that if she ran in to them while hiking with a girlfriend she would “fear for her safety.” [I don’t know why this has relevance, but it’s in the journal, so…]

**Shoot. The streak is over. Dave just asked me to drive. I knew I’d jinx myself. Maybe he had a vision that I was getting to the part of the hike where he was a complete jerk and I got mad. That would make him clairvoyant and if that were true, life would be a lot more interesting. Either way, it’s time for me to drive,**

OK. I’m back. Blah. That was no fun. I drove for about four hours and listened to an audiobook called “We are all Completely Beside Ourselves.” I listened to Morgan sing with her headphones on. *sigh* I listened to Charlie complain about her singing. There were lots of stinking farts. ANYWAY… back to yesterday.

So we ended up hiking just another mile or so, along the Coastal Trail to the top of the peak I described earlier called Bald Eagle Peak. Then we turned around and went back the way we came. I was very unhappy about having to walk on that rocky beach again. So, instead I decided to run it. And as crazy as that sounds, it was way, WAY easier than walking. The down side was that I had to wait a really long time for the walkers to catch up. I chatted with some random people milling around on the beach to pass the time.

It was hot and Dave took the plunge again. What the HECK?

We continued back to the car around the other side of Orphan Lake, passing some pretty falls, which we explored by walking down a steep side trail. It was a crashing and majestic waterfall for August. Dave, Charlie and I poked around. Charlie and I reconvened on the trail and waited for Dave.

And waited.

We walked up the trail a bit.

We yelled.

We walked all the way back down to the falls.

And yelled.

And whistled and whistled and whistled. (I can whistle VERY loud. I was very nearly deaf from my own whistling.)

I’m not gonna lie. I was trying not to panic — remember, Charlie was with me and while he acts all cool and whatnot, his nickname is still StormBoy. And CaveBoy. And MothBoy. That won’t make any sense to you, but rest assured, he is susceptible to panic, and I didn’t need that on my conscience.

Seriously, what the heck. Did he go over the falls? That’s the only explanation. Where else would he be? He wouldn’t have left without us. No way. We’d been calling and waiting for at least 15 minutes. And just when I was at my wits end, we heard what might have been a person yelling. We decided to continue and hope and pray it was Dave.

About a quarter mile later we passed a bag of chips impaled on a stick. Ostensibly this was a sign that Dave was alive.

And now the question that begs answering: Was I happy about that.

He not only was alive, but he left us a bag of chips from the backpack he was carrying. Was he trying to be funny? As Charlie bent down to retrieve the chips, I quickly stomped on them, crushing them beneath my foot, as my blood began to boil — the likes of which I have not experienced since the Black Rage. [nor since]. Charlie slipped in to his peace-making mode and tried to talk me off the cliff. He’d witnessed these fights during Road Warriors of year’s past. He knew what life would be like for the next day or so if I was really as mad as I appeared to be, now that we knew Dave was alive and well…

It did not help in the least that we did not catch up with him for another ten minutes and bag of soft dried mangoes impaled on a stick later.

[Oh how I wish I would have taken pictures of those signs of Dave’s beating heart. I do admit as I write this, that it was sort of funny.]

I will not dwell on this more than necessary, but in short, he saw absolutely nothing wrong with disappearing by a cliff next to a waterfall, continuing to hike without telling anyone by blazing a trail on the other side of the river [I, to this day, do not know how he got back across and I still refuse to ask him] all while his wife and son searched in vain. — “What?” and “Are you mad??!” and “Why didn’t you just keep hiking?” and “Did you seriously think I went over the water fall?” These were the questions he asked me. The idea that you would just leave your family behind astounds me. [It STILL astounds me.] If we learned anything at all during our teen years, it’s that you never leave your wing man. Never. Dave is no better than Maverick was. And now Goose is dead.

Anyway.

I spent the remainder of the hike in a haze of anger so profound it made me literally breathless. Then, somehow, by the grace of God, I was able to simply let it go and called a truce in the car. If that isn’t proof of the existence of God, then I don’t know what is. [Right Dad? Can you — or anyone who knows me –imagine me just letting this go? Well I did. And it was truly miraculous.].

To the best of my knowledge, he never did apologize. He did, however, thank me for calling the truce. So I guess that is something.

[Seriously though people, it’s been almost 10 months and I haven’t been that mad again. What is with stupid men and their cluelessness?? OK I’m done.]

We hiked a total of three and a half hours. It was a good hike. The Koo’s made foil dinners while Jen and Dave had beers on the beach and watched the sun set. Astoundingly beautiful. The kid’s (most of them) helped prep the veggies and we played another hysterical round of Celebrity.

I love these road trips.

Road Warriors 5, Day 4

May 12, 2014

August 16, 2013

I took breakfast, which was a success — the egg bake turned out great, which defied all odds. First, I realized that Dave’s mom’s recipe called for flour, which I did not bring. In my defense: never in all my cooking years have I made an egg bake that uses flour. I also apparently needed baking soda. Nope. So I, master of all substitutions, used some of Jan’s pancake mix. Which worked awesomely. Cooked it in the cast iron pot over the fire. Now THAT’S camping, people. We also had fried potatoes and bacon.

We packed up around noon after a short hike around the campground (which I had failed to investigate at all, but which was quite pretty. Wes found an intimidating mushroom, which I am fairly certain graced the cover of my dad’s mushroom book that I used to look at when I was a kid. And if I am right, is quite poisonous. Dad? Can you elucidate?

Always eat unidentified mushrooms. Survival of the fittest, and all.

We stopped for Michigan’s famous pasties at Muldans as we headed out of town. We “sampled” the chicken and ground beef offerings. The ground beef was the unanimous favorite even though the chicken sounded way better on paper. Go figure.

Muldon's pasties are approximately the size of my head, fwiw. — Muldon’s pasties are approximately the size of my head, fwiw.

That is not Dave Menke, you crazy internet stalkers.

Another stop for gas and bread (I no longer try to make our bread stretch 10 days, much to the relief of everyone, including me) and we were off, seeking our next stop at Lake Superior Provincial Park.

…And also seeking cell service. AT & T? Not so good when compared to Verizon on this lonely and long stretch of road. We go hours with nothing but blips, while Dave talks away merrily, solving the midwest’s real estate problems… [Those tables will turn eventually in our favor, but I am getting ahead of the story. ] Sit back and I will spin a yarn of family togetherness, love and peace.

Kidding. It’s always hard to get going on this damn journal again.

Dave has driven this whole trip, just about. It is AMAZING!! I love it! I grew up taking long family road trips and literally my dad drove fricken 26 hours straight. Oh, yeah, yeah. My mom will probably chime in here and try to say she drove too, but if she did, I do not remember it. And if so, it was an hour here, an hour there. Imagine my disillusionment with my new husband 24 years ago when he could make it barely three hours before having to turn the wheel over to his blushing bride, lest he kill us both by falling asleep at the wheel.

I mostly hate driving. I basically want to sit and read and read and read. –For when else do I ever have the ability to do that without guilt?

NEVER. NEVER. never never never never NEVER!

So anyway. I love this. I love it i love it i love it i love it!

We crossed into Canada in Sault St. Marie. Wow. What an ugly city — at least what we saw of it.

Bridge to the border crossing in Sault St. Marie

All the phones got turned to airplane mode with many tears of regret and sadness. Dave, of course, did not intend to either buy an international plan OR turn his phone off. [This is just some weird attribute of Dave that I am done trying to change. Inevitably it bites him in the butt and I just try to be there to pick up the pieces.]

–Like the time we were on the train going from Barcelona to Madrid and he was happily pecking away on his iPad. I assumed he was on the free wireless when I received a text (on the free wireless) saying someone on my plan had consumed copious amounts of international data (copious=more than $200). WTH? I had forgotten that his iPad was on MY plan. His phone, being Verizon, is not on my plan. So I don’t really care how much international overages he wracks up.

Ironically, Dave’s service was cut off shortly after crossing the border and took days to straighten out. Ahhhh. Peace and quiet in the car!

Dave? Dave? YES… It’s US: your FAMILY. Welcome to CANADA. We are on VACATION. You don’t remember getting here? Well RELAX. Have a DRINK. ENJOY yourself.

(and he did.)

Immediately, upon leaving the city of Sault St. Marie, the scenery became unbelievably majestic. It felt like we were in the mountains — the Suburban changing gears as we climbed steep inclines surrounded by jagged rock. Crazy!

Beautiful scenery on drive to Lake Superior Provincial Park

I don’t think I’ve mentioned how blue-green the water is [though you probably have seen the pictures from kayaking]. It is so clear! It feels like the ocean. Honestly, it’s really hard to believe we are just north of Minnesota.

It was a spectacularly beautiful drive to our destination of Agawa Bay Campground, where we had reservations. We pulled in — I can’t remember exactly. 3:00? 4:00? No, I remember now. It was after 5, because before we could start unpacking, Jan and Wes came over very sour-faced and sad “ISH! This place is like the Ghetto! We can’t stay here!” [and yes. i really do need all those exclamation marks.] And so, a contingent trooped back up to the check-in building to try to get more private sites and determine our options. I remember it was after 5 because I was on for dinner and I remember thinking if we moved, we wouldn’t be eating until well after dark. [and yes. i really AM writing this entry days later and hence the fuzzy memory. this journal-writing blows.]

Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because we ended up staying put. There really weren’t any other options unless we wanted sites that backed right up to the highway, which was very noisy and busy.

And even then we didn’t eat until after dark!

We had rib eye steaks cooked over the campfire with big bakers (potatoes), and eggplant and zucchini from the garden. soooo good! And worth the wait.

The ghetto campground? Well, you will just have to wait until day five!